Free Republic

Last Update: Saturday, September 27, 2003. 4:26pm (AEST)13th Century tablet could lead to lost archives of Ramses II The discovery of a stone tablet detailing diplomatic ties between the ancient Egyptians and Hittites in the 13th Century BC could be the key to the lost archives of Ramses II, according to archaeologists. Discovered at Qantir 120 kilometres north-east of Cairo, the tablet dates back to the time of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh, Ramses II (1298-1235 BC) and confirms his capital, Pi-Ramses, was in the Nile Delta. "Its the first time that such a written record has been found in the...

<p>In mid-April it was widely reported that over 170,000 artifacts had been stolen or looted from the museum in Baghdad. From the outset, the primary goal of this investigation has been the return of these antiquities to the Iraqi people, not criminal prosecution.</p>

<p>In mid-April it was widely reported that over 170,000 artifacts had been stolen or looted from the museum in Baghdad. From the outset, the primary goal of this investigation has been the return of these antiquities to the Iraqi people, not criminal prosecution.</p>

Senua, Britain's unknown goddess unearthed Clues to catastrophe after rare Roman temple treasure found Maev Kennedy, arts and heritage correspondent Monday September 1, 2003 The Guardian (UK) Sensua - probably an older Celtic goddess, who was then adopted and Romanised. Photo: British Museum She is faceless and armless, but she has a name: Senua. A previously unknown Romano-British goddess has been resurrected at the British Museum, patiently prised from soil-encrusted clumps of gold and corroded silver which have buried her identity for more than 1,600 years. Her name is published for the first time today. The 26 pieces of gold...

Artifacts hailed as major find - Weapons used more than 10,000 years ago IRWIN BLOCK The Gazette Thursday, August 14, 2003 The discovery in the Lac Mégantic region of three fragments of spearheads, believed to be more than 10,000 years old, is being hailed as a major find. The artifacts, which will be displayed at a press conference today, are said to be the first evidence of human habitation in Quebec after glaciers receded and the ice age ended some 12,000 years ago. They are from fluted spearheads typical of weapons used in the early Paleo-Indian period, which existed from...

<p>Beneath what is now Leetsdale Industrial Park, early industrialists made bricks in a sprawling complex begun in the 1850s. About 7,000 years earlier, on the same site, American Indians had a settlement on what was then the high area of an island in the Ohio River.</p>

The author of a book on rebuilding Iraq was arrested at Kennedy International Airport for allegedly smuggling stolen 4,000-year-old Mesopotamian artifacts out of Baghdad, authorities said Saturday. Joseph Braude, author of "The New Iraq," was released on a $100,000 bond after a preliminary appearance Saturday before U.S. Magistrate Roanne L. Mann at the Brooklyn federal courthouse. Braude, 28, was arrested Friday night after arriving at the Queens airport on a flight from London, said U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf. Braude actually brought the priceless stolen artifacts into the United States on June 11, she said. Braude bought the three ancient pieces...

<p>A team of divers has discovered what appears to be the oldest shipwreck ever found in Alaska waters, the remains of a three-masted Russian sailing freighter called the Kadi'ak, which sank off Kodiak Island in March 1860.</p> <p>The searchers, led by Bradley Stevens, a scientist with the National Marine Fisheries Service, located a cannon, an anchor and what they believe to be copper sheeting in an underwater sand channel off Spruce Island, said Steve Lloyd, one of the divers.</p>

<p>Archaeologists excavating the site of a major Roman temple in London have found a sealed box containing a white cream still bearing the fingermarks of the person who last used it, nearly 2,000 years ago.</p> <p>"This is of major significance," said Museum of London curator Francis Grew on Monday.</p>

<p>Police have arrested an Israeli antiquities dealer suspected of creating two forgeries that shook the religious and archaeological world, including a burial box purported to be that of Jesus's brother James.</p> <p>Oded Golan also is suspected in connection with a shoebox-sized tablet inscribed with forged instructions for caring for the Jewish Temple.</p>

There is a saying that fine wine improves with age. But does this apply to a wine that is 2,000 years old. Well, archaeologists in China may soon be able to tell us. State media said that when Chinese archaeologists unearthed a large bronze jar in the Western city of Xi'an they discovered about five litres of light green rice wine inside. The jar shaped like a phoenix head was found in a tomb. One archaeologist was quoted as saying that the high purity of the wine indicated the owner was a nobleman. It is thought to date back to...

MUCH ABOUT HISTORY Pharaoh's chariots found in Red Sea? 'Physical evidence' of ancient Exodus prompting new look at Old Testament -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: June 21, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern By Joe Kovacs © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com "And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided." (Exodus 14:21) One of the most famous stories of the Bible is God's parting of the Red Sea to save the Israelites from the Egyptian army and the subsequent...

``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>

Treasures dating to 900 B.C. found in secret Iraqi vault By Hamza Hendawi | The Associated Press Posted June 8, 2003 BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The world-famous treasures of Nimrud, unaccounted for since Baghdad fell two months ago, have been located in good condition in the country's Central Bank -- in a secret vault-inside-a-vault submerged in sewage water, U.S. occupation authorities said Saturday. They also said that fewer than 50 items from the collection of the Iraqi National Museum's main exhibition still are missing after the looting and destruction that followed the U.S. capture of Baghdad. ...The treasures, one of the...

Anglo Saxon brooch has oldest writing in English By Paul Stokes (Filed: 07/06/2003) What is believed to be the oldest form of writing in English ever found has been uncovered in an Anglo-Saxon burial ground. It is in the form of four runes representing the letters N, E, I and M scratched on the back of a bronze brooch from around AD650. The six inch cruciform brooch is among one million artefacts recovered from a site at West Heslerton, near Malton, North Yorks, since work began there in 1978. Dominic Powlesland, the archaeologist leading the excavation team, said: "This could...

'Looted' treasures found in Baghdad By Andrew Clennell 08 June 2003 Almost all the items feared looted from the Iraqi National Museum in April have been found safe in a secret vault, the US announced yesterday. In a separate find, the world-famous treasures of Nimrud, one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the 20th century, which have not been on public display since before the first Gulf War, have also been located. They were found in good condition in a different vault, at Iraq's central bank. US occupation authorities said fewer than 50 major exhibition items from the National...

<p>The treasure of Nimrud survived 2,800 years buried near a dusty town in northern Iraq. It then spent 12 years tucked away in a vault. Until Thursday, it was uncertain whether it had survived Saddam Hussein's son, a U.S. missile strike, looters, a flood and a grenade attack. But it has been found intact in the dark, damp basement of a bombed out central bank building.</p>

WASHINGTON - More than 700 artefacts and tens of thousands of ancient manuscripts that had been missing from the National Museum in Baghdad have been recovered by teams of investigators in Iraq, US officials said on Wednesday. Some of the missing works were stored in underground vaults before the United States-led invasion of the country. The US investigators located the vaults over the past week. They forced them open, revealing hundreds of artefacts that had apparently been stored there to protect them from being damaged in a US assault. The find included ancient jewellery, pottery and sarcophaguses, officials said. The...