Roman Amphitheatres & spectacula - a 21st Century Perspective

16th - 18th February 2007, The Grosvenor Museum, Chester

This unique conference will range across all aspects of study of the Roman Amphitheatre and the spectacula that took place there. The event offers specialists and non-specialists alike an unrivalled opportunity to access the very latest research and thinking from many different perspectives.

The conference will discuss the discovery of new amphitheatre sites, and recent excavation and survey work, aspects of the architecture and planning of the buildings, amphitheatres both at the frontier periphery and at the centre of the Empire; from Northern Europe through Spain, the east, and North Africa. It will examine functional, religious and social aspects of the buildings and the spectacles, aspects of the organisation of the spectacles, and gladiatorial death and burial. The problems encountered in the preservation and display of amphitheatres as monuments in the modern urban environment will be touched upon. The Conference will feature speakers from the USA, Canada, Brazil, Austria, Germany, Spain and the UK, and will start with a keynote public lecture given by Professor Kathleen Coleman of Harvard University – ‘The Arena of conflict: facts, myths and speculation about gladiatorial combat in ancient Rome.’

Full programme...

Broken leg may have killed Tutankhamun

A medical scan of King Tutankhamun's mummified corpse may have finally nailed the cause of the Egyptian pharaoh's premature death. It was not a blow to the head, as some had speculated, but gangrene caused by a badly broken leg.

A team of radiologists used a sophisticated 3D X-ray of Tutankhamun's body to identify what may have happened to the boy king before he died 3,300 years ago at about the age of 19.

Computed tomography (CT) scans of the pharaoh's mummy, presented yesterday to the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of America in Chicago, confirmed a possible fracture in the boy's femur, or thigh bone, which probably occurred just before he died. Ashraf Selim, a radiologist at the Kasr Eleini Teaching Hospital at Cairo University, said there was no evidence of a skull fracture caused by a blow to the head - a suggestion made after previous X-rays taken in 1968 - but the broken leg may have been serious enough to kill the pharaoh.

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A Layered Look Reveals Ancient Greek Texts

An ambitious international project to decipher 1,000-year-old moldy pages is yielding new clues about ancient Greece as seen through the eyes of Hyperides, an important Athenian orator and politician from the fourth century B.C. What is slowly coming to light, scholars say, represents the most significant discovery of Hyperides text since 1891, illuminating some fascinating, time-shrouded insights into Athenian law and social history.

“This helps to fill in critical moments in ancient classical Greece,” said William Noel, the curator of manuscripts and rare books at the Walters Art Museum here and the director of the Archimedes Palimpsest project. Hyperides “is one of the great foundational figures of Greek democracy and the golden age of Athenian democracy, the foundational democracy of all democracy.”

The Archimedes Palimpsest, sold at auction at Christie’s for $2 million in 1998, is best known for containing some of the oldest copies of work by the great Greek mathematician who gives the manuscript its name. But there is more to the palimpsest than Archimedes’ work, including 10 pages of Hyperides, offering tantalizing and fresh insights into the critical battle of Salamis in 480 B.C., in which the Greeks defeated the Persians, and the battle of Chaeronea in 338 B.C., which spelled the beginning of the end of Greek democracy.

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Brushing up on Neanderthal tooth fossils

Skulls and teeth are so important to fossil scholars that they regularly label every other kind of bone they dig up as "post-cranial." Post-cranial as in leg bones, arm bones, ribs — the body's whole kit and caboodle, sans the stuff north of the chin. A new study of Neanderthal teeth serves up an example of why the cranial bones are so often the most important ones to researchers struggling to understand ancient creatures.

Neanderthals, Homo neanderthalensis, were a species of archaic humans who lived in Europe and the Middle East hundreds of thousands of years ago. They disappear from the fossil record most recently around 30,000 years ago, about the time that early modern humans, Homo sapiens, started to spread across the continent. A long-raging disagreement among paleoanthropologists has concerned whether early humans straight-out replaced Neanderthals, the majority view, or else interbred with them.

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CyArk: Digital Heritage Archaeology

The CyArk project is an ambitious plan to place digital images--maps, plans, three-dimensional views--of world heritage sites in one place. Funded primarily by the Kacyra Family Foundation, CyArk currently has images on some of the better known sites from around the world, including Salvador da Bahia (Brazil), Ankgor (Cambodia), Thebes (Egypt), the Cathedral of Beauvais (France), Tikal (Guatemala), Pompeii (Italy), Chavin de Huantar and Tambo Colorado (Peru) and Deadwood and Mesa Verde (the United States). Each archaeological site studied has a short film introduction, clickable thumbnail photographs of rooms at the site and a site plan; many have three-dimensional images of site details such as rooms and profiles and a few have computer-generated reconstructions.

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Stonehenge was a site for sore eyes in 2300BC

Stonehenge was the Lourdes of its day, to which diseased and injured ancient Britons flocked seeking cures for their ailments, according to a new theory.

For most of the 20th century archaeologists have debated what motivated primitive humans to go to the immense effort of transporting giant stones 240 miles from south Wales to erect Britain's most significant prehistoric monument.

Stonehenge was built in different stages between 3000BC and 1600BC and theories about their meaning and purpose have ranged from the serious to the wacky. The most widely accepted view is that it was to honour their ancestors.

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IRON AGE SCOTS FUR FARM CLUE

IRON Age man reared foxes to make fur-trimmed clothes, archaeologists believe.

Experts say the pelts were used to make sought-after fur-trimmed coats, loin cloths and blankets.

Researchers at York University found that foxes flourished on Orkney during the late Iron Age.

But there were none on the Outer Hebrides or Shetland, suggesting they were introduced to Orkney.

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New clues about Ptolemaic past

AN inscription has been found by archeologists conducting excavations in the Lower City of Amathus that provides new information about Cypriot society in the Ptolemaic period, a statement from the Antiquities Department said yesterday.

The inscription was found on the floor of the interior doorway connecting two rooms and is as old as 3rd century BC. Although it is quite worn, it consists of 12 verses and is one of the longest texts from the Hellenistic period discovered in Cyprus. This inscription with arithmetic in Greek may refer to land portions given by the Ptolemaic General. It appears that it was laid in the floor in secondary use. Once the inscription is studied further, it is expected to provide more information about that period.

Another noteworthy find was a large gold cross that must have belonged to a high ranking official of the early Byzantine period (7th century AD). It was discovered in the complex of rooms with few fragments of paintings on the walls, and a lot of coins were found on the floor in the same room with the cross. The official may have resided in the room or in the entire complex.

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Ancient settlements discovered in Anatolia

Researchers working on the Archaeological Settlements in Turkey (TAY) project have discovered 120 previously unknown ancient settlement areas in various locations in eastern Anatolia, the project's manager said. Assistant Professor Alparslan Ceylan, a lecturer at Erzurum's Atatürk University and the project's leader, said that the 120 settlement areas, thought to belong to the Iron Age, included a temple and several fortresses. Ceylan said inventories for 480 ancient settlements in the region - including the newly discovered sites- were also prepared as part of the project, which has been under way for the last one-and-a-half years.

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Authenticity of Ilkley rock carvings challenged

Elaborate rock art which for years is believed to have been created by prehistoric Ilkley man (West Yorkshire, England) was probably only created about 170 years ago, it has been revealed. A Victorian workman could have been responsible for some of the markings on one of Britain's most famous examples of prehistoric rock art.

Ilkley archaeologist Gavin Edwards says he has proof which suggests the cup and ring markings on the town's internationally-known Panorama Stones were tampered with by a workman called Ambrose Collins in about the 1870s. He said the ladder-shaped markings are what has made the design on the largest of the three stones, the most elaborate example of bronze-age' art in the UK - but he seriously doubts they are the real thing. He got suspicious when he was studying sketches of marked stones which were donated to the town museum in 1880. He said: "The ladders were not on the drawing. Because I feel the ladders are so prominent it's difficult to believe they could not possibly have been noticed or been omitted by artistic licence. There has been talk of this Victorian embellishment before but people have really not wanted to acknowledge or admit tampering could have happened. It will cause a debate but the bigger, the better."

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Sky disc of Nebra shines in Basel

The oldest representation of the cosmos – the sky disc of Nebra – has gone on show in Basel's history museum. Basel (Swiss) has a special place in the disc's history. It was here that police seized the disc after it was stolen from its place of origin in Germany. The disc, which forms the centrepiece of an exhibition devoted to Bronze Age objects, has been hailed as one of the most important archaeological discoveries of recent times. Made out of bronze with gold embossing, the 3,600-year-old object is an astronomical clock. It connects the sun and the moon calendars together, with the sun giving the day and year and the moon, the month. The moon year is, however, 11 days shorter than the sun year. This was taken into account in ancient times by adding an extra month, leading experts to believe that people in the Bronze Age were already making sophisticated astronomical observations similar to those written about by the Babylonians around 1,000 years later.

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Mining Ancient Molars

For the first time, researchers have been allowed to slice through Neandertal teeth. This coup is providing the best evidence yet that these creatures grew and developed at the same slow rate as modern children. Neandertals even had enough time to complete most of the development of their large brains in childhood, like modern humans.

Some paleoanthropologists have proposed that Neandertals grew up faster than modern humans so they could become fertile sooner. This would have helped ensure they would produce enough offspring to survive in the frigid climate of Europe 200,000 to 28,000 years ago, but it would have provided less time for brain development as children. In contrast, modern humans inhabited the warmer climes of Africa and western Asia until they swept into Europe 40,000 years ago. They may have lived longer as adults, enabling them to delay becoming parents so they could prolong their childhood and develop larger brains. A 2004 study supported this hypothesis by showing that Neandertals' front teeth grew faster than those of modern humans, indicating the species reached adulthood more rapidly (ScienceNOW, 28 April 2004).

A challenge came in 2005, after another team of researchers used the same method to count layers of enamel on the outside surface of Neandertal front teeth. But they also applied the method to modern humans from around the globe and found that the Neandertals' tooth development fit within the range for the diverse modern humans. Hence, both Neandertals and modern humans appeared to have similar childhood development patterns (ScienceNOW, 19 September 2005). Still, the study was limited because front teeth cannot provide detailed information about daily growth rates.

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History centre 'to open in 2007'

Work on an £11.6m history centre in Swindon has been completed, with the building due to open next October.

The centre will have seven miles of shelving for documents charting the history of Wiltshire and Swindon over the last seven centuries.

This archive is currently held at the Record Office in Trowbridge.

Access to the new centre in Chippenham will be improved through larger reading rooms and better internet facilities, Wiltshire County Council said.

An education room for schools will also be provided.

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Dramatic shift from simple to complex marine ecosystems occurred 250M years ago at mass extinction

The earth experienced its biggest mass extinction about 250 million years ago. New research shows that this mass extinction did more than eliminate species: ecologically simple marine communities were largely displaced by complex communities

Field Museum, James Cook University scholars uncover a profound, yet overlooked ecological change in the history of life

EurekAlert -CHICAGO: The earth experienced its biggest mass extinction about 250 million years ago, an event that wiped out an estimated 95% of marine species and 70% of land species. New research shows that this mass extinction did more than eliminate species: it fundamentally changed the basic ecology of the world's oceans.

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Die 8 als Grabanlage

Seit Mai untersuchen Archäologen eine 10.000 Quadratmeter große Fläche in Ense-Bremen (Kreis Soest) und haben bisher über 80 Gräber entdeckt. Die untersuchte Fläche wurden besonders in der Bronzezeit und erneut im Frühmittelalter als Bestattungsplatz genutzt.

Bei den insgesamt 65 bronzezeitlichen Gräbern handelt es sich vorwiegend um Brandbestattungen. Der Leichenbrand wurde in Urnen aus Keramik oder organischem Material beigesetzt, teilweise auch schlicht auf den Grabboden geschüttet. Die ältesten Brandgräber sind rund 3000 Jahre alt und stammen aus der späten Bronzezeit. „Es konnten überraschenderweise auch zwei Grabeinhegungen aus der späten Bronzezeit dokumentiert werden, die die Form von Schlüssellöchern hatten“, freut sich Grabungsleiter Stephan Deiters. „Damit ist Ense-Bremen einer der südlichsten Fundpunkte dieser Grabform.“

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Getty museum walks out of talks over looted antiquities

The battle between the world's richest museum and the Italian state took a turn for the worse yesterday when the Getty museum in California walked out of talks over the restitution of looted antiquities.

Michael Brand, the director of the Getty, has sent a closely argued, six-page letter to Francesco Rutelli, the Minister of Culture, saying he is "deeply saddened" by the failure to reach agreement after more than a year of talks, and announcing the end of "these present negotiations". Mr Rutelli's office said the letter had been received "with surprise and disappointment".

At the centre of the dispute is an enormous marble and limestone statue of the goddess Aphrodite, sold to the Getty for $18m (£10m) by a British antiquities dealer who was jailed last year. The statue, one of the glories of the Malibu museum, is claimed by the Italians to have been dug up by grave robbers in Morgantina, Sicily, and illegally exported to Switzerland, where the British dealer Robin Symes sold it on to the Americans.

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Creation vs. Darwin takes Muslim twist in Turkey

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A lavishly illustrated "Atlas of Creation" is mysteriously turning up at schools and libraries in Turkey, proclaiming that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is the real root of terrorism.

Arriving unsolicited by post, the large-format tome offers 768 glossy pages of photographs and easy-to-read text to prove that God created the world with all its species.

At first sight, it looks like it could be the work of United States creationists, the Christian fundamentalists who believe the world was created in six days as told in the Bible.

But the author's name, Harun Yahya, reveals the surprise inside. This is Islamic creationism, a richly funded movement based in predominantly Muslim Turkey which has an influence U.S. creationists could only dream of.

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21st century technology cracks alchemists' secret recipe

A 500-year old mystery surrounding the centre-piece of the alchemists' lab kit has been solved by UCL (University College London) and Cardiff University archaeologists.

Since the Middle Ages, mixing vessels – or crucibles – manufactured in the Hesse region of Germany have been world renowned because of their ability to withstand strong reagents and high temperatures.

Previous work by the team has shown that Hessian crucibles have been found in archaeological sites across the world, including Scandinavia, Central Europe, Spain, Portugal, the UK, and even colonial America. At the time, many people tried to reproduce them but always failed.

Now, writing in Nature, the researchers reveal using petrographic, chemical and X-ray diffraction analysis that Hessian crucible makers made use of an advanced material only properly identified and named in the 20th century.

Dr Marcos Martinón-Torres, of the UCL Institute of Archaeology, who led the study, explains: "Our analysis of 50 Hessian and non-Hessian crucibles revealed that the secret component in their manufacture is an aluminium silicate known as mullite (Al6Si2O13).

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Rome's She-Wolf Younger Than Its City

The icon of Rome's foundation, the Capitoline she-wolf, was crafted in the Middle Ages, not the Antiquities, according to a research into the statue’s bronze-casting technique.

The discovery quashes the long-prevailing belief that the she-wolf was adopted as an icon by the earliest Romans as a symbol for their city.

Recalling the story of a she-wolf which fed Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome, and his twin brother, Remus, after they had been thrown in a basket into the Tiber River, the statue has been always linked to the ancient world.

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Former Getty curator charged with Greek art theft

A Greek prosecutor on Tuesday charged a former curator of the American J. Paul Getty Museum with knowingly buying an ancient artifact which had been illegally dug up and smuggled out of Greece 13 years ago.

The accusation that former antiquities curator Marion True illegally obtained a 4th-century BC golden wreath is the latest controversy surrounding acquisitions she made for the wealthy Los Angeles-based museum.

True resigned from her post in a whirlwind of publicity last year when Italian authorities charged her with conspiring to receive stolen antiquities.

In the Greek investigation, police raided her Aegean island villa earlier this year and retrieved what authorities say are dozens of unregistered ancient objects.

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