Free Republic

ROME -- In a case with broad implications for the art world, the trial of a senior curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum who is accused of illegally acquiring antiquities opened today in Rome, and was almost immediately suspended to await translation of key documents into English. The prosecution of Marion True, the Getty's curator for antiquities and director of the Getty Villa, will resume Nov. 16, a three judge panel decided. True, 56, is accused of criminal conspiracy to receive stolen goods and illicit receipt of archeological items purportedly dug up in Italy. The case involves 42 allegedly...

Museum curator credited with finding oldest 'steel' The Yomiuri Shimbun Two pieces of metal unearthed at colonial ruins in Turkey have been deemed the world's oldest examples of a crude type of steel, dating back to 1800 B. C.The discovery has been credited to Hideo Akanuma, senior curator at Iwate Prefectural Museum, who tested the pieces, which were excavated in 1994 at the Kaman-Kalehoyuk ruins, 100 kilometers southeast of Ankara. Both pieces measure between one and two centimeters long and about one centimeter wide and were excavated by archaeologists of the Middle Eastern Culture Center in Japan, who started digging...