This week in Newport News, Va., The Mariners’ Museum and the NOAA Monitor National Marine Sanctuary are working with the National Park Service’s Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record (HABS/HAER) to map the Civil War ironclad USS Monitor’s turret and steam engine using advanced laser scanning equipment. The documentation is part of the ongoing treatment process for these and hundreds of other USS
Monitor artifacts undergoing conservation at The Mariners’ Museum.
“Together, NOAA, The Mariners’ Museum and the National Park Service are using the technology of our time to preserve one of the most revolutionary technologies of all time: the USS Monitor,” said retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Ph.D., undersecretary of
commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “It’s another step forward in the
effort to preserve this important part of America’s maritime heritage.”
Unearthing the secrets of Jamestown
Archaeologist Bill Kelso suffered from three nagging fears when - defying the
prevailing scientific wisdom and the best historical advice - he sunk a shovel into the
ground in search of America's birthplace.
His worst nightmare was that the naysayers had it right - that the palisaded fort
constructed by Capt. John Smith and the first English settlers on the banks of the James
River in 1607 had long ago washed away into the currents. His second was that he and his
small staff would find nothing more momentous than the mid- to late-17th-century artifacts
that previous archaeologists - digging on adjacent National Park Service land - had already
recovered by the millions.
His last and most far-fetched worry - conjured up in a contradictory moment of hope and gloom - was the discovery of a horde so large and so rich that his underfunded project would sink beneath the epic scale of the care required.
Ten years after that April 1994 day - and the subsequent unearthing of some 750,000 objects from the early 1600s - only the last of these fears has come close to being true. And even now, Kelso's once daring gamble continues to turn up such a rich array of finds that what he originally imagined as a decade of work seems much nearer its beginning than its end.
Metal detector fans in raid on castle dig
TREASURE hunters who raided an archaeological dig may have taken away or
destroyed vital historical evidence, it has been claimed. Archaeologists have been labouring for months on earthworks on the north east side of Caergwrle Castle Hill, near Wrexham, trying to date the ruins there.
However, it has now emerged that metal-detector enthusiasts have been exploring the site and
may have removed important finds.
The concerns have been voiced by Hope councillor Dave Healey, who has been asked to
highlight the problem by archaeologists.
Mr Healey said: "For all we know, the raiders may have taken a crucial piece of evidence
which could have solved the mystery."
Physicists probe ancient
pyramid
The largest particle detector in Mexico is being built inside a pyramid in the
ancient settlement of Teotihuacan.
The equipment will detect muons, tiny particles that are created when cosmic rays bombard
the Earth's atmosphere.
Dr Arturo Menchaca and colleagues from Mexico's National Autonomous University hope that by tracking the muons through the pyramid, they can find cavities.
This could indicate whether the kings of the ancient people who built the site are also
entombed within it.
We reported on this some time ago and reiterate its importance as a confluence of interest
between physicists and archaeologists.
"Give her. . .errrr. . him back!"Return 'Red Lady' to Wales, English urged
AN Elgin Marbles-style campaign has begun to secure the return to Wales of the Red Lady of Paviland, one of the world's most important archaeological finds.
The skeleton of the "Red Lady" complete with jewellery and a mammoth's head marker was
discovered in 1823 at Paviland Cave on Gower. Later analysis showed the skeleton to be that of a man, possibly a chieftain, but the Red Lady tag stuck.
It emerged that the bones, stained by red ochre, were the oldest ceremonially buried remains
ever found in Western Europe. They go back to 24,000BC pre-dating Stonehenge by 20,000 years. But the prize was taken away from Wales within a year of being found.
Update on previous story Poet Petrarch Loses His
Head
The remains of who was thought to be the Renaissance poet Francesco Petrarch are
instead those of two different people, DNA tests have confirmed.
Analysis of a tooth and one of the ribs exhumed from Petrarch's tomb in Arquá Petrarca, the
village near Padua where the poet died in 1374, showed that they belonged to a man and a
woman.
And now for something completely different. . . World's first heat-controlled underpants
A Bosnian man has started selling the world's first "self-ventilating and
thermo-regulating underpants" to help fight male sterility.
Dragan Tadic, 44, from Laktasi in northwest Bosnia and Herzegovina, has been awarded the
gold medal at the Councour Lepan inventors' exhibition in Paris.
He claims they help stop the testicles becoming too warm - potentially leading to male
sterility.