Concerns over airport growth

SOUTH Bedfordshire District Council wants 'further work' to be carried out on Luton Airport's expansion plans because it believes they could seriously damage the environment.

Last week we revealed details of a district council report in which 'concerns' were raised surrounding the plans.

Councillors met to discuss the concerns on Tuesday, in response to a master plan consultation process, and have formally accepted a string of recommendations.

The concerns surrounding the master plan, which was published last October, included that it was 'unacceptable due to its very large land take and consequent environmental impact'.

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De Viking Uw Vriend?

De Leuvense studentenkring voor archeologen Alfa stelt tentoon: 'De Viking - Vriend en Vijand' is vanaf 17 februari te bezichtigen in de Universiteitsbibliotheek op het Ladeuzeplein. Met deze gratis expositie willen de jonge archeologen-in-spe de beruchte Vikingen van een andere kant belichten. De culturele meerwaarde die dit Scandinavische volk aan Europa gaf is immers legio: voor veel van onze huidige gebruiken, kennis, tradities, enz... zijn we aan hen schatplichtig.

De Vikingen. Zijn dat niet die goddeloze plunderaars, moordenaars, verkrachters uit de onrustige nadagen van het Karolingische Rijk? Zij verschenen plotseling met hun snelle drakkars overal waar in handels- en kloosternederzettingen rijkdom te rapen viel, en ze waren, nog vóór de lokale machthebbers konden ingrijpen, al even snel weer weg. Hun terreurdreiging verlamde het dagelijks bestaan. De bezadigde Alcuinus noteerde letterlijk: "Nooit voordien heerste er in Brittannië zulke terreur als we nu hebben ondergaan vanwege een heidens ras, noch hielden we het voor mogelijk dat men zo snel van overzee kon binnenvallen."

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Edinburgh's World Heritage status 'at risk'

EDINBURGH is in danger of losing its status as a World Heritage Site, one of Unesco's senior advisory bodies has warned.

The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), which advises Unesco, is outraged by the twin towers of Sir Norman Foster's Quartermile development near the city's Meadows park.

The body has told Scotland on Sunday that Edinburgh's unique skyline will be pierced by Foster's tower blocks, which could result in the city being stripped of its World Heritage Site status.

The centrepiece of plans for the Quartermile project, which will re-develop much of the former site of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, will be two 11-storey blocks of flats. There are also proposals for a major public square in the heart of a new commercial district and a luxury hotel.

A spokesman for ICOMOS said: "The city's skyline and its overall visual coherence are brought out strongly in the nomination document for World Heritage status. The coherence and integrity of the World Heritage Site are closely linked to its skyline as well as to the inter-relationship of individual buildings.

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Heritage service to grow

PLANS for an enlarged Newham heritage service were revealed this week.

However the proposals did not include the North Woolwich Old Station Museum, currently the only museum in the borough.

Proposals for a new permanent heritage centre, an expanded outreach programme and new online services were discussed at a public consultation meeting at Stratford Circus on Tuesday.

The council's entire heritage department was placed under a root and branch review last summer after work to convert the Old Dispensary in Romford Road, Stratford, into a heritage centre was scrapped.

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Tests due on historic church wall

Work is set to get under way to test the safety of a wall at a historic landmark church.

Tests on the foundations of a wall at St Laurence's churchyard in Reading, Berkshire, are to start on Monday.

Radar surveys of the trees and ground around the wall have already been carried out to test for roots and unmarked graves in the area.

Six trial holes will be dug next to the wall so engineers can see what repairs are needed.

Archaeologists will be present to monitor the work because the area is a scheduled ancient monument.

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Tooth marks link Vikings, Indians

A scientist who found deep grooves chiselled into the teeth of dozens of 1,000-year-old Viking skeletons unearthed in Sweden believes the strange custom might have been learned from aboriginal tribes during ancient Norse voyages to North America -- a finding that would represent an unprecedented case of transatlantic, cross-cultural exchange during the age of Leif Ericsson.

The marks are believed to be decorations meant to enhance a man's appearance, or badges of honour for a group of great warriors or successful tradesmen. They are the first historical examples of ceremonial dental modification ever found in Europe, and although similar customs were practised in Asia and Africa over the centuries, the Swedish anthropologist who studied the Viking teeth is exploring the possibility that trips to Newfoundland and other parts of the New World a millennium ago introduced the Norsemen to tooth-carving styles being carried out at that time in the Americas.

"The cases from the North American continent are from the time period," Caroline Arcini, a researcher with the National Heritage Board in Lund, Sweden, told CanWest News Service. "So it is within the same timespace as the Swedish ones that are dated from 800-1050 A.D."

In a paper published by the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Ms. Arcini details the horizontal etchings across the front teeth of about 25 young men whose remains were found at several Viking Age burial sites in Sweden and Denmark. The "furrows" -- some teeth have several parallel grooves -- "are so well made that it is most likely they were filed by a person of great skill," Ms. Arcini writes.

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Italy Offers the Met a Deal on Disputed Art

The Italian government has relayed a formal proposal to the Metropolitan Museum of Art that would grant the museum special access to long-term loans in exchange for the return of 20 works of Greek and Roman art that the Italians say were illegally removed from their country. The proposed accord, a copy of which was provided to The New York Times, would specifically absolve the museum of any knowledge of wrongdoing and avert possible legal steps against the museum by the Italian government.

Over the past few months, Italy has pursued a campaign against American museums to recover stolen antiquities. It includes a criminal trial in Rome of Marion True, formerly a curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. A co-defendant in that case is Robert Hecht, an art dealer who has sold numerous works to the Met over the years, including a fifth-century B.C. vase painted by the Greek artist Euphronios, which Italian officials maintain was stolen from an Etruscan tomb in Cerveteri.

At the heart of the proposal is an arrangement that would allow Italy to retrieve the fifth-century B.C. vase and a set of 15 pieces of Hellenistic silver. Both the vase and the silver would remain on loan to the museum through the end of 2007 with a label identifying them as belonging to the Italian state, the proposed pact says.

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Maddy takes position as county's heritage director

THE vast and varied heritage of the Yorkshire region has been given a new champion.

Maddy Jago has been appointed as the regional director for Yorkshire of English Heritage, the Government's lead body for the historic environment.

In her role, she will be in charge of protecting some of the region's finest historical assets.

Ms Jago was one of the leading figures in the campaign to get the New Forest designated as a National Park and became its director of policy. For six years of her early career, Maddy lived and worked in East Yorkshire, travelling the whole county to give farm conservation advice.

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Challenge to M3 begins in High Court

The High Court has begun hearing an action by conservationists seeking to have the M3 motorway re-routed from the present route through the Tara/Skryne Valley.

The action is being defended by the State.

The Hill of Tara is a National Monument, but one of the key questions in this legal argument is whether that status is limited to the hill itself or extends through the valley below where the M3 motorway is routed.
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In the High Court today, conservationists began their legal challenge to the decision of the Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche, to allow archaeological sites along the route to be excavated, effectively allowing the motorway through the valley.

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See also:

Hill of Tara / M3 Motorway Litigation Website
Hill of Tara Information Email Archive
Save Tara/Skryne Valley Campaign

MEDIEVAL TREASURE ACQUIRED BY BASINGSTOKE'S WILLIS MUSEUM

A piece of medieval treasure, found by a metal detectorist in 2005, has been acquired by the Willis Museum in Basingstoke.

The gold finger ring, dating from the late 13th or early 14th century, features a blue stone which is thought to be a sapphire and has a highly decorated hoop joined at the bezel by two dragon’s heads, which hold the stone.

After being discovered near Tadley, Basingstoke, the object was taken to a local Finds Liaison Officer, working for the government’s Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS), who helped to record and catalogue the find. Formal identification by experts at the British Museum followed where it was declared as Treasure Trove, which secured it for the nation.

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Seat of Celtic kings is threatened by motorway

A plan to build a motorway beside the hill where ancient Celtic kings were crowned has been challenged in court as campaigners fight to save a monument described by W B Yeats as the "most consecrated spot in Ireland".

The Irish government's proposal to build a new commuter route for Dublin through the valley containing the Hill of Tara has infuriated archaeologists, historians and conservationists.

The battle, which has been depicted as a conflict between Ireland's mystical past and the materialistic modern nation of the Celtic Tiger, yesterday came to the High Court in Dublin.

The hearing, which is scheduled to last for five days, is the culmination of a two-year campaign to stop the 30-mile M3 motorway passing less than a mile from the coronation site of around 100 Irish High Kings in Co Meath.

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See also:

Hill of Tara / M3 Motorway Litigation Website
Hill of Tara Information Email Archive
Save Tara/Skryne Valley Campaign

Parthenon Statue Fragment to Be Returned

A German university plans to give back a fragment of the Parthenon sculptures, marking the first time any piece of the statues held outside Greece has been returned to Athens, the Culture Ministry said Monday.

The vice-rector of Heidelberg University, Angelos Chaniotis, informed Greek Prime Minister Costas Caramanlis of the decision during a meeting Monday in Athens, the ministry said.

"This is a highly important symbolic gesture," a ministry announcement said.

The 5th century B.C. sculpture from ancient Acropolis, which depicts a man's foot, belongs to the north section of the Parthenon frieze, a nearly 500-foot-long strip of marble slabs decorated in relief with figures from a religious procession.

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FEARS FOR ANCIENT REMAINS BELOW WAVES

DIVERS face a desperate race against time to recover 8,000-year-old artefacts from the bottom of The Solent before they are lost forever.

The underwater site, off Bouldnor, is the only one yet discovered in Britain and dates from when the sea level was 12 metres lower than today, when the IW would have been much larger and The Solent was a dry coastal valley.

It remains because it was covered in silt and protected from erosion as the sea rose above it. Most Stone Age sites on land have lost all associated organic remains, having been exposed to weathering. However, underwater, the oxygen-free mud can preserve delicate objects for thousands of years.

Unfortunately, this is being eroded by the currents and is likely to be gone within two to three years. Radiocarbon dating has underlined the international significance of the ancient drowned landscape and given archaeologists further tantalising evidence of human occupation.

Tests have revealed material, thought to be the remains of a wooden structure, are around 300 years younger than the surrounding ancient oak trees, which have been dated from around 8,400 years ago.

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Funding blow for castle revamp

A restoration project at Carmarthen Castle has stalled after the final phase failed to win lottery funding.
Since work began at the landmark, the remains of a drawbridge and a network of medieval walls have been uncovered.

Over £1m was spent on improved access and structural repairs and it was hoped a visitor centre would complete it.

The Heritage Lottery Fund, which had funded most of the work, has rejected a bid for £900,000 but Carmarthenshire Council said the project would proceed.

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Village's past is unearthed

RARE 17th century glasswork was among the finds by a team of archaeologists in Prestongrange.

The first phase of the Prestongrange Community Archaeology Project, which started in spring 2004, has now been completed.

Leading specialists will now assess the findings before presenting them at a community meeting on February 1.

The glasswork will be of particular interest, as Prestongrange was home to a glass-making facility in the 17th century.

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Ta’ Hagrat and Skorba Temples

Heritage Malta, the national agency for Museums and Cultural Heritage, is opening two sites at Mgarr – Ta’ Hagrat and Skorba – on a weekly basis. These sites, both of which have been included on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1992, were previously closed to the public and could only be visited by appointment.

Ta’ Hagrat consists of two adjacent temples, the older one of which dates to the Ggantija phase (3,600-3,200 BC). These were excavated under the direction of Sir Temi Zammit in the 1920s, after he was shown a field containing an interesting mound of stones.

The older temple has a semi-circular façade with a monumental doorway. This leads into a rectangular central court that in turn leads to three semi-circular rooms, one on each side. The second, smaller building is accessed through the eastern room of the larger building, which was modified in antiquity to make space for the second building. One of the most notable finds from this excavation is a small limestone model of a roofed building which is now exhibited at the National Museum of Archaeology.

Skorba Temples, located about a kilometre away from Ta’ Hagrat, were excavated by David Trump in the 1960s. This excavation resulted in the discovery of two temples, dating to the Ggantija (3,600-3,200 BC) and the Tarxien (3,150-2,500 BC) phases.

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Archaeological dig unearths ‘exciting’ medieval treasure

A MEDIEVAL arrowhead, possibly forged as a weapon to slay poachers hunting on the king’s land, has been unearthed at Mellor hill top.

The 13th to 14th century arrowhead was recovered from a medieval post pit following this summer’s excavations by Manchester University’s Archaeological Unit, in co-ordination with Mellor Archaeological Trust.

Wrought from iron, the arrowhead is 8cm long and is deliberately designed to maim humans, rather than animals.

Categorised as a war arrow, the find is the latest treasure to be unearthed from a site that has yielded an Iron Age hill fort, neolithic and mesolithic flints and a bronze age flint dagger since it was discovered more than seven years ago.

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A skeleton of a woman from 5,800 B.C.

A skeleton of a woman from 5,800 B.C. is displayed at a museum in the town of Vratsa, some 120 km (75 miles) north of the Bulgarian capital Sofia, January 11, 2006. A team of Bulgarian archaeologists led by Georgi Ganetsovski , discovered the skeleton last summer in the excavation works of a neolithic tomb near the Bulgarian village of Ohoden.

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Moles do digging for archaeologists

THEY may not be a gardener's favourite creature but a colony of moles have been credited with one of Gloucestershire's most important archaeological finds for years.

Withington resident Roger Box, 54, a former forensic archaeologist, noticed burrowing moles unearthing fragment of Roman tiles in the molehills near his home and thought they were probably disturbing a long-lost Roman villa.

He contacted friends at Channel 4's Time Team archaeology programme and researchers were dispatched to the site in August last year.

Extensive research and exploration, including a geo-physical survey, revealed an Anglo-Romano villa, which could date back to the third century AD.

Surveys of the site uncovered the remains farm buildings and a bath house on the site which is just 300 yards from the villas discovered by Samuel Lyons in 1811.

Archaeologists say it is incredibly rare to find two villas of this size so close to each other.

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TREASURE HUNTERS STRIKE GOLD

THE IW Metal Detecting Club has had a gold start to the new year with the discovery of a hammered gold angel coin.

The coin, which has the inscription of either Henri VIII or possibly Henri VII, dating it to around 1500-1520, was found by Gavin Leng while out on a club dig in the Chale area. It features a golden angel and the inscription on one side and a ship and coat of arms on the reverse.

"We find a lot of hammered coins but they are almost always silver," said Mr Leng, of Corbett Road, Ryde.

"This is the first gold hammered coin for the club and could even be the first one discovered on the Island."

Mr Leng has been metal detecting for around eight years and said it was his most significant find yet.

"It was about two inches under the soil and when I found it it was curled up, not surprising when you consider it's probably been trampled on by cattle and ploughed up numerous times," he said.
The coin will be registered with Frank Basford, the IW Council's finds liaison officer.

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Mystery of the "mammoth" tooth

A MYSTERIOUS find in Langlee has given museum chiefs in Edinburgh a jumbo surprise.

Mark Herd, a plant instructor and assessor with Scottish Borders Council, was digging a trench in Easter Langlee recently, when he came across a strange object.

Mr Herd said: “We have a site up there that we use for digging training and to assess the guys. We were putting in a trench for services, when we uncovered something.

“At first I thought it was a bit of rock that had flown up, but then I knew it was something unusual just by the shape.

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THE OBSIDIAN TRAIL

In the shadow of Mt. Whitney lies California's Owens Valley, the deepest valley in North America. Its contrasting environments include snow-capped spires, desert valleys, volcanic moonscapes, and verdant marshlands. Archaeologists for thirty years have recorded petroglyphs, pottery, and bone, wood, and stone tools, piecing together the lifeways of the region's original inhabitants. With advances in analysis of obsidian (black volcanic glass), they are re-examining what ancient arrowheads, points and flakes can reveal and are learning some surprising things.

See the video ...

Forest castle bought for £1,000

A castle in County Armagh has been sold by the government for just £1,000.
Gosford Castle, near Markethill, is in a poor state of repair and has been bought by a development company which plans to turn it into private homes.

The estimated £4m repair bill will be footed by Gosford Castle Developments, chosen by a government-appointed panel.

Agriculture minister Lord Rooker said the deal they had made would secure the restoration of Northern Ireland's largest Grade A listed building.

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MINISTER ANNOUNCES SALE OF GOSFORD CASTLE

The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Jeff Rooker, has announced the sale of Gosford Castle in Markethill, Co. Armagh.

The completion of contracts for the sale of the Castle has now taken place between the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and Gosford Castle Development Limited.

The Castle is Northern Ireland's largest Grade A listed building, and is in urgent need of conservation.

The securing of contracts opens the way for the developer to begin, subject to Planning Permission and Listed Building Consent, a multi-million pound project to restore the property as private residential accommodation comprising a number of self-contained dwellings.

The Minister said: "At long last I can announce that contracts for the sale and transfer of Gosford Castle and adjoining land to Gosford Castle Development Ltd have been completed. The disposal process has been complex and I am pleased that this important milestone in securing the restoration and future of Gosford Castle has been reached. The multi-million pound project that will follow is one that I believe befits the status and past of Northern Ireland's largest Grade A listed building. After a difficult era the future of Gosford Castle is looking bright again."

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Parthenon Statue Fragment to Be Returned

A German university plans to give back a fragment of the Parthenon sculptures, marking the first time any piece of the statues held outside Greece has been returned to Athens, the Culture Ministry said Monday.

The vice-rector of Heidelberg University, Angelos Chaniotis, informed Greek Prime Minister Costas Caramanlis of the decision during a meeting Monday in Athens, the ministry said.

"This is a highly important symbolic gesture," a ministry announcement said.

The 5th century B.C. sculpture from ancient Acropolis, which depicts a man's foot, belongs to the north section of the Parthenon frieze, a nearly 500-foot-long strip of marble slabs decorated in relief with figures from a religious procession.

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WHAT ROMANS DID FOR US - GAVE US FUN DAY OUT

A family fun day with the theme of a Roman god was held at Bristol's City Museum and Art Gallery.

The Romans dedicated the first day of January to Janus, their god of gates and doors. Staff at the museum encouraged families to explore the museum's own doorways, where new and unusual objects could be found. The museum has more than 20 galleries which contain thousands of objects, paintings and ancient artefacts.

Children could make their own "door" collage based on their discoveries or write a magical story around a special museum object they found. In Roman mythology, Janus is represented with two faces, each looking in opposite directions.

He was worshipped at the beginning of harvest time, planting, marriage, birth, and other types of new starts.

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Experts Prepare Excavation on Greek Island

British and Greek archaeologists are preparing a major excavation on a tiny Greek island to try to explain why it produced history's largest collection of Cycladic flat-faced marble figurines.

Artwork from barren Keros inspired such artists as Pablo Picasso and Henry Moore but also attracted ruthless looters. Now experts are seeking insight into the island's possible role as a major religious center of the enigmatic Cycladic civilization some 4,500 years ago.

Excavations will run April through June.

"Keros is one of the riddles of prehistoric archaeology," said Peggy Sotirakopoulou, curator of the Cycladic collection at the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens.

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Excavations in Antwerp reveal information about 19th century trade

Until the end of January archaeologists are investigating the remains of the 'Hanzehuis' (16th century) at the Hanzestedenplaats in Antwerp. The cellars in the basement proved to be preserved very well and reveal a lot of information about the 19th century system of cereal transportation. A lot of carbonized grains were retrieved. Other finds included stone fragments from the building's facade.

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St Paul's tries again with £1m request for lottery funding

St Paul's Cathedral, one of the most visited buildings in Britain, has so far missed out on lottery funding because it does not appeal to a "wide enough range of people".

An application for almost £9 million to the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) was withdrawn after fundraisers were advised that the restoration of England's most popular building "did not fulfil the criteria".

Yet the lottery fund approved a £15 million application for a glass pavilion and underground facilities made by St-Martin-in-the-Fields Church, in nearby Trafalgar Square.

St Paul's has now changed its plan, in an attempt to satisfy the criteria of appealing to a "wider audience", and intends to submit a £1 million application for an "interpretation and education centre" in the crypt.

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What a Viking's smile revealed

VIKING warriors may have filed deep grooves into their teeth to indicate class or military rank.

Caroline Arcini of Sweden's National Heritage Board analysed 557 skeletons from four major Viking-age Swedish cemeteries and discovered that around 10 per cent of men, but none of the women, bore horizontal grooves across the upper front teeth.

The marks, which were cut deep into the enamel, are often found in pairs or triplets and appear precisely made. They might have marked certain men as members of a group of tradesmen or warriors, or signified their ability to withstand pain, says Arcini, who published her findings in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology (DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.20164). Most of the men bearing the grooves were young, but in the absence of any distinctive injuries or artefacts buried with the skeletons, the exact reason for the marks remains a mystery.

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Braveheart killing 'topped bill at fair'

WILLIAM Wallace's execution was the opening attraction of a giant medieval carnival, according to research which sheds new light on the freedom fighter's death in August 1305.

The killing of 'Braveheart' Wallace, during which he was hanged, drawn and quartered, is now believed to have marked the opening of Bartholomew Fair - the largest medieval market in England, held annually for centuries to commemorate St Bartholomew's Day on August 24.

Tens of thousands flocked to Smithfield - the site of his execution - for the fortnight-long celebration, which featured vast cloth and meat markets as well as sideshows, musicians, wire-walkers, acrobats, puppets, freaks and wild animals.

The fair, which was first held in 1133, was unique in that everyone from peasants to the upper echelons of England's aristocracy attended. By the 18th century it was one of the most spectacular national and international events of the year. It ended in 1855.

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Rescue excavations during gas pipeline construction

The construction of a gas pipeline between Zandhoven and Weelde (prov. Antwerp) in 2005, was an excellent opportunity to carry out archaeological research on a regional scale. Several interesting sites were discovered during the rescue excavations, which finished in November. Mesolithic remains were attested in Ravels and Turnhout; at the latter site archaeologists found a pit with carbonised hazelnut remains. Another trench in Ravels revealed a ditch, the content of which included a lot of Bronze/Iron Age ceramics.

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Irish bog man liked to slick back with hair gel

The preserved remains of two prehistoric men discovered in an Irish bog have revealed a couple of surprises --- one used hair gel and the other stood 6 foot 6 inches high, the tallest Iron Age body discovered.

"He would have been a giant...the other man was quite short, about 5 foot 2 inches," said Ned Kelly, head of antiquities at the National Museum of Ireland.

"The shorter man appeared to attempt to give himself greater stature by a rather curious headdress which was a bit like a Mohican-style with the hair gel, which was a resin imported from France," Kelly told BBC radio.

Bacterial conditions found in the peat bogs preserved the remains so that even fingerprints were clearly visible.

The fashion-conscious gel wearer has been named Clonycavan Man and Kelly said the fact he was able to buy imported cosmetics suggests he was a wealthy member of Irish society about 2,300 years ago. The other was dubbed Oldcroghan Man.

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Monastic sculpture discovery puts Nobber on the map of attractions

A routine clean-up of an Irish country graveyard in County Meath has turned up a dozen stone artefacts dating back more than a thousand years.

Experts say they are astonished that the discovery, centring on monastic sculptures, should have been made by accident rather than through planned excavation.

The find includes complete crosses, several feet in height, together with the remains of larger crosses. All are sculpted with Christian depictions, some with geometric motifs.

The discovery was made in the village of Nobber, in Meath, a county rich in historical associations dating back 4,000 years. Archaeologists are excited by the discovery while local politicians envisage it as the basis for a new tourist attraction.

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MURDERED 2,500 YEARS AGO

Hair, flesh and eyes intact, the two bodies found in an Irish bog looked like recent IRA victims. But they were..

TORTURED, maimed and disembowelled, the two savagely slaughtered bodies were a grisly sight for the Irish peat bog workers who unearthed them.

One of the dead men was found in County Meath, Ireland. The other was discovered three months later, just 25 miles away in Co Offaly.

With soft flesh, fingernails, masses of red hair, teeth and eyeballs still intact, it seemed that the corpses had been freshly buried. And detectives thought they had stumbled across IRA victims. But when state pathologist Marie Cassidy saw the water-logged graves, she suspected the remains were much older than they seemed.

And today, after an 18-month investigation by an international team of experts, it has been revealed that the men were killed 2,500 years ago.

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DETECTOR PAN TO BE TOP OF THE POTS

A Rare Roman bronze pan dug up in the Staffordshire Moorlands by a metal detector enthusiast is to go on display. The Staffordshire Moorlands Patera will be exhibited at The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in Hanley from January 14 for 12 months.

The pan was unearthed by Kevin Blackburn of Uttoxeter while metal-detecting on farmland near Wetton in June 2003.

The Potteries Musuem, in Bethesda Street, Hanley, bought the find in partnership with The British Museum and Tullie House Museum in Carlisle, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The pan is thought to be more than 2,000 years old with unique Celtic-styled engravings and would have been bought as a souvenir of Hadrian's Wall.

Following the exhibition in Stoke-on-Trent the artefact will go on display at various venues around the UK throughout 2007.

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Archaeological excavations on the (Google) map

This week ArcheoNet launched a new website, which integrates information about archaeological excavations in Flanders with cartographic and satellite imagery. www.excavation.be is based on the Google Maps API. Markers were added as an overlay and indicate the precise location of the excavations. By clicking the markers, an information window is displayed, showing a relevant image, a short summary of the results of the excavations and a hyperlink to more extensive information elsewhere on the web. Visitors can zoom in real-time, click and drag maps and use the keyboard to move around...

www.excavation.be (currently only available in Dutch)

Researchers Discover Greek Temple In Albania Dating Back To 6th Century B.C.

Researchers from the University of Cincinnati’s Classics faculty are preparing to make their first public presentation of details surrounding their find of one of the earliest Greek temples in the Adriatic region north of Greece.

The UC researchers, along with colleagues from the International Centre for Albanian Archaeology and the Institute of Archaeology, Tirana, will be presenting on their new work on Friday, Jan. 6, 2006, in Montreal at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America.

"This is a case where a hunch about the potential of a site is paying off in the discovery of a temple that has extraordinary and singular importance to Albanian archaeology and to the history of Greek colonization in the Adriatic Sea region," says Jack L. Davis, the Carl W. Blegen Professor of Greek Archaeology at the University of Cincinnati and co-director of the international research team working at the site. "We are gaining the tools for an understanding of religious life in the 6th and 5th centuries B.C., a part of the early history of Apollonia of which little is known."

Presenting with Davis will be UC colleagues Sharon R. Stocker, Kathleen Lynch and Evi Gorogianni, along with Albanian researchers Iris Pojani and Vangjel Dimo.

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Iron Age 'bog bodies' unveiled

Archaeologists have unveiled two Iron Age "bog bodies" which were found in the Republic of Ireland.

The bodies, which are both male and have been dated to more than 2,000 years ago, probably belong to the victims of a ritual sacrifice.

In common with other bog bodies, they show signs of having been tortured before their deaths.

Details of the finds are outlined in a BBC Timewatch documentary to be screened on 20 January.

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Horseshoes found on Roman road

Archaeologists have unearthed a Roman road, a Bronze Age ditch and some medieval artefacts during major road improvement works in Wiltshire.

The historical remains - including three iron horseshoes - were found in the upper layers of the Roman road.

Archaeologist Neil Holbrook said the findings had been recorded and added: "The Romans didn't have horseshoes.

"We seem to have proved by the discovery that the road continued in use into the medieval period."

The works are being carried out on the A419 by the Highways Agency to create a flyover designed to cut congestion.

Roy Canham, an archaeologist for Wiltshire County Council said: "We can now prove that the route of the current A419 has been important for the last 2000 years."

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Kenilworth: cesspit

English Heritage has come under fire after submitting a planning application for a cess pit and soakaway for the controversial visitors centre at Kenilworth Castle.
Town councillors were also criticised this week for "sitting on their hands" as plans for the admissions centre came back to haunt them.

Historians and residents were angered when the council decided not to raise any objections to a planning application for the building in September. It was later passed by Warwick District Council's planning committee.

At the time Graham Gould of Kenilworth History and Archeology Society believed the proposals would mean digging up parts of the site to put in drainage, water and electricity mains and damage would be done to an important archeological area.
He said the application for a cess pit would be the first of many and town
councillors should have given the project far more thought.

He said: "When English Heritage gave a talk at the council house on plans for the admissions building, the town council held it in private. If they had had a joint meeting with the people of Kenilworth they would have known about this problem as it was discussed by me with English Heritage and at the time they had no answer."
Mr Gould, of Archer Road, added: "I asked at this meeting whether English Heritage had a problem with the Gatehouse where the salts and water were eroding the sandstone away. They agreed and I replied that if they had a soakaway at the admissions building it would have the same effect."

He added: "Now we will have to live with the error they made and as usual close the stable door after the horse has bolted."

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Alexander, Piece by Piece

In 2003, a team of artists from the International Center for the Study and Teaching of Mosaic (CISIM) in Ravenna, Italy, made an ambitious proposal to the archaeological superintendent of Pompeii: create an exact copy of the Alexander Mosaic and install it in its original home. More than two years, 16,000 hours of work, and $216,000 later, the most famous mosaic to survive from the ancient Roman world once again adorns Pompeii's House of the Faun.

One of the iconic images of the great Macedonian leader, the mosaic depicts a confrontation between Alexander and the Persian king Darius in the fourth century B.C. Since 1843, the mosaic has hung on the wall of the National Archaeological Museum in Naples, safe from the feet of Pompeii's two million plus yearly visitors, as well as from the rain and sun that have damaged the whole site. So why bring Alexander back to Pompeii? The House of the Faun was once Pompeii's biggest and most impressive urban villa, filled with simple but elegant decorations designed to demonstrate the vast wealth of the house's owners.

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Redating of the latest Neandertals in Europe

Two Neantertal fossils excavated from Vindija Cave in Croatia in 1998, believed to be the last surviving Neandertals, may be 3,000-4,000 years older than originally thought.

An international team of researchers involving Erik Trinkaus, Ph.D., the Mary Tileston Hemenway Professor of Anthropology in Arts & Sciences; Tom Higham and Christopher Bronk Ramsey of the Oxford University radiocarbon laboratory; Ivor Karavanic of the University of Zagreb; and Fred Smith of Loyola University, has redated the two Neandertals from Vindija Cave, the results of which have been published in the Jan. 2-6 early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The resultant ages are between 32,000 and 33,000 years ago, and perhaps slightly older. In 1998, the fossils had been radiocarbon dated to 28,000-29,000 years ago.

Since that time, the increasing application of direct radiocarbon dating to late Neandertal and early modern human fossils in Europe has greatly altered perceptions of the chronological relationships between Neandertals and modern humans during the time that the latter spread westward across Europe.

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Hera repair to smooth over tension

Rome, January 2 - An Italian archaeological team is patch together an ancient statue from Crete, restoring it to its original condition and helping smooth over political tension sparked by the breakage .

The statue of the goddess Hera, unearthed on the Greek island of Crete by the Italian Archaeological School, was broken last September while under Italian care, attracting extensive media coverage and resulting in parliamentary questions in both countries .

"The problem of the statue from the Roman Theatre in the town of Gortyn has now been resolved," said Anna Maria Reggiani, the head of the Italian Culture Ministry's archaeology department .

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The majestic standing stones of Callanish

TONE circles are evocative places and the stones at Callanish on the Isle of Lewis must be one of the most haunting. Not only is there the imposing physical presence of the stones and their spectacular landscape setting, there is also the atmosphere of mystery.

Callanish (or Calanais) is one of the larger stone settings of Britain. The stones tower to a height of nearly four metres and the main monument covers an area of some 5,000 square metres. The circle itself is relatively modest and comprises 13 upright stones with a huge megalith at the centre marking a later burial cairn. Callanish is set apart, however, by two things: The stone settings that run away from the circle in the form of a cross and the presence of at least six other stone circles in the vicinity.

The main monument at Callanish dates back to around 3,000 BC. Lewis at the time was populated by Stone Age farmers who lived in small villages dotted around these Outer Hebridean islands. At Callanish they quarried monoliths from local gneiss stone and erected them carefully in a circle. The stability of the monument was clearly important and low mounds of earth and stones were added to the base of each upright because of the problems of digging sufficiently deep sockets. The central stone was set in place at this time and it is likely that the three rows running away to south, east and west were added soon after, together with the avenue which today comprises 20 stones and runs to the north.

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Landscape road points towards legislation

Irish Times
Thu, Jan 05, 06

It is hard to understand why there is not a landscape law to preserve
our heritage, writes Michael Starrett

Ireland needs a Landscape (Ireland) Act. Not an Act to stifle
development, not an Act to fossilise our environment, but an Act which
focuses directly on what is Ireland's most important asset - where all
of us live, work and play and which contains all our natural and
cultural resources, ie our landscape.

Why we don't have such legislation already is hard to comprehend.
Providing it would be good for everyone who lives on or visits this
island.

The signposts have been pointing us in this legislative direction for a
long time. As far as the future well- being of our landscape is
concerned, we are most definitely at a major crossroads and have to
make a major choice.

Experience dictates that the choice should be the route marked
"legislation" and that if we take it everyone will benefit.

Why? Because it would give us a focus and structure in which we can
work to resolve all those current issues which today seem to make such
graphic headlines.

These include loss of farm incomes, decline in rural tourism, decline
in quality of life and many others too numerous to mention.

Why? Because it will bring us into line with every other European
country, and it will allow us to live up to the commitments we
undertook when Ireland ratified the European Landscape Convention.

Recent articles in the media have highlighted concerns about our
landscape. You really must have had your head in a fertiliser bag if
you are not aware of the coverage of our agricultural landscape.

The decline in farmers, the decline in farm incomes, the age profile,
the nitrate directive, the Common Agricultural Policy, the World Trade
Talks - they have all loomed and doomed large.

Similarly, the urbanisation of our tourism industry and the impact on
rural economies, the loss of traditional bed and breakfast
accommodation, difficulties of access to the hills and a lack of
provision for countryside recreation have all been cited as
contributory factors to the difficulties of keeping rural economies
diverse, healthy and dynamic.

In short, a healthy and dynamic rural economy equates to a diverse,
healthy and dynamic landscape.

That bag over your head would need to be particularly thick to leave
you unaware of the impact of new infrastructure on our landscape
(Tara), to say nothing of the debate on rural housing (everywhere),
village design and heaven forbid, sustainable development.

Let's face it, landscape is very relevant to our everyday lives. We all
live, work and play in a landscape. Surely something so significant
deserves to be looked after in the best way possible and be the subject
of a particular focus. Our democracies work through legislation, which
is what our leaders use to focus, to provide finance and structures to
make the democracy work. It all sounds so simple.

If I look at the last 10 years, the case for new legislation for our
landscape has been carefully constructed to a point where the
blindingly obvious decision now needs to be taken. This is not to
criticise any existing systems or legislative provisions, such as our
Planning Acts. It is just to say that if we are to resolve current
issues, new approaches and new legislation are needed.

Imagine a world where an area where you lived could be designated under
legislation.With the designation would come a package of measures and a
commitment to develop and work to an agreed set of objectives. These
would focus on retaining and enhancing the quality of the landscape in
which you live.

The character of the area (what makes it different and diverse) would
be agreed and a structure would be put in place to work specifically
towards, and allow, development of that character.

This would be through a package of rural development (including
tourism) measures related to keeping that landscape vibrant, diverse,
dynamic and healthy by associating it with a vibrant, diverse, dynamic
and healthy rural economy. A group of staff dedicated to the task (and
not responsible for a plethora of other activities) would be working to
make it happen.

They would also be accountable if it didn't.

Imagining that world is not so far-fetched. The Heritage Council has
already offered assistance to one local authority to develop the model.
All it has to do is say yes.

I have just completed three years as president of a European federation
which has more than 300 members in 40 countries all committed to the
conservation, management and development of their landscapes. They make
it work. Why can't we?

Michael Starrett is chief executive of the Heritage Council.

WRITE TO: lettersed@irish-times.ie

See Also Hill of Tara Info

Treasure trove in city centre

Pam's honour Work on a controversial car park in Lichfield city centre ground to a halt over the festive period after archaeologists uncovered a treasure trove on the site.

Renovation works to transform the Cross Keys Car Park into a split level facility have been ongoing since November last year but have now been set back by at least four weeks after the archaeological find.

Items uncovered include ancient pottery relics, wall foundations and a the remains of boundary pits on the site.

Work on the site was set to be completed by spring this year but have been put on hold while the archaeological team carry out further investigations on the site.

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Viewers get royal tour of our historic palaces

Viewers are getting a fascinating insight into life at Hampton Court Palace, above, in a 10-week BBC series which began on Tuesday.

Cameras for Tales From the Palaces followed teams at five historic royal palaces over a year, going behind the scenes and meeting the skilled people who keep them for the public's enjoyment and enlightenment.

All five, including Hampton Court, Kew Palace and the Tower of London, are no longer supported by the monarchy or taxpayers.

Episode one, entitled The Detectives, aired on BBC Two on Tuesday and looked at what palaces tell us about past monarchs and people who have shaped society.

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The ancient city of Aptera

Above the entrance to the great harbour of Souda, where Paleokastro stands today, near the village of Megala Chorafia, the extensive ruins of the ancient city of Aptera (also referred to as Apteria, Apterea, or Aptaria) can be found. The name Aptera according to one tradition derives from Apteron, king of Crete, son of Kydon and father of Lappios, who is said to have lived in the time of Moses around 1800 BC.

The legend of Apteron lends itself to the suggestion that the city was once a colonial settlement governed by the Dorian Apteros or Aptaros who took part in the occupation of Crete towards the end of the Minoan era.

Alternative legends claim the city of Aptera took its name following a musical competition between the Muses and the Sirens held in the Temple of the Muses. At the time of the competition the city which was to become Aptera was renowned as a centre far musical expertise.

The Muses emerged as victors of the competition, a defeat which left the Sirens in such a distressed state that their feathers fell out into the sea, where they were transformed into the small ‘white islands’, in Souda Bay. It is from this legend that the city takes its name, Aptera meaning wingless.

The builder of Aptera is believed to have been Glaukos. Archaeological digs in the ancient city by Wescher in 1862-4 unearthed inscriptions confirming the position of Aptera on the site of Paleokastro - Megala Chorafia. Further archaeological digs were undertaken in 1942 involving amongst others the Italian archaeologists Mariani and Savignoni.

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Castle's exhibition a massive success

A staggering 50,000-plus people have visited Norwich Castle's Buried Treasure event - the best attendance at an exhibition in the past decade.

With just two weekends to go until it closes, it could be the last chance to see so many incredible discoveries - many of which have never been shown outside London before - under one roof in Norfolk.

It includes the greatest treasure finds ever made in this country, such as the Hoxne Treasure, the Mildenhall Treasure and the Cuerdale Hoard, together with finds such as the recently discovered Amesbury Archer burial.

Charles Wilde, marketing and visitor services manager, said: "More people have seen this exhibition than any other exhibition in the last 10 years. Since it opened we've issued more than 50,000 tickets giving access to the exhibition, and visitor response has been tremendous. Norwich Castle is the final venue in a national tour that has taken treasure from London's British Museum to Cardiff, Manchester and Newcastle."

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Treasures of Cyprus found in friend's attic

AN AMATEUR archaeologist has discovered an important hoard of ancient Cypriot artefacts dating back more than 2,000 years in a Cheshire loft.

James Balme, from Warrington, found the treasure, including pottery vessels bearing the earliest Christian symbols, while clearing a friend's attic.

The artefacts were brought back from the Greek island in the 1960s and stored in the attic as "holiday trinkets".

Now Mr Balme believes the hoard dates back to the Byzantine period and could be worth thousands of pounds, after returning from a two-week fact-finding mission to Cyprus.

He said: "I was astounded by the evidence I uncovered in Cyprus. I have no doubt whatsoever that the hoard discovered in Lymm is totally genuine and its archaeological value is priceless.

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AN AMBITIOUS project to uncover the Viking heritage of Britain's most northerly island

AN AMBITIOUS project to uncover the Viking heritage of Britain's most northerly island will go ahead later this year now the final piece of funding has been secured.

Shetland Amenity Trust is planning to excavate a number of Viking longhouses on Unst, as well as reconstructing one of the island's farm houses with an interpretation centre. A replica longship will also be displayed.

The Viking Unst project is expected to give the island a major boost in developing a stronger tourism sector in the hope of replacing some of the economic decline that is caused by the closure of the island's RAF camp, at Saxa Vord.

The project has just received confirmation of £109,424 from the European Agriculture Guidance and Guarantee Funding (EAGGF) scheme.

Unst, which is said to be one of the first landfalls made by the Vikings when they arrived from Norway 1200 years ago, has the greatest density of surviving of Viking farms anywhere.

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Professor Maurice Beresford

Historian whose painstaking work on deserted medieval communites led to his celebrated book the Lost Villages of England
MAURICE BERESFORD was the first Professor of Economic History at the University of Leeds, a post he held from 1959 to 1985, having been a member of staff from 1948. He was a historian of enormous energy and originality, whose work was characterised by a consuming interest in time and place.

While an undergraduate at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he took firsts in both parts of the tripos, he wrote a term paper for John Saltmarsh on the parkland of his home town, Sutton Coldfield. This led to his first publications and fused a lifetime’s interest in the interactions of landscape and historical documents, particularly maps.

This developed through work on the processes of parliamentary enclosure, helping to correct older conspiracy theories; linking fieldwork to documents to prove “corduroy” patterns in grassland as evidence of medieval ploughing and, most strikingly, in the study of the deserted medieval village (DMV), where again field remains, aerial photographs, sample digging and classic documentahttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
insert linkry techniques led to The Lost Villages of England (1954), his most famous book.

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Graveyard yields secrets of ancient world

Residents of the village of Nobber, north Meath, in the Republic of Ireland, stumbled upon archaeological treasure when they decided to clean up an old graveyard.

Now they are hoping that tombs in the shape of Celtic crosses, dating back 1100 years, will put them on the map, alongside such famous archeological sites as Newgrange.

Until recently, the graveyard in the village of Nobber, about two hours' drive from Dublin, was overgrown with weeds and briars.

It is surrounded by evergreen trees and bushes, a church that has fallen into disrepair and the remains of a medieval monastery.

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Answers sought to ancient gold coin mystery

One of two surviving golden coins stamped during the period of the foundation of the Kingdom of Pergamon is being exhibited at the Ereğli Archaeology Museum in Konya.

Ereğli Archaeology Museum Director Mehmet Bilici said the golden coins' importa...


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Engineers save 800 year old abbey wall

THE latest engineering technology was used to save part of an 800-year-old abbey from collapsing.

Instead of dismantling part of Cymer - the Cistercian abbey near Dolgellau - powerful hydraulic presses backed up by adjustable steel supports were brought in to push the wall back.

The painstaking operation was launched after the condition of the 20ft high and 80ft long north arcade wall deteriorated.

Last night the operation was hailed as a major engineering achievement.

A spokesman for Cadw, the organisation responsible for the upkeep of historic sites and monuments in Wales, said a structural survey identified "discernible movement".

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Byzantine underground city and cistern unearthed in Talas

An underground city and cistern dating to the Byzantine era have been discovered at the foot of Mt. Ali in the Talas district of Kayseri.

Talas Mayor Rıfat Yıldrım said archaeologists have so far unearthed 300 meters of the underground city and that the cistern is estimated to be 60 meters in length and 5 meters wide.

Noting that they had initiated excavations following reports of the existence of a city and cistern, Yıldırım said: �We have unearthed parts of the underground city but must be very careful not to cause any damage. We have informed the Culture and Tourism Ministry, and studies will be initiated here in line with a project to be drawn up by the ministry.�

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The majestic standing stones of Callanish

STONE circles are evocative places and the stones at Callanish on the Isle of Lewis must be one of the most haunting. Not only is there the imposing physical presence of the stones and their spectacular landscape setting, there is also the atmosphere of mystery.

Callanish (or Calanais) is one of the larger stone settings of Britain. The stones tower to a height of nearly four metres and the main monument covers an area of some 5,000 square metres. The circle itself is relatively modest and comprises 13 upright stones with a huge megalith at the centre marking a later burial cairn. Callanish is set apart, however, by two things: The stone settings that run away from the circle in the form of a cross and the presence of at least six other stone circles in the vicinity.

The main monument at Callanish dates back to around 3,000 BC. Lewis at the time was populated by Stone Age farmers who lived in small villages dotted around these Outer Hebridean islands. At Callanish they quarried monoliths from local gneiss stone and erected them carefully in a circle. The stability of the monument was clearly important and low mounds of earth and stones were added to the base of each upright because of the problems of digging sufficiently deep sockets. The central stone was set in place at this time and it is likely that the three rows running away to south, east and west were added soon after, together with the avenue which today comprises 20 stones and runs to the north.

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Major Bronze Age tool discovery

Archaeologists have uncovered hundreds of Bronze Age tools on a Somerset building site.

About 800 items, including arrow heads, scraping knives and flint blades were found at the former hunting site.

Experts have hailed the discovery, from more than 4,000 years ago, as one of the most important finds in the Somerset area in recent times.

The tools were first found by workers at the Silk Mills Bridge construction site near Taunton.

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I am a mole and I live in... a Roman villa

A family of destructive moles has been hailed as "budding amateur archaeologists" after being credited with discovering a Roman villa.

The burrowing moles unearthed fragments of Roman tiles which were deposited in molehills in fields around the Cotswold village of Withington, Gloucestershire.

Home owner Roger Box, 54, a former forensic archaeologist, became interested by the fragments littering a field at the back of his garden and contacted friends at Channel 4's Time Team archaeology programme.

Researchers were dispatched to the site in August last year and, after extensive research and exploration, an Anglo-Romano villa, which could date back to the third century AD, was unearthed.

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The first baby boom

Skeletal evidence shows abrupt worldwide increase in birth rate during Neolithic period
In an important new study assessing the demographic impact of the shift from foraging to farming, anthropologists use evidence from 60 prehistoric American cemeteries to prove that the invention of agriculture led to a significant worldwide increase in birth rate.

Discussing the shifts in the demographic patterns before and after the introduction of agriculture in Europe at the end of the Stone Age, Jean-Pierre Bocquet-Appel (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, France) writes, "The signal of a demographic change we detected … is characterized by an abrupt 20 to 30 percent increase, over 500 to 700 years, in the proportion of immature skeletons."

While prior research has been done on the Neolithic Demographic Transition, as the increase in birth rate is known, Bocquet-Appel and Stephan Naji are the first researchers to expand the theory to a worldwide scale. In a forthcoming study in Current Anthropology, they show that though agriculture did not appear in the Americas until 7,000 – 8,000 years later, the archaeological evidence parallels the changes in Europe and North Africa that occurred with the advent of agriculture.

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FROM MARY ROSE TO FRIDA KAHLO - 2005 ACCORDING TO 24 HOUR MUSEUM

To keep up with the ever-moving, ever-evolving UK cultural sector, you’d think the 24 Hour Museum would need to do what it says on the web page and work 24 hours a day.

And you wouldn’t be wrong. Like a round the clock news channel for museums, galleries, culture and heritage we bring you the very latest news, exhibitions and major events: 2005 has been no exception.

From Dundee to Liskeard, Swansea to Great Yarmouth our team of journalists – staff, students and volunteers alike – has worked tirelessly to get the lowdown on archaeological discoveries, take a look at blockbuster exhibitions and tip you off about top museum events in your area.

Below are just a few of the stories we ran during the past year that we’re particularly proud of. So, if you will, cast your mind back to January and an archaeological discovery of vast significance.

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A CULTURALLY WIDENING WEB - WEBSITES OF THE YEAR 2005

2005 saw masses of culture and heritage going digital, from the People's Network to the sixth century village of West Mucking. © Museums, Libraries and Archives Council

The last year, 2005, has seen a remarkable number of cultural digitisation projects both launched and secure funding. A plethora of fantastic websites devoted to hidden histories, art and archaeology have been made available to the public, and the World Wide Web is a better place for it.

It’s been a particularly good year for multicultural Britain on the Internet, with several new websites devoted to telling the story of people whose roots lie outside this country.

Untold London, launched in October (Black History Month), celebrates the capital’s diverse communities by documenting all the exhibitions and archives that relate to other cultures. It was built and designed by System Simulation and the 24 Hour Museum in partnership with the London Museums Hub, and is edited by Kate Smith.

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Add an Archaeological News Digest to your Website

Thanks to FeedDigest, you can easily add a news digest to your website that will present the latest archaeological news headlines with links to articles in the Archaeology in Europe Weblog.

Click here for further details…

WE FOUND A VILLA UNDER A MOLEHILL

Channel 4's Time Team have unearthed some fascinating ancient finds in Britain's fields.

But the discovery of their latest Roman settlement in the Cotswolds was not the result of academic research. Instead, experts on the TV show have moles to thank for digging up stones from an ancient villa.

They burrowed their way through a remote, unploughed two-acre field near Withington - and churned up what looked like unremarkable stone cubes.

When local archaeologist Roger Box stumbled across the molehills by chance, he had a hunch they marked the spot of a major hidden treasure.

Recognising the stones as mosaic cubes, he called in the Time Team.

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Teesside skull one of UK's oldest

The remains of Teesside's (England) oldest man, at 5,230 years old, were found on Coatham beach by a local butcher as he exercised his dog and he had no doubt that the grey dish-shaped bone was from the back of a human skull. Detectives were called in but with the help of one of the world's top forensic anthropologists, they discovered the skull of the 30-year-old man was Neolithic.

Detective Constable Chris Marchant, of Cleveland Police, said: "Carbon dating has pinpointed the age but the scientist who looked at it was also able to give us the sex and age of the individual. She was able to tell us that there are no signs of any traumatic injury and the bone appears to have become detached from the rest of the skull through natural processes." Marine growth on the bone suggests that it has been in the sea for some time and the consensus among experts is that it probably came from an ancient burial ground that has been eroded by the sea.

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Germany reopens its 6,800-year-old mystery circle

Germany has constructed a replica of a mysterious wooden circle that is believed to be a temple of the sun built by a lost culture 6,800 years ago.

The circle of posts, in a flat river plain at Goseck south of Berlin, has mystified scientists since its discovery in 1991 by an archaeologist studying the landscape from the air. An excavation found post holes and what may be the remains of ritual fires.

Goseck has been dubbed the German Stonehenge, though it is twice as old as the Stonehenge megalithic circle in southern England and has no stones. The original wood rotted away long ago, but new palisades, or wooden walls, were constructed at Goseck this year.

In a public works scheme, 2,300 oaken poles were erected in a circle on the same site over a seven-month period, with gateways opening to the points of the compass where the sun rises and sets on December 21.

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Centuries-Old Religious Secret Uncovered in Portugal

The mystery began unraveling when Father Agostinho Jardim Moreira, a Roman Catholic priest, bought a four-story house for use as an old people's home for his parish. When workers told him they had come across a false wall, he told them to pull it down. "I suspected that false wall was hiding something," he said. "I knew there had to be some kind of Jewish symbol behind it."

Few people ever knew, but the murky medieval alleyways of the Atlantic port city of Porto, Portugal, once provided cover for a persecuted minority that risked being burnt at the stake.
In the 16th century, an unremarkable thick-walled granite house that still stands in a row of narrow, small-roomed buildings along a cobbled street held a dangerous secret. At the back of the house, steep steps lead down to a warren of alleys ideal for conspiratorial comings and goings that helped keep an outlawed religious ceremony hidden.

Four centuries later, the secret of the clandestine synagogue is out.

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On a mission to explore deepest Lycia

Where Greek language has left its mark

The agora in ancient Oeonoanda, where scattered stones bear Greek inscriptions.

Children play in the dirt between humble abodes with tin roofs, as carts, donkeys and farm vehicles pass by. We assure the owner of the yard where we know there is an inscribed stone that we have the permission of the Culture Ministry.

He warmly welcomes us with tea as the neighbors gather. I try to persuade him that it is not necessary to cut down the rose bush and the tree growing in front of the tombstone bearing a relief of a youth’s head. The children want to know the language of the inscription, carved in Ancient Greek about 18 centuries ago.

We are in ancient Cibyratica, at the site of the ancient city of Bubona, at an altitude of about 1,000 meters, less than 100 kilometers from the southwest Turkish coast, in the village of Ibecik. It is here that a group of beautiful bronze statues was discovered, the only group of its kind ever to be found dating from Roman times. Unearthed during illegal excavation, they are now exhibited in foreign museums. We — a research team from Heidelberg and Athens — are the only visitors to the area, and we come every year.

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No Saxon find for archaeologists

Archaeologists who started excavations to uncover the remains of an ancient Saxon rotunda have been disappointed.

A radar scan of Grange Court, in Leominster, showed what the team believed to be a 1,000-year-old round church and a dig began in August.

At the time the area, which is used as a council car park, was hailed as a site of international importance.

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Aerial photographers map archaeological sites

Archaeologists call it the Persian carpet effect.

Imagine you’re a mouse running across an elaborately decorated rug. The ground would merely be a blur of shapes and colors. You could spend your life going back and forth, studying an inch at a time, and never see the patterns.

Like a mouse on a carpet, an archaeologist painstakingly excavating a site might easily miss the whole for the parts. That’s where the work of aerial photographers like Georg Gerster comes in.

For four decades, Gerster, 77, has been flying over sites from the Parthenon to Ayers Rock to provide archaeologists with the big picture. Seen from high above, even the most familiar turf can appear transformed, with a coherence and detail invisible on the ground.

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Archaelogical finds in motorway testing

A number of archaeological finds were made in testing in the Borris in Ossory area for the M7 motorway, according to information from the NRA circulated at the recent Council area meeting.

Within the early medieval ringfort at Derrinsallagh a quantity of flints and pottery dating from the Neolithic period were revealed, suggesting that this early medieval site had earlier beginnings in the prehistoric period.

At Shanboe, a series of fulachta fiadh, low mounds of burnt stone, together with pits troughs, stakeholes for widbreaks and a possible structure have been excavated. A very fine chert arrowhead was discovered in close proximity to one of the larger fulachta fiadh which was excavated.

An unknown ringfort at Derrinsallagh beside an existing road was revealed during testing. The present road cuts the ringfort in half, and the ditch of the ringfort still exists under the road. The ringfort consists of a ditch1.50m deep and 2.50-3m wide, and an area of about 40m diameter is enclosed. Few archaeological features were found within the ringfort, but close to the north a very fine corndrying kiln has been excavated.

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Restoration of medieval manor house opens up a mystery

Turn right off a quintessentially dull suburban parade of shops and 1930s houses, down a lane past the scrapyard and the playing fields, and there is something so bizarre it seems a hallucination: a medieval manor house, still surrounded by a moat and flanked by its tithe barn, as it has been for almost 700 years.

Headstone Manor is a treasure that most outsiders have never known and most people in the Middlesex suburb of Harrow had forgotten. "Secular buildings of this date are extremely rare anywhere," said Stephen Brindle, an ancient monuments inspector for English Heritage. "To find it surviving here is quite extraordinary." Half a lifetime ago the timber-framed 1310 hall was about to fall to bits: it was stripped of roof tiles, floors and plaster down to a skeletal frame, then wrapped in scaffolding and corrugated plastic. English Heritage offered a grant for restoration, and the local heritage trust raised £50,000, but the rest of the money could not be found. The building, designated a scheduled ancient monument, remained wrapped up for over 20 years.

Two years ago it was realised that the house was decaying fast. The grant was reactivated, and the council found £750,000. Although well over another £1m will have to be found for the interiors and the moat and garden, the building is now supported by a steel frame and can be opened to the public for the first time.

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The dawn of new beginnings despite the lack of sunshine

THE sun didn’t shine but that did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of those who gathered at Newgrange to walk in the footsteps of the ancients on solstice day.

January 1 is on it’s way but for many who make the pilgrimage to the 5,000 year ago monument, sunrise on December 21 is the dawn of new beginnings.

They came from far and wide, seasoned solstice watchers and wide eyed first timers, in the hope of catching the first rays of sunlight peeping over the black hill of Donore.

The rain clouds refused to budge but the crowd of about 200 jovial onlookers savoured the moment anyway, pleased just to be there.

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Romania Returns Confiscated Palace To Church

The Romanian government officially returned a medieval palace and museum to the country's German Evangelical Church today, more than 50 years after the property was confiscated by the former communist regime.


The agreement makes the Evangelical Church co-owner of the Brukenthal National Museum, along with the Culture Ministry.

The church will regain control over all confiscated art collections in the museum when an inventory is completed next year.

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Sonderausstellung »100.000 Jahre Sex« in Dresden wird verlängert

Die Sonderausstellung »100.000 Jahre Sex« im Japanischen Palais konnte bereits über 15.000 Besucher zählen. Nun wird sie nach einer Umbauphase verlängert.

Nach Ablauf der regulären Spielzeit am 8.1.2006 wird die Ausstellung aufgrund der Baumaßnahmen im Japanischen Palais umgestellt und dann vom 20.1. - 23.4.2006 weiter zu sehen sein - nun im Nordflügel des Museums.

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Further division emerges in Tara Valley campaign

THERE has been further disagreement in the Save Skryne Tara Valley campaign with the group’s PRO, Dr Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin, resigning from the group over differences about the alternatives the group is proposing for the M3 motorway.

While Dr Ni Bhrolchain a lecturer in Celtic studies at NUI Maynooth, will continue to oppose the route passing the Hill of Tara, she says she does not want to be tied to one specific alternative route over another.

She became PRO of the Save Skryne Tara Valley campaign last summer after Vincent Salafia resigned from the position to pursue the issue through the courts. That hearing is scheduled to begin in the High Court on 12th January next and is expected to last six days.

The Group favours a Multiway Plan by a transport researcher, Brian Guckian, over other alternatives and continues to promote that plan and to examine European legal avenues.

“The Multiway Plan is an excellent alternative to a single tolled road but it is not the only alternative to putting a motorway through the Gabhra Valley,” Dr Ni Bhrolchain said. “I would rather not be tied to or committed to one specific alternative over another.”

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Castle scheme goes up a gear

THE £3m. scheme to transform Clitheroe Castle into a premier all-weather visitor attraction is beginning to move forward.

Council leaders and campaigners are gearing themselves up to raise the £700,000 shortfall needed for match funding in the next 12 months.

Mr John Heap, Ribble Valley Borough Council's community services director, is determined to raise the outstanding sum.

"There is a lot of confidence between us that we will hit the target," he commented.
"We think this is the right way forward that the prime attraction in Clitheroe is well preserved and enhanced for future generations.

"The project to revamp the Castle is a celebration of Clitheroe's history and we are determined to meet the total over the next 12 months."

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Historic finds halt car park

Archaeological finds at a car park in a Midlands city centre are set to delay a redevelopment project by four weeks. Excavation work in advance of expansion of Cross Keys car park, near Stowe Pool, Lichfield, has uncovered a number of items.

The car park was closed last month for the start of a project to nearly double the number of parking spaces it provides. The work, which will involve lowering the ground level and adding a deck to increase the number of space from 136 to 268, was due to take until May.

The completion date now looks set to be put back by the discovery of what are thought to be the remains of a Saxon building.

Lichfield District Council development services chief Councillor Neil Robertsa said: "Whilst undertaking the necessary excavations for the redevelopment of the Cross Keys car park, as had always been agreed, archaeologists were present, and have subsequently identified a number of items of interest.

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Trip down Roman roads for youngsters

NORTHUMBERLAND youngsters are reliving their history thanks to a £90,000 grant
from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).

The grant, part of a £138million cash injection over 11 years in the North East by the HLF. meant more than 1,170 school kids from across the county have been exploring the area's rich Roman history thanks.

The Museum of Antiquities at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne used the grant to fund its Flavinus-Reticulum project, specifically designed for children, who would not otherwise have the opportunity to visit a museum.
Youngsters aged five to 11 from isolated or deprived areas across Northumberland have been able to develop a greater understanding of life in the county during the Roman period through a combination of museum visits and the internet.
The HLF grant has enabled museum staff to work with 35 schools in both the museum and the classroom, giving children the opportunity to handle artefacts and explore local historical themes and ideas.

Teacher, Eileen Morgan from Eglingham C of E First School, said: "The project was excellent. The children got and an in-depth view of Roman life through the knowledge of the museum's experts.
"They gained a real understanding of the role of artefacts in history and exploring the past. The project is very worthwhile and successfully brings history to life."

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Calls to dig into village’s rich archaelogical past

THERE have been calls for an archaeological dig to take place in Stonehouse.

In the past there have been attempts to get digs arranged, as the village has a number of historical sites of interest, but so far none have taken place.

Fred McDermid, of Boghall Road, is one resident who thinks it’s time for a dig in Stonehouse, which has records dating back to the ninth century.

He said: “We hear regularly about archaeological digs taking place in various parts of the country which reveal finds of great interest. How about one in Stonehouse? This village has a very long history and there must be a great deal of history to be revealed.

“For instance, we know that St. Ninian was born in 360 AD and died in 432 AD.

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Traces of tsunami in ancient city of Patara

Archaeologists claim that an ancient lighthouse located in the ancient city of Patara on Antalya's Mediterranean coast might have been destroyed by a tsunami that hit the region in ancient times.

The ruins of the lighthouse were discovered two years ago during excavations that are still under way in Patara.

Professor Havva İşkan Işık, head of Akdeniz University's archaeology department, which is conducting studies in the ancient city, said they believed the lighthouse was destroyed by a tsunami since a human skeleton was found among the ruins.

Işek said the skeleton could belong to a lighthouse keeper who was trying to escape a tsunami but was crushed under the lighthouse's stone blocks.

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Police nab pensioner's looted art

Italian police have seized nearly 9,000 ancient artefacts from a 74-year-old pensioner who sold looted antiquities at a flea market in Rome.

Police stopped the man on Monday night and found three bags full of Etruscan and Roman pieces in his car. They also searched his house where they discovered a laboratory to clean and restore the antiquities, as well as what they described as the classic tomb raider's kit, including three metal detectors.

Among the 8,972 pieces seized were ancient terracotta vases, amphorae, masks, clay and bronze statues and parts of marble columns.

The man, whose name was not given, used to sell bric-a-brac at Rome's popular Porta Portese market. But customers in the know were offered much more prized samples from a collection "worthy of an archaeology museum", police said.

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Ex-hostage's Iraq return angers her rescue team

THE German Government angrily rebuked a former hostage yesterday who is determined to return to Iraq despite being held captive for three weeks by a Sunni gang.

Susanne Osthoff, a 43-year-old archaeologist, announced this week on al-Jazeera television that she would go back to her work in northern Iraq, trying to set up a German cultural centre in Arbil.

Angela Merkel’s new Government, which regards the freeing of Frau Osthoff this month as its first foreign policy triumph, is furious. It made huge efforts to secure her release and is widely believed to have paid a ransom.

It has now blocked all funding for her project and has told her that she should leave the region immediately. She is believed currently to be in Jordan, with her 12-year-old daughter, preparing to return.

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Secret synagogue uncovered

A chance discovery during renovations of a building in this Atlantic port city has revealed a dark secret from Portugal's past: a 16th-century synagogue.

Built at a time when Portugal's Jews had been forced to convert to Catholicism or risk being burned at the stake, the house of worship was hidden behind a false wall in a four-story house that Father Agostinho Jardim Moreira, a Roman Catholic priest, was converting into a home for his old-age parishioners.

A scholar of Porto's Jewish history, he says that as soon as the workers told him of the wall, "I knew there had to be some kind of Jewish symbol behind it."

His hunch was confirmed when the wall came down to reveal a carved granite repository, about five feet tall, arched at the top and facing east toward Jerusalem. It was the ark where the medieval Jews kept their Torah scrolls. Pieces of decorative green tiles in the ark further confirmed the age of the ark when experts dated their glazing to a method used in the 16th century.

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Gozo’s unique archaeological treasures to return home

It is expected that the unique archaeological artefacts, that were discovered during excavations at the Gozo Stone Circle in Xaghra, will be returned to Gozo next year, following the installation by the Gozo Ministry of state-of-the-art showcases at the Gozo Museum of Archaeology, one of the four museums in the Citadel that are managed by Heritage Malta.

The Department of Information said yesterday that nine state-of-the-art showcases, procured through the Structural Funds for Malta 2004-2006, specifically under the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), will be installed at the Museum of Archaeology by the middle of next year.

These showcases offer the maximum protection and security possible for these unique artefacts, including shatter-proof glass displays and a climate-controlled environment. Moreover, they add to the enjoyment of the visitor through an improved presentation of the island’s archaeological heritage.

These showcases will allow artefacts from the Gozo Stone Circle to be put on permanent display in Gozo for the first time.

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An Italian Financial Police officer shows seized ancient Roman and Etruscan artifacts

An Italian Financial Police officer shows seized ancient Roman and Etruscan artifacts during a press conference in Rome, Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2005. Police said they had seized nearly 9,000 ancient artifacts from a 74-year-old retiree who sold the illegally excavated pieces at a local market. (AP Photo/Dario Pignatelli)

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Susanne Osthoff and Her Discontents

It remains to be seen whether former hostage Susanne Osthoff really will go back to Iraq, but whatever she decides, her actions and comments since her release have done little to endear her to the German public or press.

Reports in the media on Tuesday that Susanne Osthoff, a former hostage in Iraq, had expressed the wish to return to that country were greeted with disbelief and consternation in Germany. On Monday the 43-year-old archaeologist had given her first interview since her Dec. 19 release to the Arab TV station Al Jazeera and had apparently indicated that she planned to go back to take up her aid work. However, on Tuesday afternoon, speaking to the German TV station ZDF, she denied that she had no clear plans to return to Iraq. The confusion was blamed on an initial inaccurate translation of the interview. Al Jazeera has now released a full transcript in English.

Regardless of whether she returns to Iraq, Osthoff seems to have squandered much of the goodwill she had enjoyed in Germany during and immediately after her captivity. Her interpretation of the kidnapping itself, which she describes as "political" rather than criminal, has raised more than a few eyebrows. And her refusal to return to Germany (from Jordan, where ZDF says she "plausibly" is), or to contact her own family, has been held with a dim view by some. The tabloid Bild asks why she hasn't called her mother: "Every time the phone calls it must be hell for her."

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Newport: Study of ancient burial grounds recommends more indepth research

Indepth research into the history of one of the oldest graveyards in the region has been recommended following a preliminary study of the ancient burial grounds.

The findings of the preliminary study which has traced burials back for more than 250 years have been published in the 2005 Newport News Parish Annual which went on sale in the area over the past week, and with 184 pages is one of the largest published by the committee of over the past quarter of a century.

The study which was carried out by a native of the area, Patrick J. Ryan, M.Phil. Archaeologist, Chairman of the Classical Association of Ireland is the most comprehensive publication to date of the history of the church and burial grounds at Ballymackeogh. It was carried out on the invitation of the Newport Historical and Archaeological Society to which the author has lectured on a number of occasions.

The twelve page account of the findings, includes drawings and photographs of some of the most important features which were identified in the study and concludes with the recommendation that in consultation with the grave owners and the relevant heritage officer the conservation and preservation of the site should be undertaken to alleviate further damage to the church structure and existing inscriptions.

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Further problems for Getty Trust

The troubled J. Paul Getty Trust has been put on probation by the US body responsible for charitable foundations.

The trust, which oversees the famous Getty Museum in Los Angeles, failed to hand over information needed for a review of its financial practices.

The 60-day probation carries no penalties but is a further blow to the trust which recently returned artworks that were allegedly stolen from Italy.

An ex-curator of the Getty museum was charged with trafficking last month.

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Priest's hunch finally uncovers Porto's hidden holy scrolls

Few people ever knew, but the medieval alleys of the Portuguese city of Porto on the Atlantic coast once provided cover for a persecuted minority at risk of being burnt at the stake.

In the 16th century, a thick-walled granite house that still stands in a row of narrow buildings along a cobbled street held a dangerous secret. At the back, steep steps lead down to a warren of alleys ideal for conspiratorial comings and goings that helped keep an outlawed religious ceremony hidden.

Four centuries later, the secret of the synagogue is out. The mystery began unravelling when Fr Agostinho Jardim Moreira, a Catholic priest, bought the four-storey house for use as an old people's home for his parish. When construction workers told him they had come across a false wall, he told them to pull it down - sensing a hidden tale.

He had studied the city's Jewish history and knew his parish had been a Jewish quarter in the 15th and 16th centuries. He also knew that, after they were forced to convert to Catholicism in 1496, many Jews privately kept their faith and worshipped in secret. "I suspected that false wall was hiding something," said Fr Moreira. "I knew there had to be some kind of Jewish symbol behind it."

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Bronze Age find is treasure trove

A hoard of Bronze Age artefacts which had been discovered in a garden has been declared treasure trove.

The items which include spears, sword parts and axe heads were discovered in Shane Targett's garden in Eaton, near Norwich, last April.

The 149 artefacts, which date back to 800BC, are believed to be from a local foundry and are worth about £10,000.

On Wednesday, Coroner Bill Armstrong described the artefacts as a "significant and substantial find".

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Cloud cover ruins annual Newgrange solstice spectacle

Cloud cover has prevented the sun from shining into the ancient passage tomb at Newgrange in Co Meath today.

Around 30 lucky people had secured access to the monument to watch the rising sun illuminating the central chamber on the shortest day of the year.

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Stonehenge marks winter solstice

Hundreds of people gathered at Stonehenge on Tuesday to celebrate the winter solstice.

A crowd of around 600 braved the cold and cloudy conditions in the hope of witnessing sunrise at the prehistoric site in Wiltshire.

A further 60 also celebrated the solstice at the ancient stone circle at Avebury, also in Wiltshire.

The Winter solstice is the cause for a pagan celebration held on the shortest day of the year.

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Germany to reopen 6,800-year-old mystery circle

At the winter solstice this week, Germany is to open a replica of a mysterious wooden circle that is believed to be a temple of the sun built by a lost culture 6,800 years ago.

The circle of posts, in a flat river plain at Goseck south of Berlin, has mystified scientists since its discovery in 1991 by an archaeologist studying the landscape from the air. An excavation found post holes and what may be the remains of ritual fires.

Goseck has been dubbed the German Stonehenge, though it is twice as old as the Stonehenge megalithic circle in southern England and has no stones. The original wood rotted away long ago, but new palisades, or wooden walls, were constructed
at Goseck this year.

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