• michael-kan

    Treasure-laden Ming Shipwreck May Have Smuggled Arms

    Archaeologists are uncovering troves of cultural artifacts from an ancient Chinese vessel still sitting at the bottom of the sea. The sunken merchant vessel is located off the coast of China, near the city of Shantou. Called Nanao One, the ship is dated to be from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Archaeologists have been carrying out a salvage operation since September, but it wasn’t until this Monday that they were able to enter the cabin of the ship, and extract the relics inside. Here are some of the first pictures of the artefacts discovered. In total, more than 1,000 artifacts have…

  • images

    Sandro Vannini’s Photography – King Tut’s Canopic Shrine

    Several alabaster artefacts were discovered inside the Tomb of King Tutankhamun (KV62) by Howard Carter when he began excavating the tomb in 1922. The Canopic Shrine was one of the intruiging discoveries for how packed together it was, with a box containing several artefacts in a manner comparable to a Russian doll! The Canopic Shrine is a large gilded wooden box flanked by a Canopy and supported on a sledge. Inside the shrine was the Canopic Chest, which has four hollowed spaces inside which are sealed by Human-Headed Stoppers. Inside the hollows were four small Canopic Coffinettes. ‘Canopic Shrine’ Slideshow…

  • rebecca-t

    My Empire: Help me Build the Roman Pyramids in Fun New Facebook Game

    It seems like Im never going to get to build the Pyramids in my ancient Roman settlement never mind the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Ive spent all my money on lemon trees and fountains and now my people are deliriously happy, but not generating the bucks or resources I need to expand my empire. Its a situation that a lot of social gamers might find themselves in today, as social gaming gurus Playfish launch their latest game on Facebook My Empire. My Empire is a city building sim, where the player gets to build a Roman town, unlocking new building…

  • sean-williams

    Clegg and Cameron: Britain’s Spartan Kingship?

    Having two leaders might be uncharted territory for Britain, but it’s an arrangement that worked well over 2,500 years ago when Sparta was ruled by two kings. The fearless Greek city-state found that having two leaders was the best way to plunder its neighbours and promote harmony amongst its citizens. This Monday ‘Dave and Nick’, as the PM and his deputy are to be known, gave a press conference backing their ambitions for the next five years. This government would be a radical, reforming government where it needs to be and a source of reassurance and stability at a time…

  • Ann

    MEanderthaler iPhone App – Morphing technology brings out the Caveman in you

    We all know we have a bit of Neanderthal in us, but how would you look if you were to up that amount?A new application for iPhone and Android allows you to create a pretty prehistoric, personalised mug shot, by morphing your face into that of an early human. Using ‘MEanderthal’, within seconds (watch the video here), you get to see what you would have looked like, if you lived thousands of years ago and ended up on the wrong ‘branch’ of evolution. The app, released by the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, is a mobile edition of the…

  • sean-williams

    Michael Katsidis: Boxing’s Spartan Warrior

    This Saturday Britain’s next great boxing hope ( all tabloids) Kevin Mitchell faces off against Aussie Michael Katsidis for the WBO Interim Lightweight title at West Ham’s Upton Park. Anyone who’s seen Katsidis, 29, in action will know 25-year-old Mitchell is walking into an epic battle. And though he’s expected to defeat his antipodean opponent, Mitchell’s rise to stardom could well be dealt a Greek tragedy. One of around 350,000 Australians with Greek heritage, Katsidis’ father lives in a hamlet said to be the birthplace of Trojan hero Achilles, the warrior whose body was invincible bar his infamous heel. Katsidis…

  • Ann

    Neanderthal DNA Sequenced – How Similar are they to Modern Humans?

    Some 400,000 years ago, Neanderthals diverged from the primate line that led to present-day humans. The Homo neanderthalis died out 30,000 years ago, while we managed to evolve into the handsomely built, technically skilled, and somewhat reasonable animal we are today. Research into Neanderthal DNA now shows that our extinct relatives did leave their mark in the genomes of some modern humans, leading researchers to believe that our species ‘paired up’ with our less evolutionary successful cousins when we were both living in the Middle East, about 100,000 to 50,000 years ago and before we left to populate Europe and…

  • owenjarus

    New Egyptian Gallery in Kansas Museum Features “Virtual Reincarnation Machines”

    The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City has just opened a new Egyptian gallery that features the coffin, cartonnage and shabtis of an Egyptian noblewoman who died around 2,300 years ago. Her name was Meretites which means beloved by her father. Her funerary artefacts date to some point between 380-250 BC. This date means that she may well have been contemporaneous with Alexander the Great and witness to a remarkable period of Egyptian history. Alexander the Great advanced into Egypt in 332 BC, taking over power from the Persians. He would go on to conquer an empire that stretched…

  • sean-williams

    Barkay: Stop ‘Barbaric’ Temple Mount Digs

    A top Israeli archaeologist claims ‘barbaric’ Muslim digs are stripping Jerusalem’sTemple Mount of its Jewish heritage. Dr Gabriel Barkay, of BarIlan University, has likened Israel and the West’s denial of the site’s Jewish history to that of the Holocaust, and has warned that thousands of years of history could be lost if authorities do not step in soon to prevent more damage at the hands of the controlling Islamic Wafq council, who he says have been dumping vital archaeological material miles away as waste. “(It is) the most important archaeological site in Israel, and despite all this, Israel has abandoned…

  • malcolmj

    Greek Financial Crisis Echoes Ancient Era of King Cassander

    Financial austerity measures were a grave problem in ancient Greece too it seems quite literally. In the same week that the European Union and the International Monetary Fund have been asked by Greece to unblock the first tranche of a 110-billion (93 billion) bail-out loan package in exchange for severe spending cuts, archaeologists have revealed how 2,300 years ago people in the northern Greek region of Macedonia were forced to scale back on funeral offerings, probably on orders from the king. The AFP reports that senior archaeologist for the Greek Archaeological Service Manthos Besios told Athens daily newspaper Ta Nea…