Michelle Moran's Blog, page 81

A Magnificent Pagan Altar was Exposed at the Barzilai Hospital Compound

JERUSALEM.- The development work for the construction of a fortified emergency room at Barzilai Hospital, which is being conducted by a contractor carefully supervised by the Israel Antiquities Authority, has unearthed a new and impressive find: a magnificent pagan altar dating to the Roman period (first-second centuries CE) made of granite and adorned with bulls' heads and a laurel wreaths. The altar stood in the middle of the ancient burial field.

Read the rest here.

English Civil War battlefield 'may be in wrong place'

A monument marking an official battle site in the Cotswolds might be in the wrong place, historians have claimed. The memorial to the Stow-on-the Wold battle stands about three miles (4.8km) north-west of the town, on a hill outside Donnington.

Read the rest on the BBC.

Virtual Romanesque Monuments Being Created

ScienceDaily— Researchers from the Cartif Foundation and the University of Valladolid have created full color plans in 3-D of places of cultural interest, using laser scanners and photographic cameras. The technique has been used to virtually recreate five churches in the Merindad de Aguilar de Campoo, a region between Cantabria, Palencia and Burgos which boasts the highest number of Romanesque monuments in the world.

Read the rest on Science Daily.

2,000-year old 'icebox' unearthed in NW China

XI'AN - Archeologists in northwest China's Shaanxi province said Wednesday they had found a primitive "icebox" dating back at least 2,000 years in the ruins of an emperor's residence.

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Home Away From Rome

By Paul Bennett

In A.D. 143 or 144, when he was in his early 20s, the future Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius set out for the country estate of his adoptive father, Emperor Antoninus Pius. The property, Villa Magna (Great Estate), boasted hundreds of acres of wheat, grapes and other crops, a grand mansion, baths and temples, as well as rooms for the emperor and his entourage to retreat from the world or curl up with a good book.

Read the rest on Smithsonian Mag.

Italy: Ancient Etruscan home found near Grosseto

Grosseto (AKI) - An ancient Etruscan home dating back more than 2,400 years has been discovered outside Grosseto in central Italy. Hailed as an exceptional find, the luxury home was uncovered at an archeological site at Vetulonia, 200 kilometres north of Rome.

Read the rest here.

Get Ready for More Proto-Humans

by Jennifer Viegas

Today at Discovery News you can read about the earliest recognized species of Homo, the first known member of our genus. This latest addition to the human family, Homo gautengensis, was from South Africa and measured just 3 feet tall. It spent a lot of time in trees and had big teeth suitable for chewing plant material. H. gautengensis emerged over 2 million years ago, but died out at around 600,000 years ago.

Read the rest on Discovery.

The tomb the raiders missed

By Nathan Morley
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Uncovering the buried treasures last week

For some families tomb raiding became a business, earning the equivalent of a year's salary for one night's digging. An ancient tomb discovered last week in Protaras has led archaeologists to believe that the site may be part of an ancient cemetery.

Read the rest on Cyprus Mail.

So where are Anthony and Cleopatra?

Last Saturday was a very strange day. At Taposiris Magna, where the ruins of the Osiris Temple and few Graeco-Roman tombs emerge from the sand, a dozen journalists, photographers and TV cameramen gathered to witness the revelations of the latest search there carried by an Egyptian-Dominican team.

Read the rest on Al-Ahram Weekly.

The Mysteries of Meroe

By SOUREN MELIKIAN

PARIS — Agatha Christie could have invented the story. Imagine another Egypt, with a marked black African component. This is Meroe, in present-day Sudan. In art, ancient Egyptian deities appear alongside others, unknown elsewhere. The Meroitic cursive script has been deciphered, revealing that it transcribes an African language. It is related to others spoken today, like Taman in parts of Darfur and Chad, Nyima in the Sudanese Nuba mounts, or Nubian in upper Egypt...