nekobakaz reblogged
Heritage News of the Week
Discoveries!
It is a star object of the Galloway Hoard, the richest collection of Viking-age objects ever found in Britain or Ireland, buried in AD900 and unearthed in a field in Scotland. Now a lidded silver vessel has been identified as being of west Asian origin, transported halfway around the world more than 1,000 years ago.
An unmanned mission to the floor of the North Atlantic Ocean where the ship lies has revealed a long-sought two-foot-tall bronze statue showing the goddess Diana that stood atop the fireplace mantel in the first class lounge. Based on an original in the Louvre’s collection, the sculpture is often referred to as the Diana of Versailles.
Near, far, wherever you are
The Roman siege of Jewish rebels in Masada, one of the founding myths of modern Israel, may have been far quicker and more efficient and brutal than it has been traditionally represented as, according to new archaeological research.
Based on the material objects, the wider cemetery is associated with the Przeworsk culture, an Iron Age people that inhabited what is now central and southern Poland from the 3rd century BC to the 5th century AD.
Archaeologists investigating a megalithic monument in the Burabay district of the Akmola region of Kazakhstan have revealed that the monument may have been closely linked to gold mining activities in the region in the 2nd millennium BC and may possibly have been a place of worship for miners.
Archaeologists in Kazakhstan have discovered 10 centuries-old burial mounds, known as kurgans, dating to the Middle Ages. Found in the Ulytau region of central Kazakhstan, three of the kurgans are what archaeologists call "mustached kurgans" or "mustache kurgans" Zhanbolat Utubaev, an archaeologist at the Margulan Institute of Archaeology who led the team that discovered the kurgans, told Live Science in an email. These are burial mounds with ridges of stone going across them, Utubaev said.
Lots of neat stuff coming out of Kazakhstan
An additional 20 intact human burials and the disturbed remains of many more have been discovered by archaeologists excavating a monastery in Cookham. The burials are in addition to the human remains of 50 individuals found in 2023, supporting the theory that the ill and dying received care at the monastery.
Archaeologists excavating at Horvat Ashun, near Modi’in-Maccabim-Re’ut, Isreal, have discovered a rare collection of silver coins dating to the Hasmonean period between 135 and 126 BC.
Archaeologists have discovered a trove of ancient silver coins "hidden in a hole in the wall" on a Mediterranean island near Sicily, possibly during a pirate attack more than 2,000 years ago.
Big week for coins stashes hidden in walls
During excavations in the Silifke castle located on lies on a hill in the town with the same name in the province of Mersin in south Türkiye, a mysterious burial tablet believed to belong to the Byzantine period and believed to protect from evil was unearthed.
The plot has thickened on the mystery of the altar stone of Stonehenge, weeks after geologists sensationally revealed that the huge neolithic rock had been transported hundreds of miles to Wiltshire from the very north of Scotland.
Lothal is best known for its well-preserved brick dock and its warehouse, though the hypothesis that this structure served as a dockyard has been the subject of debate in the archaeological literature. This may now change as a new study by the Indian Institute of Technology-Gandhinagar (IITGn) has found fresh evidence that can confirm the dockyard’s existence.
A “remarkable” Pictish ring thought to be more than 1,000 years old has been unearthed by an amateur archaeologist on a dig at the Burghead Fort in Moray, Scotland.
The grave, which is thought to date to the first half of the fourth century, holds the remains of a man who died at around age 60. It was found in May during excavations ahead of the construction of new homes in the center of the village of Gerstetten, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) east of the city of Stuttgart in southwest Germany
A 5,000-year-old skeleton has been unearthed in eastern Slovakia by researchers from the Slovak Academy of Sciences and the Polish Academy of Sciences. The skeleton belonged to a young man of the Indo-European Pit Grave culture who died between the ages of 16 and 18. The grave was found in the center of a burial mound with a 72-foot diameter, surrounded by a channel measuring more than 12 feet wide.
Archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences have been excavating a burial ground associated with the Finnic Muromians.
Archaeologists in Bulgaria have unearthed five gold coins dating to the time of the emperor Justinian the Great (ruled from A.D. 527 to 565). Although it is not unusual to discover coins during excavations, these ones were located on the floor of a 10th-century house — suggesting the dwelling's medieval occupants may have kept the coins as a kind of heirloom or artifact.
Excavations have revealed complete and partial burials in the area, along with bone pits containing multiple bundled burials, likely the result of mass executions carried out in a short period.
Museums
Amid a global movement to return artworks to their countries of origin, about 750 pieces by predominantly Black Brazilian artists are coming home after being exhibited in museums across the United States and Canada. The sculptures, paintings, prints, religious objects, festival costumes, toys and poetry booklets have been outside Brazil for more than 30 years and are now being donated to a museum in the country’s Blackest state, Bahia.
A group of predominantly French researchers and scientists have published an open letter in Le Monde expressing concern that France’s cultural institutions were enabling “sinicization,” or the assimilation of non-Chinese groups into Chinese culture. They allege that Musée du quai Branly and the Musée Guimet have acquiesced to use language that “reflects Beijing’s wishes regarding the rewriting of history and the planned erasure of non-Han people.”
More than 250 items previously belonging to Marilyn Monroe will be exhibited in the UK for the first time. Marilyn - The Exhibition will come to London in October, with the actor's love letters, satin robes and make-up on display to the public.
An art exhibition inspired by love letters between two gay World War Two soldiers opens on Friday evening.
The new London Museum has been handed an extra $65 million to help get its construction to the finish line. The institution has now eclipsed its original budget of $445 million from 2019, with the projected final bill standing at $575 million.
Visitors to Dorset Museum will be able to wander through its galleries naked at the evening event on 17 September. The ticket price includes a glass of wine, changing facilities and a locker for clothes, according to organiser British Naturism.
Walking through the galleries like
Repatriation
After an eight-year investigation by the FBI, human remains that were trafficked to New York as art have finally been repatriated on the Pacific island of Vanuatu. The Vanuatu Cultural Center, the island’s national museum, received a crate last week—escorted by US intelligence and security agents—containing the skull of a man from an Indigenous Malakula hill tribe.
Earlier this month, the National Park Service (NPS) awarded just over $3 million in grants to 13 Native American tribes and 21 American institutions to facilitate the repatriation of ancestral remains and cultural objects currently held in collections and archives across the country. This marks the first round of funding since the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) adopted major updates to its original 1990 legislation in mid-January, clarifying and streamlining repatriation processes that have been stalled for the past three decades.
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has repatriated a necklace to Turkey after scholars told museum staff that elements of the artifact were likely looted from an ancient tomb illegally excavated in the 1970s.
Heritage at risk
The National Museum of Sudan in Khartoum has reportedly been looted by members of the Sudanese Rapid Support Forces (RSF) amid an ongoing civil war in the country. On Sunday, the SBC, Sudan’s national broadcaster, reported that the museum was targeted by “a large-scale looting and smuggling operation” and that some pieces from its collection had been trafficked outside the nation’s southern border.
Late last month, over $134,000 worth of historic firearms were stolen from the Lithgow Small Arms Factory Museum, leading the Australian museum to close for the “foreseeable future.”
Iraqi heritage advocates have roundly criticized restoration work on the Zumurrud Khatun Mosque and Mausoleum in central Baghdad.
Archaeologists, Indigenous communities forced into difficult choices about which historical sites to save
A copper-mining project in Afghanistan finally got off the ground last month after a delay of over 16 years, but critics worry that a lack of independent supervision could lead to widespread pollution and the destruction of historical ruins and relics uncovered at the Mes Aynak site.
At Alto Barranco in the Tarapacá region, an area in the far north of Chile, the most persistent damage comes from motorcycles and 4×4 vehicles, whose tire tracks are erasing the geoglyphs.
Don't do this
Odds and ends
Strike: Labor, Unions, and Resistance in the Roman Empire by Sarah Bond, an associate professor in the classics at the University of Iowa, reveals how groups of workers in ancient Rome organized and collectively resisted in favor of demands, and often faced political opposition and legislation to undermine their efforts by Roman leaders.
It's been 10 years since Inuit helped guide researchers to the wreck of the HMS Erebus, one of the ships from the 1845 Franklin expedition, and the mayor of the community that was pivotal to the search says identifying those sites has been a good thing for his community.
Inarguably Britain's most famous male monarch, the silhouette of Henry VIII alone is instantly recognisable, from the celebrated portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger. Vast in stature and covered in jewels, Henry stares out at the viewer with his piercing brown eyes. The man behind those eyes however, who discarded two wives and ordered the execution of two others, has been harder to decipher – although books, film and TV have certainly tried.
Join me in hating Henry VIII, because that guy sucked
Maria Sibylla Merian’s beautiful and disturbing illustrations, which shaped how we look at the natural world, will be on show at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum
The man who oversaw the creation of thousands of forged artworks in Thunder Bay, Ont., falsely attributed to Anishinaabe artist Norval Morrisseau faces a five-year penitentiary sentence.
The painting was recovered during a routine house call for the auction house, reportedly discovered with no surface damage and in remarkable condition considering its age. It was noted to have an established family provenance as well.
All we found in our attic was some broken furniture and old cardboard boxes :/
Officials in Rome are mulling whether to limit access to the Trevi fountain, as the city grapples with the impact that overtourism is having on the late baroque masterpiece.
The wreck of the Titanic is showing clear signs of decay on the sea floor at its resting place miles below the surface. What will its final fate be?
A handbag made from alligator skin and tiny vials of perfume that still release a potent scent are just some of the precious artefacts recovered from the world’s most famous shipwreck - the Titanic.
Diving With a Purpose, led by diving veterans in their 70s and 80s, mentors young divers of color in underwater archaeology. The organization focuses on protecting submerged heritage sites, particularly shipwrecks related to the Atlantic slave trade. Since 2005, DWP has helped uncover 20 such sites, including the São José Paquete África, a Portuguese slave ship that sank off the coast of South Africa in 1794, killing more than 200 captured Africans on board. By finding the remains of these ships – many lost at sea on their way to the Americas – the divers shed light on the most horrific trade in human history. Confronting a warming ocean, DWP’s mission has evolved from preservation to include conservation. Its efforts now include nurturing coral growth; teams have planted more than 2,000 elkhorn corals in bleached, overheated waters.
