Guardian UK – Chicago’s Oriental Institute woos Iran with return of ancient tablets Three hundred ancient clay tablets which helped to provide information on the languages and daily life in the Persian empire 2,500 years ago are on their way back to Iran. The tablets are being returned by the oriental institute of the University…
archaeological news
Beltane – the Wicker Man burns again
Beltane at Butser Ancient Farm, UK It is May 1 – Beltane. Beltain is the spring festival of the Celtic religion and, like other major Celtic events, was a fire festival: the ‘good fire’ was burnt for purification, for healing, for light, for growth. According to Caesar, the Iron Age Britons would construct huge wicker…
collaborative archaeology – the Severan Marble Plan of Rome
The BBC have picked up on Stanford’s Digital Forma Urbis Romae Project.[Link][Stanford Report – details] The Forma Urbis Romae, also known as the Severan Marble Plan, was a giant marble map of ancient Rome that hung on a wall in a building, the Templum Pacis, near the forum. It measured 60 feet wide by 45…
the uncanny preservation of curse-laden mummies
archaeological archetypes Daily Telegraph | News | Ice Maiden triggers mother of all disputes in Siberia This story has it all. High in the Altai mountains of southern Siberia, where Shamans still practise their ancient rites and most people are descended from Asiatic nomads, there is a whiff of revolt in the air. Local officials,…
prehistoric beads in South Africa
more on those items from Blombos Cave – a case for scepticism 75 000 year old shells claimed as beads – Blombos Cave, South Africa I was arguing a few days ago on 17 April [Link] that the case for these shells being evidence of a modern human mentality was fragile, to say the least,…
romantic pasts and archaeological crimes
There has been an increase in the theft of ancient artefacts from Dartmoor, a fabulous ancient landscape in the UK, reports the BBC. So the Dartmoor National Park Authority have started implanting electronic RFID tags in the stones themselves to mark and track stone crosses and troughs in their jurisdiction. This time though it is…