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An Israeli archaeologist has discovered what he says is the earliest-known Hebrew text, found on a shard of pottery that dates to the time of King David from the Old Testament, about 3,000 years ago. Professor Yosef Garfinkel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem says the inscribed pottery shard -- known as an ostracon -- was found during excavations of a fortress from the 10th century BC. Carbon dating of the ostracon, along with pottery analysis, dates the inscription to time of King David, about a millennium earlier than the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, the university said. The shard contains...

A judge is set to throw out charges against experts accused of faking a stone box that claimed to offer the first physical proof of the existence of Christ - raising the possibility once again that it could be genuine. The discovery of the 2,000-year-old ossuary, or bone box, bearing the words, 'James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus', was regarded as one of the greatest archaeological discoveries when it emerged nearly a decade ago. Fake or genuine: Men accused of forging an inscription of the 'Jesus Box' could be released The disputed inscription on the 'Jesus Box' But other...

ATHENS (Reuters Life!) - Greece welcomed home a small fragment of the Parthenon marbles on Wednesday and expressed hope the gesture by the Italian government would prompt Britain to return its own prized collection of Greek sculpture

CAIRO (AFP) - A Japanese archeological team has discovered three painted wooden coffins in Egypt, including two from the little-known Middle Kingdom period dating back more than 4,000 years. The sarcophagi were found in tomb shafts in the vast Saqqara necropolis south of Cairo, Zahi Hawass, the director of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, said on Saturday. "It is significant because of the discovery of two sarcophagi from the Middle Kingdom," said Japanese team leader Sakuji Yoshimori. The Saqqara burial grounds which date back to 2,700 BC and are dominated by the massive bulk of King Zoser's step pyramid --...

NEW YORK - Warned that the barrage of Persian arrows would hide the sun at Thermopylae, the Spartan hero Dienekes replied with cool bravado, It will be pleasant to fight in the shade. Known for their terse, unflinching way of speaking, these consummate warriors from the Lakonia region of Greece were known as laconic, or sparing of words. The term also applies to their art. "Athens-Sparta," opening Wednesday at the Onassis Cultural Center, presents 289 archaeological artifacts from the paramount city states of ancient Greece to illustrate their very different social and artistic legacies. Athens lavishly encouraged artistic creativity, which...

Marine to return ancient signature seals to Iraq PHILADELPHIA A U-S Marine who brought home seemingly cheap souvenirs from Iraq has turned them over to authorities after learning they are ancient stone seals used as signature stamps.The Marine paid a vendor a few hundred dollars for the eight seals, and had them examined by a university archaeologist upon his return. The seals were looted from an archaeological site near Babylon. They are about five-thousand years old and valued at two-thousand to five-thousand dollars each. U-S soldiers are allowed to bring back souvenirs and trinkets, but Assistant U-S Attorney Bob Goldman...

Iraq Antiquities Find Sparks Controversy By Sue Biggin and Andrew Lawler ScienceNOW Daily News 10 April 2006 TRIESTE, ITALY--Italian researchers in Iraq claim to have stumbled upon an important cache of ancient clay tablets in one of the world's oldest cities. But others dispute the claim, and Iraqi authorities say the scientists have been acting illegally. No archaeologist has been given permission to do excavations since the U.S. invasion in March 2003 toppled Saddam Hussein. But last month, Italy's National Research Council announced that it had discovered some 500 rare tablets on the surface of Eridu, a desert site in...

Three weeks ago, Israeli police found a mosaic floor in an Arab car. The Antiquities Authority has confirmed that the floor be belongs to a previously undiscovered synagogue in the Ramallah area. Researchers from the Israeli Antiquities Authority believe that the mosaic formed part of an ancient synagogue floor because it contained depictions of Jewish symbols, such as the base of a menorah (a seven branched candelabrum), a lulav (palm branch), and dates. Another, no less interesting feature of the mosaic, are the words “Shalom (peace) on Israel” which are inscribed on it. At first, researchers thought the thieves had...

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Malaysian authorities suffered a setback Wednesday in their plan to send a 35-member team to drape Egypt's Great Pyramid at Giza with the flags of the world's 57 Muslim countries. The chairman of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, the body responsible for the Giza site, said in Cairo that he would not allow it to be draped. "This cannot take place," chairman Zahi Hawass said. "The pyramid cannot be draped by any person in this world. Nobody is allowed to do this." Malaysia's Defense Minister Najib Razak announced the project during a ceremony Tuesday, when...

CHICAGO, Dec. 13 (UPI) -- A group of U.S. victims of a Jerusalem terror bombing wants to seize Iranian antiquities at the University of Chicago for their pain and suffering. Two years ago, the group won a $71 million judgment against Iran for injuries in a 1997 Iranian-linked suicide bombing in Jerusalem. Iran has ignored the ruling, and the victims are now going after ancient clay tablets dating from about 500 B.C., held by the university's Oriental Institute. However, the institute is fighting the group, saying that setting a precedent by turning over the antiquities to the victims could endanger...

Before sentencing a Whitefish Bay art dealer on her second conviction stemming from an initial crime, a federal judge said Monday he hadn't really seen a "clear portrait" of the defendant and that what he did see was "impressionistic." But U.S. District Judge Charles N. Clevert Jr. said he had enough perspective to throw the book at Marilyn Karos, concluding that she had once more thumbed her nose at the law in the case that comprised a Libyan businessman, Renaissance-era astronomical devices, a hidden-camera videotape made at the Pfister Hotel and a Mob-style beat-down in the North Shore. Clevert sentenced...

Thracian Gold Found at Tatul Temple 23-carat Thracian gold has emerged from the Tatul sanctuary in the Rhodopes. Photo by sinia-planeta.com Lifestyle: 2 July 2005, Saturday. Archeologists have found a piece of 23-carat Thracian gold in south Bulgaria. The team was examining the Tatul sanctuary near Kardzhali when they picked the precious find. It was discovered in a layer from the Late Bronze Age. Experts believe that the piece was a part of a gold-trimmed stone mask. Tatul, an extremely rich archeological site, is expected to bring to the surface sensational finds, specialists say. They have already discovered a thin...

PARIS -- UNESCO expressed concern on Wednesday about the pillage of archaeological sites in Iraq, part of the ancient region of Mesopotamia described as the cradle of civilization. "Illegal digs on archaeological sites unfortunately are continuing to destroy Iraq's heritage", said UNESCO director-general Koichiro Matsuura at a meeting of an international committee for the protection of Iraq's cultural heritage. "It is totally impossible to evaluate the number of objects illegally removed from archaeological sites, it is an inestimable loss for Iraq and for all of humanity," he said. Matsuura also warned that the installation of military bases on or near...

Amazing Ancient Egyptian Princess Head from 14th Century B.C. to be Listed on eBay; Head is That of King Tut's Sister - First Time on the Market in More Than 50 Years LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 23, 2005--A rare Mansoor portrait sculpture of an 18th dynasty Amarna Princess (ca 1363-1364 B.C.) goes live on eBay, the world's largest online marketplace, June 23rd at 10 AM P.S.T. Previews of the piece are now viewable at www.ebay.com/princess . The beautiful, delicately carved pink limestone head was last sold more than 50 years ago by the legendary M.A. Mansoor, to a private collector, who...

While browsing through the ancient Persian history, I was struck and fascinated by another subject Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism has not only made a major contribution to the ancient philosophical thought but has also had a deep imprint on the Persian history and culture. Since ages, man has been striving to search for the meaning and purpose of life. Two ancient philosophies threw up answers to this eternal quest. One came out of the Vedic thought of re-incarnation (samsara) which believed in perpetual cycles of life, death and re-birth. It believed that soul (atma) finally got liberated (moksha) based on man's good...

Finds in 141 tombs add to picture of ancient Macedonia Bronze helmet with gold decoration from a mid-sixth-century-BC warrior’s grave. Many Macedonian officers were buried in full armor, together with swords, spears and knives. By Iota Myrtsioti - Kathimerini The gold of the ancient Macedonians still gleams on the soldiers’ uniforms being unearthed by excavations in the ancient necropolis of Archontiko in Pella. Fully armed Macedonian aristocrats, gold-bedecked women in elaborate jewelry, faience idols and clay vases of exceptional beauty had lain concealed for centuries in 141 simple rectangular trench graves that were discovered recently in the ancient settlement. For...

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The Federal Bureau of Investigation unveiled a new unit on Wednesday to tackle the multi-billion dollar market in stolen art and announced the FBI's first recovery of artifacts looted from Iraq after the U.S. invasion. The objects, eight Mesopotamian stone seals about 5,000 years old, were purchased in Iraq by a U.S. marine as a souvenir of his tour of duty. He handed them to the FBI in Philadelphia after an archeologist confirmed their authenticity and said they had been stolen from one of Iraq's many archeological sites. The soldier paid a trinket salesman about $300 for...

Experts advised world museums to re-examine their Bible-era relics after Israel indicted four collectors and dealers on charges of forging items thought to be some of the most important artifacts discovered in recent decades. The indictments issued Wednesday labeled many such "finds" as fakes, including two that had been presented as the biggest biblical discoveries in the Holy Land - the purported burial box of Jesus' brother James and a stone tablet with written instructions by King Yoash on maintenance work at the ancient Jewish Temple. Shuka Dorfman, the head of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said that the scope of...

JERUSALEM, Dec. 29 - The Israeli police filed criminal indictments on Wednesday against four antiquities collectors, accusing them of forging biblical artifacts, many so skillfully that they fooled experts. Some were even celebrated briefly as being among the most significant Christian and Jewish relics ever unearthed. The police and the Israel Antiquities Authority said their investigation had focused on several major forgeries, including a limestone burial box, or ossuary, bearing an inscription that suggested that it held the remains of Jesus' brother James. The Antiquities Authority declared the ossuary a forgery last year. The authorities also described as counterfeit a...

AN ISRAELI collector of antiquities who stunned the world with a find that he said was the burial container of Jesus’ “brother”, James, is to be charged with forgery. Justice Ministry officials said last night that Oded Golan would be indicted next week on a range of charges that would include forgery over an inscription on the stone container that carried the script in Aramaic reading: “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus”. Six others are also to be charged. The discovery of the ossuary in October 2002 was hailed as one of the great archaeological discoveries of the age...

What’s THE biggest media myth to come out of the Iraq? War and its messy aftermath? Forget Maureen Dowd’s attempt to trash George W. Bush by altering the president’s words. That kind of "journalism" has become just standard operating procedure at the New York Times. (" All the News Fit to Distort") No, for sheer, long-lasting stamina, we nominate the urban legend about the pillaging of Baghdad’s archaeological museum. Remember how it was supposed to have been emptied by looters? It was THE RAPE OF CIVILIZATION! The anguished comments from distinguished archaeologists sounded more like tabloid headlines. The Death of...

Feb. 3 — An Iraqi dam under construction on the Tigris River threatens to submerge the remains of the spiritual capital of the ancient Assyrian empire in an act archaeologists liken to flooding the Vatican.Much of the city of Ashur, which thrived for more than 1,000 years until the Babylonians razed it in 614 B.C., could vanish under a lake to be created by the Makhoul dam, U.S. and European archaeologists said.More than 60 outlying historical sites are also threatened.Ashur, or Assur, was of such importance that it lent its name to the Assyrian civilization itself."Losing it would be...

Ransacked West Bank antiquities turn into black-market gold On a small stone patio, surrounded by 2,000-year-old olive trees and piles of ancient pottery, Ahmed takes a deep breath as the smell of freshly slaughtered goat baked with okra and tomatoes wafts from his window. The ritual of sharing a homemade meal from an animal reared in his yard is nothing new for the herder-turned-grave-robber on days when his friends come to visit. To his left sits a once-affluent and significant Palestinian antiquities dealer in a pin-striped shirt, and to his right an Israeli antiquities hunter, who has ventured beyond the...

KABUL, Afghanistan - The Kabul Museum has been closed for some time, but the museum is on the road to recovery. It now has a roof, electricity, running water, and some precious works of art. The Taliban destroyed over 2,000 sculptures, leaving centuries of cultural heritage in fragments. A small portion of the museum's treasures were recently rediscovered in a bank vault located under the presidential palace in Kabul. The pieces, known as the Bactrin gold -- over 20,000 pieces of gold jewelry and ornaments over 2,000 years old -– were hidden by museum staff and sympathetic bank workers.

Many Christians think that Christians celebrate Christ’s birth on December 25th because the church fathers appropriated the date of a pagan festival. Almost no one minds, except for a few groups on the fringes of American Evangelicalism, who seem to think that this makes Christmas itself a pagan festival. But it is perhaps interesting to know that the choice of December 25th is the result of attempts among the earliest Christians to figure out the date of Jesus’ birth based on calendrical calculations that had nothing to do with pagan festivals. Rather, the pagan festival of the “Birth of the...

<p>Two priceless pieces of Iraq's ancient heritage, looted from Baghdad's main museum in the chaotic days after Saddam Hussein's fall, have been recovered from a Baghdad cesspool, U.S. officials said.</p> <p>The Akkadian Bassetki, a copper statue of a seated man dating from 2300 BC, and an ancient Assyrian firebox that a king would have used to keep himself warm were recovered by police investigators, the authorities said Thursday.</p>

Egyptian Busted for Trying to Sell Mummy .c The Associated Press CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - A senior Egyptian official and six other government employees have been arrested for trying to sell a mummy to an undercover officer, police said Friday. The seven, all employed at the Agriculture Ministry, were arrested Thursday while negotiating with an officer posing as an antiquities dealer. They are believed to have excavated the mummy recently in an illegal dig in Beni Suef, 60 miles south of Cairo, and had hidden it in a government-owned truck, police said. Most sales of Egyptian antiquities are illegal under...

BAGHDAD, October 30 (IslamOnline.net) - Archaeological antiquities dating back to the period of what is historically known as "Babylonian Captivity" or "Babylonian Exile" are currently facing a systematic plundering by Jews, said the Iraqi Al-Mustaqilla (Independent) newspaper Thursday, October 30. Quoting what it described as "reliable sources", the paper asserted that dozens of large trucks have been seen carrying away relics from Babylon, some 85 kilometers to the southwest of Baghdad. It added that the artifacts date back to the time of King Nebuchadnezzar, who sent his armies to occupy Palestine thousands of years ago and took thousands of Jews...

Sacred Precincts: A Tartessian Sanctuary in Ancient Spain Sebastián Celestino and Carolina López-Ruiz When the Phoenicians arrived on the Iberian peninsula, probably at the end of the ninth century B.C., they came into contact with an indigenous people called the Tartessians. The two cultures soon fused. The hybrid culture produced by this fusion of peoples is evident in a mysterious structure at Cancho Roano, deep in the heart of south-central Spain. The structure at Cancho Roano is sometimes called a “palace-sanctuary” because of its monumentality. But it was not a palace at all; it was simply a Tartessian sanctuary, which...

JAMES CITY -- Despite a staggering estimate of $11.4 million in damages, Colonial National Historical Park representatives insist that artifacts flooded in the Historic Jamestowne Visitor Center by Hurricane Isabel will be restored and ready when a new collections building opens by 2007. Let's hope so, because Congress is watching. “I'm going to be anxiously waiting to see what they find,” Rep. Jo Ann Davis (R-1st) said this week, referring to a National Park Service investigation into the flooding. “I'm hoping we didn't do anything wrong, and we can learn from it if we were to have another disaster.” Elaine...

Press release Sep. 25th, 2003 at 2 p.m. Late Iron Age silver deposit found at Nanguniemi, Inari, Finland On September 19th, 2003 writer Seppo Saraspää was looking for lichen for his draft reindeer in Nanguniemi in Inari. While climbing on the rocks his eye was caught by something unexpected. At first glance it looked like a snake or a woman's hair holder. Saraspää decided to have a closer look. What he had found was in fact a silver neck-ring. Saraspää looked around and concluded that the ring had fallen down from the small cave above. He peeked inside the cave...

The so-called Bactrian Gold, Afghanistan's hoard of 2,000-year-old gold nuggets, silver ornaments, manuscripts and other ancient treasures, has survived intact after years of civil war and unrest, a senior minister said this week. Dr Abdullah Abdullah, the Foreign Minister, told a meeting of Unesco's general conference in Paris that Afghans were happy to learn the "good news" that the collection - long rumoured to have been stolen - was in the vaults beneath the presidential palace in the capital, Kabul.Only a few days ago, an official from Unesco, the UN's cultural organisation, told The Independent that there was still no...

Iraq's most cherished antiquity, the 5,000-year-old Warka Mask, was returned home on Tuesday after being looted during the anarchy that accompanied the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in April. Captain Vance Kuhner said the mask was found after an intensive search by US troops and Iraqi police that led them to a farm just north of Baghdad where it was discovered buried under six inches of dirt. "A tip-off came to the museum, we were given an address that led us to a juvenile, then an older man and eventually the culprit. Then it took a week of negotiations," Kuhner...

ROME - American soldiers in northern Iraq (news - web sites) mistakenly fired on a car carrying the Italian official heading up U.S. efforts to recover Iraq's looted antiquities, killing the man's Iraqi interpreter, an official said Friday in Rome. The Italian, Pietro Cordone, was unhurt.   Cordone, who is the senior adviser for cultural affairs of the U.S. provisional authority and the top Italian diplomat in the country, was traveling between Mosul and Tikrit on Thursday when his car was fired on at a U.S. roadblock, said a Foreign Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The official...

BAGHDAD — The fall of Baghdad brought large-scale looting of the treasures of ancient Iraq. In the ancient city of Nimrud, 250 kilometers south of Baghdad, now tells Al-Majalla security staff had to be especially vigilant around the ancient tunnels, Ibrahim Atta, in charge of security there, told Al Majalla, a sister publication of Arab News. Thieves were using the tunnels to gain entrance to the city and its museum. They usually came at night and never hesitated to shoot at anyone who got in their way. Ibrahim says his team successfully repulsed all such attempts. Foreign observers say that...

(I am paraphrasing from what I heard on the radio). According to a news radio report on CBS minutes ago, all the artifacts thought to have been stolen from the Baghdad museum have been recovered. Seems the museum’s curator, a woman, took all the pieces and artifacts prior to the start of the war and hid them for safe keeping. Even when everyone was screaming bloody murder when the museum looked like it had been cleaned out, she states she made a “promise on the Koran” not to tell anyone until it was totally safe to return the items

The Baghdad museum is lending some of its greatest treasures to the US, just months after fearing much of it had been looted. The museum in the Iraqi capital was hit by a wave of looting in the days following the fall of Baghdad. But after recovering much of what was thought to have been stolen, the Iraq museum is keen to show off its items of cultural importance. Among the valuables which will form part of a travelling exhibition is the collection of Assyrian jewellery known as the Nimrud artefacts. The priceless array of 650 bracelets, necklaces, royal tiaras...

JERUSALEM - Israeli police have arrested an antiquities dealer in connection with two alleged forgeries, including a burial box once thought to belong to the brother of Jesus. Oded Golan appeared in a Jerusalem court Tuesday, a day after police picked him up at his Tel Aviv home. Police allege Golan faked an inscription on the so-called James ossuary to make it appear it belonged to the brother of Jesus. The limestone box is inscribed in Aramaic with the words "Ya'akov (James), son of Yosef (Joseph), brother of Yeshua (Jesus)." Experts later branded the inscription and a tablet as fakes....

Egypt demands return of the Rosetta Stone By Charlotte Edwardes and Catherine Milner (Filed: 20/07/2003) Egypt is demanding that the Rosetta Stone, a 2,000-year-old relic and one of the British Museum's most important exhibits, should be returned to Cairo. The stone, which became the key to deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, was found by Napoleon's army in 1799 in the Nile delta, but has been in Britain for the past 200 years. It forms the centrepiece of the British Museum's Egyptology collection and is seen by millions of visitors each year. Now, in an echo of the campaign by Athens for...

<p>The National Endowment for the Humanities will be doling out $500,000 in grants to restore Iraq's cultural heritage, the federal agency announced yesterday.</p> <p>Beginning Aug. 1, the agency will receive proposals for projects that can last for up to two years. Known as "Recovering Iraq's Past," the initiative is geared toward shoring up collections in Iraq's archives, libraries and museums. Projects may start as soon as Jan. 1.</p>

Looters are systematically stripping many of Iraq's 10,000 archaeological sites and should be shot on sight by coalition forces, an expert said yesterday. Gangs of up to 400 people are stealing antiquities for the international market and some sites have been largely destroyed, said Elizabeth Stone, an American archaeology professor. "I would like to see helicopters flying over there shooting bullets so that people know there is a real price to looting this stuff," said Prof Stone, of Stony Brook University, New York. "You have got to kill some people to stop this." Prof Stone, who has been at the...

Israel's Antiquities Authority is to rule Wednesday on the authenticity of an ancient burial box with the inscription "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus," touted by some scholars as the oldest archaeological link to New Testament figures but dismissed by others as a fake. Investigators have not disclosed the findings, but one expert from the committee, Uzi Dahari, suggested that many questions arose during the probe. Oded Golan, the Israeli owner of the "James ossuary," insists the item is authentic, but Dahari told The Associated Press that Golan "spoke to us and didn't convince anyone." Golan said he had...

``It took only 48 hours for the museum to be destroyed, with at least 170,000 artifacts carried away by looters.''--New York Times, April 13 ``You'd have to go back centuries, to the Mongol invasion of Baghdad in 1258, to find looting on this scale.'' -- British archaeologist Eleanor Robson, New York Times, April 16 WASHINGTON--Well, not really. Turns out the Iraqi National Museum lost not 170,000 treasures, but 33. Baghdad Bob was more accurate. You'd have to go back centuries, say, to the Mongol invasion of Baghdad in 1258, to find mendacity on this scale. What happened? The source of...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Some of Iraq's more important ancient sites have been badly damaged by post-war looting and thousands of items are still missing from Baghdad's Iraq Museum, leading U.S. archeologists said on Wednesday. The archeologists, who carried out a survey for the National Geographic Society in Iraq, said while U.S. bombs had avoided hitting Iraq's treasures, many archeological gems had fallen victim to thieves and illegal digging. The U.S. military was doing its best to protect many important sites but the scientists said some places they visited in May were unguarded. "Several important sites have been badly looted and...

<p>Will the Bush administration ever win the global public relations battle over the war in Iraq? Short of finding an Iraqi laboratory in a cave deep underground — complete with scientists stirring vats of anthrax and the bubonic plague while humming "Hi, ho. Hi, ho. It's off to work we go" — it's hard to imagine. Critics of the war will likely continue to find ways of discrediting the war post facto. Some things never change.</p>

We feel robbed! All those heart-rending stories about zillions of precious artifacts being looted in Iraq, all that dramatic footage of valuables being carried off from the ransacked museum – and the story goes pffttt! We're used to journalists being misled in the famous fog of war, but this is ridiculous. Everyone in journalism makes mistakes, especially routine mistakes – the misspelled name, the mangled title, the wrong date. In this case, though, the press told us that, in a crushing loss for western civilization, 170,000 artifacts were stolen. The actual number: 33. Yes, some of the booty was later...

When, back in mid-April, the news first arrived of the looting at the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad, words hardly failed anyone. No fewer than 170,000 items had, it was universally reported, been stolen or destroyed, representing a large proportion of Iraq's tangible culture. And it had all happened as some US troops stood by and watched, and others had guarded the oil ministry. Professors wrote articles. Professor Michalowski of Michigan argued that this was "a tragedy that has no parallel in world history; it is as if the Uffizi, the Louvre, or all the museums of Washington DC had...

washingtonpost.com All Along, Most Iraqi Relics Were 'Safe and Sound' By William Booth and Guy Gugliotta Washington Post Staff WritersMonday, June 9, 2003; Page A12 BAGHDAD, June 8 -- The world was appalled. One archaeologist described the looting of Iraq's National Museum of Antiquities as "a rape of civilization." Iraqi scholars standing in the sacked galleries of the exhibit halls in April wept on camera as they stood on shards of cuneiform tablets dating back thousands of years. In the first days after Baghdad fell to U.S. forces, condemnation rained down on U.S. military commanders and officials in Washington for...

Arab nations to draft strategy on protecting Iraqi culture Sat Jun 7, 5:03 PM ET TUNIS (AFP) - Experts from Arab nations began meeting in Tunis to draw up a strategy for protecting Iraq (news - web sites)'s cultural heritage in the wake of the US-led war, during which the occupying US army failed to prevent the looting of thousands of priceless antiquities from Baghdad's National Archaeological Museum. AFP/File Photo   The two-day meeting was organized by the Arab Organisation for Education, Culture and Sciences (ALESCO) and was expected to involve experts from Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco,...

Iraq Museum to Reopen Displaying Lost Treasure By Andrew Marshall BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Baghdad's famed antiquities museum, ransacked by looters as Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s rule crumbled, will reopen next month after many of the treasures feared lost forever were found stashed in secret vaults around the city. Reuters Photo   Museum research director Donny George said Sunday that among the items on show would be the Treasure of Nimrud, a priceless set of gem-studded gold Assyrian jewelry that has been displayed only once, briefly, in the last 3,000 years. The treasure was recovered Thursday from flooded vaults...