Wednesday, August 04, 2004

Digging yields evidence of Kerala's trade links with Rome

Excavations in a village on the banks of the Periyar have yielded concrete evidence of Kerala's trade links with ancient Rome and thrown new light into the long search to pin the exact location of the port town Muziris, referred to in European and West Asian records.

Pieces of Roman amphora--wine jar-- rouletted ware, beads of glass and semi-precious stones were found at Pattanam village in Paravur taluk of Ernakulam district during a pilot digging conducted by the Centre for Heritage Studies (CHS) recently.


Doesn't say what the actual date of the place is. Interesting though.

Story from Peru not having to do with a brewery Two Inca observatories discovered in Peru

US and Peruvian archaeologists have discovered two Inca observatories in central Peru, which they said are the most imposing of the stone structures found to date.

The discovery of the observatories, announced Friday, is the result of five years of searching in Huanuco province.


Oh boy, another Ramesses II statue. . . Huge statue of Ramses II found

Egyptian archaeologists recently discovered parts of what appears to be the biggest yet statue of ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II.

Sabri Abdel Aziz, an official at the Egyptian Higher Council for Antiquities (HCA), said on Sunday that an Egyptian mission had recently discovered the head, chest and base of a statue of Ramses II (1298-1235 BC).


Basically, you can't dig an outhouse in Egypt without hitting an R-II monument. He's like the McDonald's of ancient Egypt. McPharoah. Ronald McRamesses. Okay, we'll stop there.

Here's a hair-raising story STRAND OF SCIENCE SAVES VIKING HAIR

Strands of hair from Viking times have been saved by students from the University of Lincoln.

The artefacts, which were uncovered at a burial site in Russia, have been handed to the university by the Hull and East Riding Museum.

They are said to be unique as many human remains dating back more than 1,000 years to the Viking period have deteriorated over time.


Hair is incredibly informative. Good book we read in the past year or so was one called Beethoven's Hair (available at fine bookstores everywhere) which detailed the history of some strands of Beethoven's hair that had been saved and later analyzed.

Fight! Fight! Descendent disputes claims about black frontier town

A black history scholar has accused an archaeological team of distorting racial history in its study of a once-promising Illinois frontier town.

Juliet E.K. Walker, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, has condemned the premise of a federally funded archaeological excavation of New Philadelphia, Ill., an integrated, pre-Civil War community in Pike County. New Philadelphia is generally considered to be the first town in the country founded by an African-American.


Khakis? KHAKIS???? Archaeologists taking the plunge to explore past

Student diggers don scuba gear instead of khakis as they search Hudson River for prehistoric artifacts

It was tough digging for archaeology students Erin Head and Matt Napolitano.

Cold seeped through their wet suits. Scooping up the submerged muck roiled the water like stirred coffee. And the visibility beyond their masks was just a few inches.

"Some days you can't see your hand in front of your face," said Head, standing waist-deep in a Hudson River bay.


Well, at least they're doing this underwater archaeology stuff in cold dark waters instead of a tropical paradise. Our hats off to them.