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Unique violet shards discovered in East Azarbaijan Tehran Times Culture Desk TEHRAN -- A team of archaeologists has recently discovered over 100 violet-colored shards at the ancient site of Kala Tepe in the reservoir area of the Ai-Doqmush Dam, near the city of Mianeh in Iran’s East Azarbaijan Province, Javad Qandgar, the director of the team said on Sunday. The team has been tasked with saving the artifacts and gathering information from Kala Tepe, which contains ruins and artifacts from the Bronze Age. The site is being threatened by the Ai-Doqmush Dam, which recently became operational. “No example of shards...

From Iraqthemodel.blogspot.com: Al-Witwity reports about the confiscation of many Iraqi Sumerian artifacts in Diwaniya after arresting a Syrian mukhabarat officer who was trying to smuggle these priceless artifacts out to Syria in cooperation with some local thugs. Experts estimate the total price of these artistic historic pieces to be around 35 million dollars.Click here for pictures of the retreived artifacts.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - What price a silver spoon, the proverbial passport to a life of luxury and power? Auction house Sotheby's is hoping up to $60,000 for the spoon that belonged to the first president of the United States. The tablespoon with the George Washington crest is among the highlights of a New York auction on May 19 of silver and other items being sold by a direct descendant of Washington, Sotheby's said on Thursday. There is also a silver wine cooler with an estimate of $400,000 to $600,000 and the sellers are hoping to raise another $40,000 to...

Arutz-7's Ezra HaLevi took an exclusive inside look into one of the most important and unique archaeological explorations in history - currently in danger of going unfinished due to lack of funding. In November 1999, the Islamic Wakf carried out an illegal construction project on the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site. The unsupervised digging caused irreparable damage to the important site, as well as to untold priceless artifacts contained in rubble removed during the construction and dumped clandestinely in the Kidron Valley. Though the archaeological remains were no longer in their original contexts, they held enormous potential to shed light...

Feds Charge Space Museum Director With Stealing Artifacts OKLAHOMA CITY -- The executive director of the Omniplex in Oklahoma City has taken a leave of absence after it was announced Thursday that he has been indicted on federal charges. Max Ary has managed the popular Oklahoma City science center since 2002. On Thursday, federal authorities from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Wichita said Ary would face criminal charges stemming from an investigation into the removal of federal property from a Hutchinson, Kan., air and space museum, KOCO-TV reported. Ary was president of the Kansas Cosmosphere in Hutchinson before coming to...

Max Ary, the former director of the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center has been indicted on charges of stealing artifacts from the space flight museum in Hutchinson, Kan., and selling them, according to a press statement released today by the U.S. Justice Department. In the 11-count indictment, Ary was charged with two counts of wire fraud; three counts of mail fraud; two counts of theft of government property; and three counts of interstate transportation of stolen property. In an 11th count, the government is seeking the forfeiture of any proceeds Ary obtained from the alleged crimes. "We are prosecuting this...

Ancient Artifacts Found on North Carolina Campus Willie Drye for National Geographic News March 7, 2005 The discovery of 2,000-year-old artifacts on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is prompting archaeologists to rethink their theories about the early presence of Native Americans in North Carolina. The artifacts include spear points and pottery fragments. Their location indicate that small bands of roaming Indians made a seasonal home on ground that later became the site of the nation's first state university, said Steve Davis, associate director of UNC's Research Laboratories of Archeology. "They were living as bands...

Repatriating a centuries-old crown from the United States would only be possible by buying it from the Philadelphia Museum, which says it was obtained legitimately at an auction, a senior official said Thursday. Fine Arts Department director-general, Arak Sanghitkul said that as the museum reportedly bought the crown at an auction in 1972, the country must buy back the crown, if it can be proved that it originally came from Thailand. Arak said that, although the museum’s brochure states that the ancient crown comes from Wat Ratburana in Ayutthaya, negotiations to regain the crown are complicated, as there are many...

February 17, 2005 Carbon dating backs Bible on Edom By RICHARD N. OSTLING Associated Press Writer Evidence of biblical kingdom of Edom Some archaeologists are convinced that pottery remains and radiocarbon work in Jordan were from a site that was part of the Edomite state. The Mideast's latest archaeological sensation is all about Edom. The Bible says Edom's kings interacted with ancient Israel, but some scholars have confidently declared that no Edomite state could have existed that early. The latest archaeological work indicates the Bible got it right, those experts got it wrong and some write-ups need rewriting. The findings...

Underwater arrowheads, tools dazzle Maritime historians Last Updated Thu, 17 Feb 2005 15:28:09 EST CBC News HALIFAX - Archaeologists are showing off a treasure trove they call one of the most significant discoveries of Mi'kmaq artifacts in Nova Scotia. Hundreds of arrowheads and tools, some 8,000 years old, were discovered last summer along the Mersey River, near Kejimkujik National Park in the southwest region of the province. Workers from Nova Scotia Power were doing repairs to generating stations on the river. As water levels dropped in some areas, the riverbed was exposed for the first time since dams were built...

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...

7000-year-old artifacts discovered in Bushehr region Tehran Times Culture Desk TEHRAN (MNA) –- A joint Iranian and British archaeological team recently discovered 7000-year old artifacts and ruins dating back to the Chalcolithic era (7000? to 3500? B.C.) in northern Bushehr. The Iranian director of the team, Hossein Tofiqian, said on Tuesday that the team began the first stage of their activities last month and made significant finds. “The team began their work with the aim of discovering the social and economic status of the historical site during the Chalcolithic era in the fifth and sixth millennia B.C., while the previous...

International News This undated photo released by the Israel Museum on Dec. 24 shows a forged ivory pomegranate that had been thought to be the only surviving relic from Solomon's Temple. Israel accuses 4 of forging trove of biblical artifacts Sophisticated fakes were hailed as important archeological discoveries. JERUSALEM - Israeli police indicted four antique dealers and collectors Wednesday for allegedly running a sophisticated forgery ring that created a trove of fake biblical artifacts, including some hailed as among the most important archaeological objects ever uncovered in the region.The forged items include an ivory pomegranate touted by scholars as the only relic...

Police indict 4 on charges of running antiquities fraud ring By Amiram Barkat, Haaretz Correspondent and AP Police indicted four antiquities collectors and dealers Wednesday, accusing them of running a sophisticated forgery ring over the course of 23 years, that created a trove of fake biblical artifacts, including some hailed as among the most important archaeological objects ever uncovered in the region.

ARCHAEOLOGISTS EXCITED BY 500,000-YEAR-OLD AXE FIND IN QUARRY By David Prudames 16/12/2004 This image shows the axe head from different angles. Photo: Graham Norrie, University of Birmingham Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity. A Stone Age hand axe dating back 500,000 years has been discovered at a quarry in Warwickshire. The tool was found at the Smiths Concrete Bubbenhall Quarry at Waverley Wood Farm, near Coventry, which has already produced evidence of some of the earliest known human occupants of the UK. It was uncovered in gravel by quarry manager John Green who took it to be identified by archaeologists at...

BERLIN (Reuters) - A 35,000-year-old flute made from a woolly mammoth's ivory tusk has been unearthed in a German cave by archaeologists, the University of Tuebingen said on Friday. The flute, one of the oldest musical instruments discovered, was pieced together from 31 fragments found in a cave in the Swabian mountains in southwestern Germany, the university said. The mountains have yielded rich pickings in recent years, including ivory figurines, ornaments and other musical instruments. Archaeologists believe humans camped in the area in winter and spring. Mammoths, now extinct, were large elephant-like creatures with hairy coats and long, upcurved tusks....

Sacrificial burial deepens mystery at Teotihuacan, but confirms the city’s militarism Partially uncovered figurine, carved in jade, found in connection with three unbound, seated bodies and other objects at the top of the pyramid’s fifth stage (the offering was presumably made in the construction of the sixth stage), circa 350 AD. This object is notable in that it is carved from jade that originated in Guatemala, and appears to be Mayan in style. Other jade objects on top of the figurine are beads and earspools. A spectacular new discovery from an ongoing excavation at the Teotihuacan’s Pyramid of the Moon...

BORDEAUX, France (AFP) - French archaeologists said this week they had discovered an exceptional Gallic war treasure in the south of the country, including rare war trumpets and ornate helmets. The some 470 objects, or fragments of objects, were found at the end of September during a dig at Naves, in the department of Correze in southern France, in a ditch hollowed out of a Gallic-Roman temple, they said. "The exceptional character of this discovery lies mainly in the presence of five almost complete carnyx," Christophe Maniquet, an archeologist at Inrap, France's national institute for Archeological studies, said. "They are...

NEW YORK (AP) An expert on Iraq's postwar reconstruction was sentenced Monday to six months house arrest and two years probation for trying to smuggle into the United States 4,000-year-old artifacts stolen from Iraq's national museum in the chaos after the U.S.-led invasion. Joseph Braude, 30, had pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Allyne Ross in August to charges of smuggling and making false statements. Braude could have faced up to 16 years in prison. Braude is a Middle East expert fluent in Arabic, Hebrew and Farsi, who had for years assisted the FBI and CIA with counterterrorism efforts. When...

WASHINGTON - Ivory statues, Buddhist carvings, gold coins and thousands of other precious objects from the Kabul Museum feared stolen or destroyed under Soviet occupation and Taliban rule have been found, an American archeologist said yesterday. Packed in toilet paper and sawdust in iron safes and tin boxes, the treasure trove of 5,000 years of Afghan history was hidden 25 years ago by museum staff in the Kabul presidential palace and other places, said National Geographic fellow Fredrik Hiebert. "The majority of the items that were on display in the old Kabul Museum -- and that is the masterpieces --...