Wednesday, February 25, 2004

Inscriptions Prove Influence of Jiroft Civilization on Sumer

TERHAN Feb. 25 (Mehr News Agency) –- Head of the International Archaeological Study Center said that the unearthed inscriptions in the historical region of Jiroft proves that the civilization of the region had influenced Sumerian civilization.

Yusef Majidzadeh added that following the second stage of archaeological studies in Halilrud region of Jiroft, Kerman Province, 25 mud seals were discovered.

“An inscription written on one of the seals is datable to 4000 years ago. The 2x3cm seal is made of mud, which was unearthed in layers on top of the hill in the region. The inscription is unique and proves the fact that the civilization of the Halirud region in eastern Iran was the originator of the script,” added Majidzadeh.


Cool web site alert Online guide lets you explore ancient realms

Cairo - Lovers of archaeology - be it Pharaonic, Roman, Greek, Coptic or Islamic - can now log on to a new website to access more than 5 000 years of history.

Project organisers on Tuesday launched the website, Eternal Egypt, against the backdrop of the Pyramids of the Giza plateau and the Sphinx.

Work on the project began three years ago in a partnership between the Egyptian Centre for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage (CultNat) and US technology manufacturer IBM.


Early makeup kit may confirm biblical story

Excavation: Israeli archaeologists find 2,500- year-old accessories, which likely belonged to Jews who returned from exile in Babylon.

JERUSALEM -- Israeli archaeologists excavating caves near the Dead Sea discovered jewelry, a makeup kit and a small mirror -- 2,500-year-old fashion accessories for women.

The trove apparently belonged to Jews who returned from exile in Babylon in the 6th century B.C., said Tsvika Tsuk, chief archaeologist for the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.


"This find is very rare. Both for the richness of the find and for that period, it is almost unheard of," Tsuk said Friday.


Antiquities market report Stolen Treasures: An Egyptian artifact takes a crooked path

A decade ago, laborers excavating a building site in Akhmim hit an imposing limestone slab incised with hieroglyphics and the image of Osiris, god of the lower world. The ancient Egyptians offered this kind of monument, known as a stele, as a tribute to a god or a dead relative.
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Under Egyptian law, the stele should have been turned over to the government, a recovered shard of the national patrimony. Instead, something considerably more commonplace happened. It became an outlaw. Quietly, it passed into the global antiquities market. Five years later, cleansed of its illicit origins, it emerged in New York as a rich man's prize, in the foyer of an apartment on the Upper East Side.


Long and extensive article on the mechanisms by which looted artifacts reach the west.

And yet more market news Fake ossuary leads Israel to look into sellers of antiquities

An Israeli documentary Wednesday claimed the James ossuary, the ancient burial box bearing a discredited inscription mentioning Jesus, is just the tip of a long-running forgery ring that has duped antiquities collectors worldwide for the last 15 years.

First reports of the ossuary in a 2002 Biblical Archaeology Review created a frenzy over the relic that bears the Aramaic inscription "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus." Throngs visited the Royal Ontario Museum to see the empty stone box. Scientists all agree the ossuary is a genuine artifact from the era of the New Testament, but many scholars believe the inscription was added recently.