• sean-williams

    Calling Ancient World Museums – Share your Visitor Figures and Collections Data!

    Are you a museum director, curator, employee, scholar, fan or friend of someone in the know? We want to hear from you! We’re working on an ambitious new project at Heritage Key to list the world’s top 100 ancient world museums by visitor and collection numbers. In the future we’ll have interactive maps, lists of the greatest artefacts in each museum and much more, as the list becomes the world’s most comprehensive chart of the planet’s biggest ancient world institutions. Why should I nominate my museum? Just look at others: the Art Newspaper’s art museums list and the Times’ 100…

  • Ann

    Bring Them Back Campaign Takes Big Ben Clock Hostage in Exchange for Elgin Marbles

    I you go sightseeing in London after a night out, stare up at Big Ben to find its clock missing, you might conclude you’ve overdone it on the Metaxa. But no: according to the new campaign video from bringthemback.org, Britain’s best-known clock was taken by Greek multi-millionaire Aristotle Elginiadis. In a month’s time the video – a call for the return of the Elgin Marbles (what else) –  has amassed nearly half a million YouTube views, with little sign of its popularity waning. The campaign video kicks off with a breaking news report: Big Ben’s clock has been stolen! Avid…

  • Ann

    Gold Umayyad Coin with Kufic Inscriptions Discovered in Egypt

    Egypt announced today that a gold Umayyad coin was unearthed last Thursday during an excavation at the Monastery of St. John the Little, in the desert west of the Nile Delta. In a statement Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the SCA, said both sides of the well-preservedcoinare decorated with Kufic inscriptions, the oldest calligraphic form of the Arabic script. One side of the coin bears the name of Allah. The second side is inscribed: in the name of God the Merciful. The coin’s edge is decorated with the year it was minted. It dates to the year 103 of…

  • Ann

    Four Ancient Egyptian Cemeteries Discovered at El-Lahoun in the Fayoum

    Archaeologists last week discovered 45 ancient Egyptian tombs at the site of El-Lahoun, in the Fayum. In a statement issued by the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni claims that a sarcophagus holding a mummy has been found in in each of the tombs, located about 70 miles from Cairo. One of the tombs unearthed during the dig is from the 18th dynasty (1550-1295 BC), and contains at least 12 wooden sarcophagi stacked on top of each other. Each of these sarcophagi is thought to hold a mummy covered in cartonnage. The mummies are decorated with religious…

  • owenjarus

    ROM Lecture Series to Accompany Terracotta Warriors Exhibition

    On June 26the Terracotta Warriors will be coming to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada. Curated by the museums own Dr. Chen Shen,the showincludes 16 human terracotta figures, a terracotta horse and, yes, a terracotta dog (albeit from the Han period). In total there are about 250 artefacts -making it the largest warriors show ever to come to North America. Accompanyingtheexhibitionwill be a lecture series, the details of which the museum has just announced. Therewill be14 lectures in total, allof whichstart at7pm in the Eaton theatre, inside the museum itself. The price for one lecture is $28, going down…

  • jon-himoff

    Lingering Whispers: Gothic Modern Art Exhibit in London’s St Pancras Church Crypt

    The St Pancras Church in the center of London sends us signals about the ancient Greeks with the recreation of the Erechtheum, or ‘Porch of the Maidens’, from the Acropolis in Athens. I always get a more gothic feel from the four powerful female figures at the front of the church. Maybe it’s the bright red doors or the streaks of caked-on grime that seem more Victorian than classical? Today the crypt below the Caryatids at the rear of the building is the venue for 40 international artists in the group show called Lingering Whispers, which runs until 06 June…

  • Ann

    Digitally Enhanced Images of New Pyramid Discovery Reveal Ancient Smurf

    We all know that a surely proud couple from a village populated by irreducible Gauls still resisting the Roman invaders in 50BC gave birth to Asterix. But where do the Smurfs smurf from? Are they all Peyo’s imagination, or did a tribe of small, little blue men ever exist? One is inclined to think that those cute creatures, dated to the early Spiroe Age, are just a silly invention of a genius comic book writer. Or are they? Their primitive grammar seems to suggest a more ancient origin, and new evidence recently surfaced that Smurfs started smurfing back in ancient…

  • sean-williams

    Who Has Conquered the Middle East throughout History? Mapsofwar’s Interactive Map

    My generation has grown up almost exclusively exposed to war in the Middle East. Two wars in Iraq, one in Afghanistan and countless battles between neighbouring nations in the region. The Middle East has been a battleground since time began – and now you can see exactly who has conquered it through the ages with mapsofwar.com‘s great-looking 90 second walkthrough. The map begins in 3,000 BC with the invention of the Egyptian Empire – though there’s no mention of the Sumerian states which comprised the Cradle of Civilization – and shows the spread of the Hittites, Israelis, Assyrians and Babylonians…

  • malcolmj

    Visit Stonehenge: Our Pick of the Guided Tours

    Getting up close and personal with the inner circle of Stonehenge is no mean feat. Despite ongoing campaigns by Druids to open up the henge completely, the iconic Wiltshire monument is fenced off most of the year, and while access during the spring equinox and the summer and winter solstices might be much more free and easy, its so busy its difficult to get properly acquainted with the great and mysterious standing stones in any meaningful way. But fear not there are a raft of Stonehenge tours to choose from, each of them offering something a little different. Whether youre…

  • malcolmj

    Win Points With Our New Virtual Worlds Quiz

    Consider yourself an authority on the many ongoing projects to survey and virtually-render famous monuments and heritage sites around the world? In that case, you should score high on the new Virtual Worlds Quiz which weve just launched on Heritage Key ten questions, each pertaining to cutting-edge endeavours to research and/or digitally recreate everything from Egyptian burial chambers to ancient Mayan cities. Compete now and, as well as bragging rights, you could win a wad of 10 site points. Fear not if you dont know your virtual Qumran from your 3D Forbidden City well give you a sporting chance by…