Wednesday, June 02, 2004

Web site alert Welcome to savingantiquities.org

The SAFE online resource that highlights issues related to cultural heritage and its vulnerability to looting and the illicit antiquities trade.

To commemorate the anniversary of the ransacking of the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad, SAFE has relaunched its website (formerly www.safenow.net) with an article about the continued destruction of archaeological sites in Iraq.




Bringing Arundel history to life

The earth-movers, construction trailer and stack of felled trees stand in stark contrast to an old tobacco barn and re-created 1696 wooden crate of a house.

But at the end of next summer, this section of Historic London Town and Gardens will have a $5.1 million museum, visitor center and archaeology lab, providing thousands of visitors with historical context for what they see at the bygone Colonial tobacco port and ferry crossing just south of Annapolis.

"It is going to dramatically change London Town and Gardens. It is going to orient people to the site and provide interpretation," said Donna Ware, Anne Arundel County historic planner and interim executive director of the 23-acre park on the South River in Edgewater.


Scholars working to mine history from early Chinatown amid building

OAKLAND -- Years before downtown's bustling Chinatown was established, some of Oakland's first Chinese immigrants lived in a small community in the Uptown area.

They were all men who likely came because of opportunities associated with the Gold Rush, and the city apparently tried to force them to live in designated Chinatowns several times.

At one point, between 1867 and 1872, they settled in an Uptown block between 19th and 20th streets on San Pablo Avenue. That site now is part of the proposed Forest City redevelopment project.

Today, local historians and archaeologists are searching for family memories and photographs of this early Chinatown in an effort to piece together its fragile history and to pressure the city to ensure the developer treads lightly.


Update on WWII plane Hurricane that saved Buckingham Palace unearthed after 63 years

An RAF fighter, which may have saved Buckingham Palace from a direct hit during the Battle of Britain, has been unearthed in central London.

Excavations began on Saturday morning in Buckingham Palace Road, Victoria, and the Hurricane's pilot, former Sergeant Ray Holmes watched as the engine was hoisted from its muddy grave on Sunday night.

The discovery really belongs to Christopher Bennett, an amateur aviation historian and archaeologist. Mr Bennett, 43, a photographer, said: "I'm totally elated. I've been working on this project for 13 years. This crash site was a result of one of the most famous incidents of the war and this Hurricane crashed on 15 September 1940, the day now commemorated as Battle of Britain Day. After all these years, the engine is still in remarkable condition, probably because of the oil around it."


Archaeologist searches for artifacts from the Hopewell people

Wichita archaeologist Jim Dougherty is on a treasure hunt. This treasure is information, not gold or silver. The information is about the Hopewell people who lived from eastern Kansas into Illinois and Ohio from approximately 50 B.C. to 500 A.D. Dougherty hopes to learn more about how far into Kansas these prehistoric people got by studying the artifacts they left behind.

The Hopewell culture is best known for the earth mounds along the Ohio River, but evidence of their passage has been known from eastern Kansas for decades.

Dougherty believes he can trace where in Kansas the Hopewell were, and possibly when, by finding particular kinds of pottery sherds, certain styles of arrow points, perforated bear teeth, small stone bladelets and other objects.


Find keeps archaeologists busy

When a giant sloth bone is found, people, especially scientists, go nuts - with good reason.

As Holmes Semken will tell you, such a find is uncommon.

"It is a huge deal," said the University of Iowa emeritus professor of geoscience. "These things are rare."


What? No Tomb Raider? KIGGINS THEATRE to host Archaeology Film Series

In July 2003, The Archaeology Channel International Film and Video Festival, screened twenty films from ten countries in front of a live audience at the McDonald Theatre in Eugene, Oregon. This was the first competitive archaeological film and video festival to be held in North America. The mission of this festival was, and continues to be, to exhibit for the audience the wonderful diversity of human cultures past and present in the exploration of our place in history and in our world. This festival was created by Dr. Richard Pettigrew to promote the genre and the makers of film and video productions about archaeology and indigenous peoples.


Good point Debate over signs hits federal court

Should sacred sites be marked off?

The trial of two people in Reno, Nevada essentially comes down to one fundamental question: Should signs be placed on sacred sites warning visitors not to disturb anything? Supporters of the idea say it would prevent people from mistakenly taking artifacts. Opponents say it would let would-be-looters know where the goods are.


Update on a story we posted yesterday. But ignorance of the law is no excuse.

Paris Hilton found! Dig Under Manezh Yields Surprises

She was a fashionable young woman of her time. Wealthy and sophisticated, with a bracelet on one arm and rings, she was buried close to the Kremlin -- where she lay entombed for about 850 years.

The young woman is among 40 human remains, a centuries-old sword, a rare Peter the Great coin and hundreds of other artifacts unearthed recently beneath the Central Manezh Exhibition Hall.


Okay, forget the sophisticated part. . . . .

More from Iran Iranian Archaeologists Puzzled Over Old Monument

Iranian experts are scratching their head over an old monument in west of the country as whether it was built as a fire temple in the Sassanid era or it was erected in the Islamic period.

Located in the western Iranian town of Qasr-e Shirin, the Chahar Qapi or Chahar Taqi monument as well as its other monuments such as the Khosrow Palace, Ban Qaleh and the Safavid caravanserai suffered damages during the eight year Iraqi aggression.


Antiquities market update Bill seeks to protect Mideast antiquities

Looted antiquities pulled from archaeological sites in Afghanistan would be kept off the U.S. market under legislation sought by a Western Pennsylvania congressman.

U.S. Rep. Phil English, R-Erie, said yesterday he plans to introduce legislation that would impose an emergency five-year ban on the importation of "cultural property" from Afghanistan. The legislation includes a list of items missing from various museums throughout Afghanistan as well as archaeological sites that have been looted or destroyed.


Antiquities market update II Archaeologists raise eyebrows over sea treasures

Mozambican archaeologists argue that the recent sale in Holland of items salvaged from a Portuguese shipwreck in country`s territorial waters was illegal, and that the archaeological heritage should have remained in Mozambique.

The scientists` argument was advanced in a report Friday of the independent newsheet "Mediafax."

A Portuguese galleon sunk in the 17th century near Mozambique Island, off the coast of the northern province of Nampula.


Torah! Torah! Torah! Archaeologists search for lost Torah near Auschwitz

Hoping to find a Torah and other invaluable Jewish religious artifacts, Polish archaeologists began excavations on the foundations of a synagogue in the southern Polish town of Oswiecim, the location of the World War II Nazi death camp Auschwitz, the Polish PAP news agency reported Monday.

Once called Oswiecim's "Great Synagogue," the house of worship was burned to the ground in 1939 by Nazi forces invading Poland.

Archaeologist Malgorzata Grupa is hopeful that information provided by an eyewitness may help locate the lost Torah, apparently buried along with other religious items in wooden crates in September 1939.


Whoops. Developer Unearths Burial Ground and Stirs Up Anger Among Indians

With the precision of a watchmaker, an archaeologist clasped a small paintbrush and gently swept the brown, sandy dirt off the spine of a Native American woman buried some 200 years ago.

From the condition of the bones, the archaeologist, Penny Minturn, deduced that the woman was 30 to 40 years old when she died, had suffered from arthritis and had recently given birth, and that her diet had probably consisted of shellfish, native plants, nuts and berries.

. . .

But many Native Americans are outraged that the bones of their ancestors are being dug up from the ancient burial ground, known to the Tongva tribe as Saa'angna and filled with the skeletal remains of people whose predecessors hunted and roamed across Southern California 7,000 years ago or more. Archaeologists here believe it is the largest excavation now going on in the country.


Hard to say what to think about this situation, apart from the fact that it's not being handled very well.

New research may uncover Byblos' Phoenician port

If archaeologist Ibrahim Noureddine is right, sunbathers at Byblos' beaches may one day find themselves next to a Phoenician port.

The underwater archaeologist is currently working on his doctorate about ancient ports, trying to figure out whether people in the Bronze Age built their harbors or used the natural foundation. It is not an easy task, as Noureddine does not even know for sure yet where to dig for the old harbors.

He presented his findings in a lecture on Wednesday at the French Cultural Center (FCC), which was part of a cycle of archaeological lectures presenting new research in Lebanon.