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Explorator 26.25


 

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explorator 26.25 ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?October 8, 2023
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You can read explorator online at:

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?


Thanks to Arthur Shippee, Dave Sowdon, Edward Rockstein, Kurt Theis,
John McMahon, Barnea Selavan, Joseph Lauer, Mike Ruggeri, Hernan Astudillo,
Richard Campbell, Barbara Saylor Rodgers, Bob Heuman, David Critchley,
Richard Miller, Kris Curry, Rick Heli, Richard C. Griffiths, Frank MacKay, Ian Tompkins,
Don Buck, mata kimasitayo, and Ross W. Sargent for headses upses this week
(as always hoping I have left no one out).

... still have a bit of catching up to do (mostly North and South America)
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EARLY HOMINIDS
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Another route for 'out of Africa', across the Sinai though Jordan, some 80 000 years bp:





cf.:

On the use of shells for personal ornamentation at Blombos cave 70 000 years bp:



Pondering a 1.45 million years bp tibia that possibly shows signs of cannibalism:



Feature on homo soloensis (actually homo erectus):



More on that 476 000 years bp wooden structure (apparently) in Zambia:



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AFRICA
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Petroglyphs of animal footprints at the Doro Nawas mountains of Namibia are detailed enough to determine what animals they represent:



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ANCIENT NEAR EAST AND EGYPT
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5000 years bp sealed ceramic wine jars from the tomb of Merit-Neith in Abydos:







Brief mention of a 'burial well' full of mummies at Saqqara (date?):



Restoration works at the Esna Temple have revealed new heavenly decorations:





Overview of the recents finds underwater at Thonis-Heracleion:




More on new rooms being found in the pyramid of Sahura:





Trying to figure out what was going on at the Kale-Kub site (Iran) some 6000 years bp:



Remains of a Sassanid-era fire temple from northern Iran:



Excavations are under way at the Sepahbod-Khorshid cave (vague description):



Another item on using AI to translate 5000 years bp cuneiform tablets:



An Urartian horse burial from the Cavustepe Castle site:



Monumental statues of a boar and a man from Gobeklitepe and Karahantepe (8000 years bp?):








A trio of 7700 years bp human figurines from the Ulucak Mound excavations in Izmir:







A section of the 16th century Ab-i Hamravat water channel was revealed in the Amida Mound excavations in Diyarbakir:



Overview on what is being found on the Kumluca Middle Bronze Age shipwreck:



Still arguing about the origin of the Bronze Age tin on the Uluburun shipwreck:




More on Gordion being given World Heritage status:



A Roman era (probably) marble head of Alexander from Amasra:









2000 years bp cosmetics and jewelry from the Temple of Zeus site in Anatolia:



A 1700 years bp iron trident from Assos:






Remains of a Byzantine-era abbey confirmed in Ordu:



A hoard of Byzantine coins from the Golan Heights:



Ongoing concerns for Hagia Sophia (collapse?):



A jawbone from a large cat species (date uncertain) from Apemeia:



An overview of archaeology finds in Turkiye in September:



Remains of a Roman-era aqueduct at Giv'at Hamatos in Jerusalem:





A Byzantine-era Psalm inscription (in Greek) from excavations at a monastery site in Hyrcania:






More on that purported 'Hellenistic courtesan burial' from Israel:







More on the Roman-era burials in Gaza:



Feature on Hamoudi Khalaily's adventures in archaeology:



Feature on a 1900 years bp child's garment found in the Cave of Letters back in the 1960s:



The Codex Sassoon is back in Israel:




Neolithic herders in Saudi Arabia used heavy rock tools to grind animal bones, plants, and pigments:






cf:

I think we've mentioned these life-size Neolithic camel petroglyphs from Saudi Arabia before:





cf:

-----
This Week in the Ancient Near East Podcast:



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ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME (AND CLASSICS)
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An early Minoan burial of a woman with assorted grave goods from Sisi (Crete):



Bones (Bronze Age?) found during sewer work in Limassol:



A 5th century BCE Scythian bone 'scepter' from Bulgaria:





A 4th century intact painted tomb from Pontecagnano:






A 2000 years bp life-sized statue of a woman dubbed the 'nymph of Tusculum':







A 2000 years bp burial of a woman wearing a bronze bracelet from Ivry-sur-Seine:



1st century CE Gallic burials from near Nauheim:



Electoral graffiti inside a villa being excavated on the Via di Nola in Pompeii:





An 1800 years bp Roman sarcophagus of an elite woman from necropolis in northern France:





A pair of 1800 years bp 'cavalry swords' found by a metal detectorist in North Cotswolds:





A 'battered' Roman-era skull with possible evidence of a brain tumour from a site in Spain:



Roman kilns from Colchester:





Finds from various periods, but mostly Roman-era, from a necropolis in Alba Iulia:



Overview of excavations at a Roman-era site in Finiq (Albania):



Evidence of camelids in Cordoba during the Roman era:



Metal detectorists found a Roman key by Greenwood Lake:



Work on a bypass in Melton Mowbray has revealed the presence of a large Roman farm site:



Reviews of Emily Wilson's translation of the Iliad:











... and a related comic:



Review of Natalie Haynes, *Divine Might*:



Review of Mary Beard, *Emperor of Rome*:





Review of a biography of ?Edith Hamilton:



Review of Sarah Ruden, *Vergil: The Poet's Life*:



Review of Adrian Goldsworthy, *Rome and Persia* and Tom Holland, *Pax*:



Review of a pair of books on the Parthenon:



Feature on children books in Latin and Greek:



Pondering the resurgence of Greco-Roman studies:



Features on John Gilbert:




Feature on the Royal Kurgan of Kerch tomb in Crimea:



Feature on Carthage and war elephants:



Feature on Theopetra Cave:



Feature on the Carranque Villa:



Feature on the Naked Lady of Saliagos sculpture:



Feature on Herostratus:



Feature on the Dispilio Tablet:



Feature on Minoan spice use/trade:



OpEd on the Parthenon sculptures as 'shared cultural legacy':



OpEd on the need to continue negotiations for the sculptures:



Latest Pasts Imperfect newsletter:


-----
Roman Archaeology Blog:



Rogueclassicism:


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EUROPE AND THE UK (+ Ireland)
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A 24 000 years bp cave art site from the Cova Dones site in Spain:




Evidence of human occupation in the coldest and driest upland areas of Spain during Paleolithic times:




15 000 years bp evidence of funerary cannibalism from sites across northwest Europe:





9500 years bp evidence of basketry and 6200 years bp grass shoes from the Cueva de los Murcielagos in Spain:





A study of ritual use of human remains during the Neolithic:



Overview of the ongoing dig at the 5000 years bp Carn Glas site:



A 3000 years bp decorated stela from the funerary site of Las Capellanias:




2900 years bp steel tools from Portugal:





An intact Bronze Age pot from a dig near Ely:



A major megalith complex site in Spain's Huelva province:



Evidence of an Iron Age port on the Baltic island of Gotska Sandon:



Iron Age evidence of iron working from Nesscliffe Hill:



2000 years bp cremation burials from near Frondenberg:



A metal detectorist in Norway came across a gold hoard of various items dating to 500 CE:



The site where Otto I 'The Great' died has possibly been located:



Anglo Saxon burials with gender questions:




A Frankish warrior burial from near Ingelheim:



Remains of a 10th century church from Erwitte (Germany):



A Viking-era horse bridle from melting Norwegian ice:



Evidence the VIkings had glass windows:



Evidence of a Viking-era settlement and later human remains from Viru-Nigula (Estonia):



Probable Viking-era bronze ornaments found by a Norwegian family using a metal detector to find a lost earring:





An early medieval carved stone figure dubbed the 'Govan Warrior' from a church site in Scotland:



A possible 'long lost' medieval palace site from Mantle Walls (Scotland):



A metal detectorist came across a large silver medieval brooch in Somerset (and it's on display):







A 700 years bp coin depicting a Serbian king on one side and Jesus on the other from Bulgaria:



A 650 years bp shipboard cannon found off the coast of Sweden:



A Norfolk theatre believes it has found timber floorboards which might have been trodden by Shakespeare:






Overview of excavations at Bannockburn's Wilson Mills:



More on the different origin of the Stonehenge Altar Stone:





More on 1400 years bp gold foil figures from a pagan temple site in Norway:




More on the identity of who carved the Jelling Stone Runes:



More on medieval murder maps of England:



A survey is underway at the site where the Le Catillon II coin hoard was found back in 2012:



Collapse concerns for Piercefield House:



Feature on things found during HS2 construction over the past while:



Evidence that Lucerne is 2400 years older than previously thought:


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Archaeology in Europe News:



Medievalists.net:



Viking Archaeology Blog:



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ASIA AND THE SOUTH PACIFIC
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100 Kofun-era bronze mirrors from a burial mound in Sakurai:




A major (possibly) 'pre urban' mass cemetery (5300 years bp or so) in Gujarat:




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CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA
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Remains of a Maya palace (400 BCE) at Kabah:



A Lima culture tomb on the Great Pyramid at Huaca Pucllana:



A Middle Preclassic Maya painted vault lid from Ek Balam:






A Late Classic Maya nose ring made from human bone from Palenque:



A Maya burial from Ocampo:



Pre-Inca burials and finds of various types found during gas work in Lima:





A 1000 years bp Ychsma mummy with a full head of hair from Lima:




Preservation concerns for Chinchorro mummies:



Evidence that Aztecs in pre-Columbian Mexico were 'ruthless exploiters':


-----
Mike Ruggeri's Ancient Americas Breaking News:



Mike Ruggeri's Ancient Americas lecture channels on Youtube:



Ancient MesoAmerica News:


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OTHER ITEMS OF INTEREST
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Marking the 400th anniversary of Versailles:


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CURRENT EVENTS:
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In case you missed the coverage of the cutting down of the Sycamore Gap tree it apparently did some damage to Hadrian's wall coming down:





... and they're thinking of what to do with the site now:


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ANIMAL AND PLANT DOMESTICATIONS
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Feature on dogs in Iron Age contexts in the Levant:



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MUSEUM MATTERS
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The Muddy Hoard:




Pharaoh:



Fauvism:



cf:




Triumphs of Caesar:



Susanna and the Elders:



Shakespeare's First Folio:



Abe Lincoln Photo:



Sanxingdui:



Bodies in Crisis:




Rubens and Women:



cf:

American Society of Marine Artists:



cf:

Degas and Manet:



A curator at the Museum of Fine Arts in St Petersburg was fired over provenance issues:







Feature on the Cyprus Museum in Nicosia:



Emory's museum is dealing with some questionably-sourced items:



The Penn Museum is renovating its Egyptian and Nubian galleries:



More on the items stolen from the British Museum:







... and they've set up a webpage to try and get things back:




















... and a 'panel of experts':




... and we learn the British Museum purchased an Egyptian artifact from a convicted smuggler:




... and folks are wondering what the BM's trustees were doing while all this was going on:



OpEds on the future of museums after the British Museum debacle:





... while the Cleveland MoA seems determined to buy things with clean provenances:



UNESCO is planning a virtual museum of stolen cultural items:


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AUCTIONS AND SALES RELATED
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Photos associated with the Franklin Expedition are coming to auction:



An NC Wyeth painting was coming to auction last month:




... as did a 'misidentified' Anglo-Saxon bowl:



... and a coin depicting a hitherto unknown Iron Age ruler:




... and a sketch by John Constable:



Items from the Rothschild collection are coming to auction:



A Depression-era $10 000 dollar bill fetched a nice price:



... as did a ticket from Ford's Theatre from the night Lincoln was assassinated:




A letter of Columbus announcing his 'discovery' of America is coming to auction:



HIgh expectations for a recently-identified Rembrandt:



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THE TECHY SIDE
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Feature on LiDAR use at various South American sites:



More on the use of LiDAR at the site of the Battle of the Bulge:



Latest facial reconstruction is of a medieval man with dwarfism:



... and a 4200 years bp woman dubbed 'the Upper Largie Woman':





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TOURISTY THINGS
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Egypt:



Rome:



Bavaria:



Tourists behaving badly I: a tourist in Brussels climbed on a statue and broke it:



Tourists behaving badly II: a Romanian woman was caught trying to take marbles from the Acropolis site:




Tourists behaving badly III: a Belgian couple was caught trying to 'smuggle' artifacts:



Tourists behaving badly IV: A US tourists toppled some 'blasphemous' statues in the Israel Museum:













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CRIME BEAT
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A guilty plea in that false provenance EID MAR coin case:



Chinese porcelain stolen from a German museum:




Arrests in Sohag for illegal excavations:



A Roman coin and documentation was stolen from somewhere in St Martin's:



A man in Rhodope was arrested for possession of looted antiquities:



A number of antiquities were seized from a 'criminal gang' in Athens:




A German museum employee was caught switching original paintings for copies:






Latest in the Hobby Lobby v Dirk Obbink case:



Vandalism at a First Nations pictograph site in Bon Echo Provincial Park:



----------
conflict antiquities:



anonymous swiss collector:



Portable Antiquity Collecting and Heritage Issues:



Looting Matters:



Illicit Cultural Property:



SAFE:



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REPATRIATION AND RECOVERY
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The family of George Lindemann has returned 33 looted antiquities to Cambodia:












... while the family of Douglas Latchford return at 7th century statue to Viet Nam:






The US returned a dozen antiquities to Lebanon:






... and some items seized at a Florida airport were returned to Costa Rica:





The Manhattan DA has also seized the 'Portrait of a Lady' from the Worcester Museum:




The ANU museum is returning a 2500 years bp vase to Italy:







A lock of hair from Ethiopian prince Alemayehu was returned:





That Nisga'a totem pole was returned from a Scotland museum:




The V&A will holed on to some Yemen stones found in a London shop for a while:




... similarly, the Met is returning a pair of antiquities to Yemen, but is holding on to them for a while:




The US retuned 3500+ Achaemenid tablets to Iran:




A stolen Van Gogh was recovered:







Pondering delays in returning some Nazi-looted art in Germany:



... while the Manhattan DA returned seven items of Nazi-looted art to a Holocaust victim's relatives:




Turkiye is seeking items back from UK museums:



... and items from Troy:




Tanzania wants Berlin to return some colonial-era skulls:



The British Museum is being targeted for some sacred Ethiopian Tabots:



The UK is being accused of dragging its feet over return of 'looted' columns from Leptis Magna:



Christos Tsirogiannis is calling out the Manhattan DA's office for not giving him credit in repatriation cases:





Feature on Edoardo Almagia's smuggling activities:



OpEd on assorted museums with repatriation issues:



The head of the Met is pledging to return trafficked art:


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NUMISMATICA
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Feature on coins from the 'fall of Rome':



Feature on some medieval coins from the ruins of a German monastery:



Feature on coins of some Persian satraps:



Feature on goats on ancient coins:



A few weeks' worth of E-Sylum newsletters:






------------------------

Coin Week:



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OBITUARIES
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Irene Philippaki-Warburton:



Janet Martin:



Robert Kraft:



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AUDIO/VIDEO NEWS
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Audio News from Archaeologica:


============================================================
GENERAL ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS BLOGS
============================================================
Archaeology Magazine News Page:



About.com Archaeology:



Archaeology Briefs:



Atlas Obscura:



Heritage Daily:



Sapiens Archaeology:



Taygete Atlantis excavations blogs aggregator:


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PODCASTS/VODCASTS
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Archaeosoup:



Archaeology Podcast Network:


============================================================
EXPLORATOR is a free weekly newsletter bringing you the latest
news of archaeological finds, historical research and the like.
Various on-line news and magazine sources are scoured for news of
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