Current news on sites and objects | drhawass.com - Zahi Hawass

Current news on sites and objects drhawass.com - Zahi Hawass Dr. Hawass reports on a dig near Saqqara, where Old Kingdom remains may have been damaged by unauthorized access to the site (looters). He also reports, however, on the recovery of a few more pieces stolen from the Cairo Museum: a bazaar merchant was offered some pieces, and told the police.

ekathimerini.com | Greek ruins of Cyrene draw goats, cows, few tourists

ekathimerini.com Greek ruins of Cyrene draw goats, cows, few tourists Cyrene is in eastern Libya, in the area that has been wrested from government control. A lot of good it does you to be a UNESCO World Heritage site, if people still let their goats and sheep graze all over the ruins. Best sentence from this article: "A school of Greek philosophy is said to have been started at Cyrene, but the only ruminating there now is done by cows." This is a beautiful site: one hopes that when the dust, uh, settles in Libya the people will be able to take better care of their cultural heritage sites and the rest of the world will be free to visit them.

Prehistoric Fossil May Have Inspired Greek Myths : Discovery News

Prehistoric Fossil May Have Inspired Greek Myths : Discovery News Wooly rhinoceros? Wow. The bone itself is not news, but its landing in the Ashmolean is. Adrienne Mayor interviewed.

Reunited Pompeii Couple Finds Permanent Home : Discovery News

Reunited Pompeii Couple Finds Permanent Home : Discovery News Woo-hoo! Discovery News reports on the exciting world of Roman epigraphy! How often does that happen?

Classics Professor Defends Middle School Latin Program | News | The Harvard Crimson

Classics Professor Defends Middle School Latin Program News The Harvard Crimson A sure sign of the apocalypse. If Newton, Mass., public schools put Latin on the chopping block, despite the testimony of Richard Thomas, what hope is there for the rest of us? I definitely did not need this today.

Italy offers to share disputed statue with Getty Museum - Telegraph

Italy offers to share disputed statue with Getty Museum - Telegraph This is the "Victorious Youth" bronze, of a young man adjusting what seems to be a wreath on his head. No wonder this thing's provenance is disputed: "The Italian fishermen who found it buried the statue in a cabbage field, then hid it in a priest's bathtub, before it went missing and reappeared in London." I love this statue; I would be sad if it went away from the Getty. However, in light of other recent problems, the Italian politician quoted here may be sarcastic when he says, "I trust that a museum as prestigious as the Getty will show the world that it is a cultural institution that behaves ethically."

BBC News - Jordan battles to regain 'priceless' Christian relics

BBC News - Jordan battles to regain 'priceless' Christian relics The weirdest "book" ever seen: lead sheets, bound together with lead rings. Stay tuned to see what these things turn out to be. Some are saying they are extremely early Christian texts.

8,000-year-old remains of early Anatolians discovered in Istanbul - Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review

8,000-year-old remains of early Anatolians discovered in Istanbul - Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review

Iron Age British brain found

2500 year old brain found at British archaeological site
Yes, this is super-gross! But it must have some significance, once I get over the nastiness factor. Note that article lists several other similar sites, where brains (or other soft tissues!) have been preserved.

Opposition to dam remains strong in SE Turkey's Hasankeyf - Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review

Opposition to dam remains strong in SE Turkey's Hasankeyf - Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review
More on the Turkish clash between economic development and cultural preservation. Worth looking at for the photo of the "Turkish Don Quixote"!

Turkey: Roman Ruins Lost amid Economic Development | EurasiaNet.org

Turkey: Roman Ruins Lost amid Economic Development EurasiaNet.org
The site of Allianoi has ruins of an extensive Roman bath complex, excavated previously, but now about to be submerged by rising waters caused by a new dam. Cross-list under "Zeugma."

BBC News - Stone tools 'demand new American story'

BBC News - Stone tools 'demand new American story'
Rewrite your lectures. Seems the Clovis culture may not have been the oldest one in N. America.

What did the Romans ever do for us (if they didn't build our roads)? - This Britain, UK - The Independent####

What did the Romans ever do for us (if they didn't build our roads)? - This Britain, UK - The Independent####
Well, nothing's sacred. Seems the Iron Age Celts in Britain may have built nice paved roads WITHOUT ROMAN HELP. Wtf? Everybody knows the Romans were the only ancient people who knew how to make a paved road, right?

Ancient Buddhas Will Not Be Rebuilt – UNESCO - IPS ipsnews.net

Ancient Buddhas Will Not Be Rebuilt – UNESCO - IPS ipsnews.net
Should the Bamiyan Buddhas, blown up by the Taliban, be rebuilt? UNESCO thinks not: the result would basically be "a fake," because not enough of the original material survives, they say.

All bites are off - fleas did spread plague (From Worcester News)

All bites are off - fleas did spread plague (From Worcester News)
I think we heard about this earlier: DNA evidence from medieval (14th cent.) skeletons shows Yersinia pestis, the bug that causes bubonic plague. Apparently this "proves" that the Black Death was not some other disease: did anybody really think it wasn't Y. pestis? I've heard people float ideas like anthrax alongside Y. pestis, but is this really necessary? I guess it is cool to have DNA evidence, though.

Donny George, 60, Dies - Protected Iraq’s Artifacts - NYTimes.com

Donny George, 60, Dies - Protected Iraq’s Artifacts - NYTimes.com
Former head of the Baghdad museum, who tried to recover some of the material looted in 2003, Dr. George was supposed to give a lecture here a couple of years ago, but had to cancel due to bad weather. I am sad that we will never get a makeup visit.

BBC News - The Roman Ninth Legion's mysterious loss

BBC News - The Roman Ninth Legion's mysterious loss
More news related to the film "The Eagle." This one examines the Ninth Legion, whose "disappearance" forms the basis of the story.

Five historical clangers in Kevin Macdonald's The Eagle | Culture | guardian.co.uk

Five historical clangers in Kevin Macdonald's The Eagle Culture guardian.co.uk
A "clanger" seems to be what we would call a "blooper," although I take these more as misconceptions than as true goofs. A blooper, to me, is like stirrups on Roman horses (which this movie does have). These are bigger ideas, such as the concept that all Britons hated the Romans, or that Hadrian's Wall was built in response to the (non)loss of the 9th Legion. I did wonder about the language spoken by the Blue People in the film--again, a bigger issue that having the wrong kind of togas or sitting down at a table to eat. (WHY do people who make ancient Rome films seem so reluctant to let the poor Romans lie down to eat? Are we so married to the dining table that we can't imagine life without it?)

Agatha Christie: Archaeologist

Agatha Christie as Archaeologist
Not that we didn't know she went to Mesopotamia with Max Mallowan, but the part about cleaning the Assyrian ivories with her face cream is news to me. I also like the detail about why she was so devoted to her face cream: being 15 years older than Max, Agatha wanted to take care of her skin (out there in the dry climate) so she wouldn't look even older. Plus, I wonder about that other woman out there, the one Agatha didn't like.

Six Nations 2011: Stadio Flaminio dig to reveal Roman 'City of the Dead' | Sport | The Observer

Six Nations 2011: Stadio Flaminio dig to reveal Roman 'City of the Dead' Sport The Observer
1st-cent. BCE tombs under part of a modern rugby stadium on outskirts of Rome. Other fun details, such as part of a Roman wall inside an IKEA store. (Wait? IKEA in Italy? What's wrong with this picture?)

Buried with Secrets: Skeletons Likely Victims of Chemical Weapon | Rome, Persia and Ancient Warfare | Battle for Dura | LiveScience

Buried with Secrets: Skeletons Likely Victims of Chemical Weapon Rome, Persia and Ancient Warfare Battle for Dura LiveScience
Explanation for burnt bodies of soldiers found at Dura-Europos. Not what the original excavators in the 1920s imagined.

Cultivation of cereals by the first farmers was not more productive than foraging

Cultivation of cereals by the first farmers was not more productive than foraging
Here is the actual article on early farming, from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Why the switch from foraging to farming? - Yahoo! News

Why the switch from foraging to farming? - Yahoo! News
Report of a paper about the productivity of early human attempts at farming. Why stop being a hunter-gatherer and take up farming, when you don't know what you're doing? Early farmers wouldn't have been that good at it, and wouldn't have been able to produce as much as they had been able to get as hunter-gatherers. However, staying in one place has other survival advantages. A house! With a door! To keep the wooly mammoth out! Interesting.

Pictures: New Iceman Is Fit, Nearly Naked—And Too Old?

Pictures: New Iceman Is Fit, Nearly Naked—And Too Old?
The new model of Oetzi the Iceman at the Bolzano museum has been revealed. He is shown topless on the model not because anyone thinks he went around that way in the cold, but to show that he was muscular and fit. OK, if you say so. Still weird. No explanation of why he looks older than the previous hypothesis.

Rescued from the bonfire, the lost work of C S Lewis - News, Books - The Independent

Rescued from the bonfire, the lost work of C S Lewis - News, Books - The Independent
In an incident uncannily like the fiery near-death fate of Vergil's Aeneid, many of C.S. Lewis' papers were burned after his death. But a faithful secretary managed to salvage a bunch of them, and ONLY NOW (46 years later) has anyone realized that among the salvaged scraps are notes Lewis made toward a translation of the Aeneid. Apparently, we knew he read bits of it, in progress, to the gang down at the Eagle and the Child (Tolkien mentions the project in a letter), but the actual translation had never been seen. I'd imagine Lewis' take on Vergil would be serious, ponderous, and allusive. (Comment from peanut gallery: "You mean, like the original?")
I really love this article's account of how the faithful Tiro-like-person saved the bundle of random papers from the fire.
Really, has no one gone through Lewis' papers before now? Is he THAT out of fashion?

Classics makes it onto the life raft

Grand Valley Lanthorn :: STAYING AFLOAT IN THE LIFE RAFT DEBATE
Ain't none of us gettin' outta here without dead languages! Congratulations to Grand Valley State's classicist, Chuck Pazdernik, for convincing people that Classics is worth saving at the apocalypse.

Pompeii - ‘Life and Death in the Shadow of Vesuvius’ - Review - NYTimes.com

Pompeii - ‘Life and Death in the Shadow of Vesuvius’ - Review - NYTimes.com
An exhibit in Times Square (?!) featuring mostly plaster casts of the dead/dying from Pompeii, and some from Herculaneum, too. Sounds nasty, initially, but it seems the exhibit has more about Pompeii than just casts of writhing people. One hopes so, because tickets are $25.

Iraqi Tourism

Iraq is left wondering: Where are the tourists? - Travel - Destination Travel - Africa & Mideast Travel - msnbc.com
Why aren't tourists returning to Babylon? Maybe because most people don't think "Vacation" and "Iraq" in the same sentence. Also, same problem Libya has (had): lack of support infrastructure. Hotels, restaurants, etc., haven't really been a priority lately. Honestly, I think I'll get to Libya before Iraq.

What, you ask, is Leptis Magna?

Archaeological Site of Leptis Magna - UNESCO World Heritage Centre
Its Phoenician name was Lpgy (no vowels, of course). Anyway, here's the UNESCO page that describes why Leptis is a World Heritage Site: huge, magnificent Roman remains. On the Libyan coast; work on it ground to a halt during the isolation years of the 1980s and 1990s, until Libya opened back up again (somewhat) recently.

Libya's 'extraordinary' archaeology under threat : Nature News

Libya's 'extraordinary' archaeology under threat : Nature News
Now we must watch for the safety of antiquities in Libya--and news is much harder to come by. This report from the online branch of the scientific journal "Nature" seems to have made contact with someone who made contact with the Libyan archaeology boss, who says all is well. We shall see.
Just when I had begun to dream of seeing Leptis Magna some day...