Newsdesk Archive

The best place to build a space telescope is a mountain plateau in Antarctica where stars would appear clearer and brighter, say Australian and Chilean scientists. The site, called Dome C, is the ideal place to capture photographs of planets in other solar systems, they say. The research led by Dr Jon Lawrence from the University of New South Wales in Sydney was published today in the journal Nature. The researchers measured a parameter called the 'seeing' at the site, on a 3260 metre high plateau in central Antarctica. The site is at the French-Italian Concordia research station 1100 kilometres inland from Australia's Casey station and the French station at Dumont D'Urville.

The US space agency Nasa has awarded military and space contractor Northrop Grumman a $400m contract to co-design its Jimo space probe to Jupiter. The Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (Jimo) is part of an ambitious mission to explore the three planet-sized Jovian moons Callisto, Ganymede and Europa. Designing the spacecraft poses a significant engineering challenge given the long distances involved.

The numbers of viruses, worms, Trojans and other malicious programs aimed at PC users has now surpassed 100,000. According to security firm McAfee, a variant of the Sdbot bug has the honour of being the 100,000th security threat. This bug tries to install backdoors on PCs to turn them into spam relays, spread viruses or steal personal data. McAfee said it had seen big increases in the number of viruses produced as creators of malicious programs try to outwit security software.

Roman remains and a gravestone of "national importance" have been discovered during an archaeological dig in the middle of Gloucester. The discoveries - which included the skeletons of five Romans, the cremated remains of three other people, plus Roman and medieval pottery - were made underneath the former Esso petrol station on London Road. The recent excavation also turned up what could prove be a highly unusual find - a gravestone for a 14-year-old slave boy called Martialis.

"Field research" projects often require scientists to endure discomfort and danger to get where they need to be, but not many can trump this summer's expedition to what may be the world's most inaccessible human fossil site, a cave in the foothills of Romania's Carpathian Mountains. For the seven-member team, the hazards of reaching the site, accessible only by diving through frigid underwater passages, were worth it. Their finds may help answer some of the most hotly debated questions about early humans: Did they make love or war with Neanderthals? Were Neanderthals intellectually inferior to our human ancestors?

The ruins of a fortified village dating back to the Heian period (794-1192) have been unearthed in Kamikitamachi, Aomori Prefecture. A deep trench curved around part of the village. The fortified village is the first of its kind to be discovered on the Pacific coast. Another was found in the Takayashikiyakata Ruins in Namiokamachi in the same prefecture. The Aomori Prefectural Archeological Artifacts Research Center said the village was unearthed in the Akahira Ruins and would help researchers understand the social conditions of the period. The ruins are located on the southern bank of the Shichinohegawa river.

New data showing that patterns of water and methane in Mars' atmosphere overlap may have important implications for the idea that the planet could harbour life. The finding comes from the Mars Express probe in orbit around the Red Planet. If microbes are making methane seen in Mars' atmosphere, they would rely on water, so the association between the two has excited some researchers. But other scientists have pointed out that this overlap could just as easily be explained by alternative processes.

Bath's position as a flourishing town in Roman times has been reinforced, thanks to discoveries made during an ambitious excavation project. A two-year dig near the Royal Crescent has unearthed Roman burial sites and buildings, and allowed archaeologists to piece together how the most important road in early Roman Britain cut through the city. The excavation by the Bath Archaeological Trust also revealed the Georgian and Victorian history behind three former coach houses in Crescent Lane. A two-man team from the trust was able to excavate while developer Future Heritage began building six new townhouses on the lane.

New Delhi, Sept 17 : The CBI today claimed to have recovered extremely rare Tibetan manuscripts, believed to be over 800 years old, from smugglers, operating in Buddhist pockets in north eastern parts of the country. The seizure was made late on Thursday in Kalimpong town after over a two-week operation, which had sleuths posing as antique collectors and setting a foolproof trap. Officials said the breakthrough came when they succeeded in persuading the peddlers to strike a deal in person, as against the usual practice of sending the booty via small-time crooks, who are not actually part of the gang and can give little information when caught.

Jaipur: Remnants of an approximately three-millennium-old human settlement have been unearthed from archaeological excavations in southern Rajasthan, official sources said here today. Excavations at the Ahar-Banas (3000-1500 BC) site of Gilund in Chitoregarg district revealed a set of massive parallel mud-brick walls, built of very hard reddish-yellow mud bricks with yellow mortar. A 'bin' containing 135 seal impressions, pottery and some deep black earth was also unearthed from the 'building', sources said.

A unique archeological finding of a solid gold mask a couple of months ago stirred the world and rocketed Bulgarian pride of its history to unknown heights. The face with closed eyes and robust expression found in the outskirts of Shipka Peak, near the town of Kazanlak, is believed to belong to one of mightiest Thracian kings - Seutus III, whose ruling dates around V-IV century BC. According to its discoverer and head of the archeological expedition TEMP 2004 Georgi Kitov, the image outruns all its analogs found so far, as it is made of pure, solid gold weighing more than half a kilogram. It was sheer chance of luck that the mask was unearthed by Kitov's team as local treasure hunters have proved to be real competitors to the archeologists, digging and plundering mounds and suspected treasure forays in hunt of ancient artifacts.

The ancient Egyptians put as much care into mummifying their animals as they did their kings and relatives, according to a study to be published Thursday in the British scientific journal Nature. Countless mammals, birds and reptiles were killed and mummified as an offering to the gods they represented, a cult that accelerated from 1400 B.C. under the pharaoh Amenhotep III.

Bling-bling culture started with Stone Age cavemen up to 280,000 years ago. A new scientific study says hunters loved to be dripping in luxury goods, and the taste for flashy trinkets may have been what turned humans from savages into a civilised society. Beads, jewellery and ornaments found at a cave in Blombos, South Africa, are thought to be status symbols dating back up to 77,000 years. Until now it had been thought that an interest in fancy accessories only started around 40,000 years ago.

JERUSALEM--Since the start of the Palestinian uprising four years ago, local archaeologists, many of them working on sites alluded to in the Bible, have had to scale back or even cancel their digs. That's because the threat of continued violence has kept foreign professors and students from providing assistance at large digs. Twin bus bombings that killed 16 people in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba last month did nothing to calm skittish scholars and nervous insurance companies. But archaeologists still are hopeful the attraction of biblical history--especially the discovery of a cave said to be John the Baptist's--will lure academics and tourists alike.

Lost stretches of the Roman Wall have been discovered hidden under a grandmother's suburban garden. For more than a century the wall, a World Heritage Site, lay undiscovered as building work went on around and above it. But during a recent development the find was made near the Fossway in Byker, Newcastle. The discovery has excited archaeologists and thrilled grandmother Eileen Maas, 58.

The first dam in history is clearly a major engineering achievement. But it is also something of a disaster story. Dating back to the age of the "Pyramid builders", and estimated to have been between 10 and 15 years in the making, Sadd Al-Kafara was destroyed by heavy rainfall soon after its completion. The experience was so traumatic for the Ancient Egyptians, that they never tried to build a dam again. This was the site that John Broad, a retired consulting engineer with a passionate interest in ancient structures, was anxious to see on his first visit to Egypt.

The horses once roamed Britain 4,000 years ago and visitors to the forest will now be able to see them in the 21st Century. The animals were introduced by the Forestry Commission after they were bred at Colwyn Bay Mountain Zoo. "Although they are known as the Mongolian wild horse, the Przewalski's horse roamed Britain 3,000 to 4,000 years ago, so this truly is a scene from the past," said the Forestry Commission's conservation manager Iolo Lloyd. "Przewalski's horses appear on cave paintings, and now we've brought them back to the forest after all this time as part of a modern approach to the challenge of managing this significant site."

Researchers think the human body clock could hinder space exploration. Russell Foster's team at Imperial College London, UK, is looking at how astronauts would cope away from Earth. Foster says our "circadian rhythm is crucial. It stops everything happening at once and co-ordinates the right things to happen at the right time".

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The World Bank (news - web sites) said on Wednesday it will lend Peru $5 million to help preserve the country's best-known cultural sites, including Machu Picchu and the Sacred Valley of the Incas. Every day up to 2,000 people visit Machu Picchu, the ruins of an Inca citadel perched in the Peruvian Andes, and visitor numbers are growing at 6 percent a year. Some planners have said unrestricted tourism and landslides have irrevocably damaged the world-famous archeological site and its surrounding attractions. UNESCO (news - web sites) last year warned it could place Machu Picchu on its list of endangered sites but has yet to carry through on the threat.

LONDON, Sept 15 (Reuters) - Ancient Egyptians revered cats and other animals and took as much care in preparing them for their passage to the next life as they did with humans, scientists said on Wednesday. A study of animal mummies from tombs dating back thousands of years showed the ingredients the Egyptians used to preserve them were the same as those used for humans. "The sorts of compounds we were finding indicate they were embalming them in the much same way, with some exotic ingredients," said Richard Evershed, an expert in archaeological chemistry at the University of Bristol in southwest England.

LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - While workers at Peru's huge Camisea energy project were busy laying the high-tech gas pipeline from the southern jungle to Lima earlier this year, archeologists in the area were marveling at something a little less state-of-the-art: ceramics. The construction of the 454-mile pipeline through the jungle and over the Andes to the coast has unearthed some 1,000 archeological sites from a range of civilizations across Peru that trace 9,000 years of history, archeologists say.

CLEVELAND (AP) - Some archeologists say the Cleveland Museum of Art may encourage smuggling and the looting of ancient sites by acquiring a bronze Apollo sculpture with large gaps in its ownership history. The museum proudly announced the purchase in June, saying the statue might be the only one among about 20 large bronzes in the world that can be linked to the ancient Greek masters.

The Incan capital at Cusco was built to look like a dark puma-shaped constellation, according to an Italian scientist. The research by Professor Giulio Magli from the maths department at Milan's technical university was published recently on the physics website arXiv, which is owned and operated by the Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. The Incan capital of Cusco was founded around the 12th century in what is now Peru and is about 110 kilometres south of the fortress city at Machu Picchu.

CHILLIWACK -- A group of archaeology students working with the Sto:lo expected to find some artifacts at the site near Agassiz this summer. But they ended up finding something bigger, and older, than anything they imagined. "We had it in our mind it was a younger site," SFU archeology professor Dana Lepofksy said. After turning up a large collection of tools and leftover stone chips, one student found what appears some type of smokehouse that has since been radiocarbon-dated at 5,700 years old.

LAHORE, Sept 14: The federal archaeology department claims to have discovered rock-art sites near the Siachen Glacier, between the villages of Domsum and Gulshan-i-Kabin on the left bank of Saltoro river in the Lower Sheyole (Khaplu) valley. Khaplu is located in eastern Baltistan, some 103km away from Skardu. The engravings depicting animal and human figures and inscriptions on boulders and rocks in the sub-valleys of Khaplu are some of the oldest historic remains of the region. Deputy Director Dr Muhammad Arif who led a three-member team to Khaplu in May told this reporter on Sunday that this valley had been properly explored for the first time. "As many as 40 rock-art sites have been discovered," he said, adding that rock art should also be protected under the Antiquity Act-1975. Mr Arif says that Brenhmi letters and drawings of ibexes are engraved in a large number of rocks. On one boulder is engraved a warrior on horseback holding a shield in his left hand and a sword in his right besides several other figures of men in the standing posture. He says that Bonism and Buddhism were major religions of this area at the time.

What became the frozen tundra of Siberia may have yielded some of the earliest animal life on Earth, according to newly released research involving a Kansas University faculty member. "It's not the place you think about as the cradle of life," said Bruce Lieberman, associate professor of geology at KU. The research, to be published next week in the London Journal of the Geological Society, examined rocks and fossils of trilobites -- the ancient ancestors of crabs and lobsters -- to determine how the split-up of an ancient "supercontinent" called Pannotia affected early life on Earth.

Mexico City - Divers making dangerous probes through underwater caves near the Caribbean coast have discovered what appears to be one of oldest human skeletons in the Americas, archaeologists announced at a seminar on Friday. The report by a team from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History exploits a new way of investigating the past. Most coastal settlements by early Americans are deep beneath the sea, which during the Ice Age was hundreds of metres below its current level. Researchers at the international "Early Man in America" seminar here also reported other ancient finds - including a California bone that is a rival for the title of the oldest in the Americas.

A new tribe is emerging from Mexico's scorched earth. A team of geoarchaeologists working on a programme investigating human evolution have found skeletal remains in the desert of the Baja California Peninsula that give rise to new theories on the colonisation of the Americas. The team from the Natural Environment Research Council and led by Dr Silvia Gonzalez, analysed the DNA of skulls with markedly different morphologies to Native American Indians, commonly regarded as the first settlers of the Americas. The skulls are long and narrow, not in keeping with the Native Indians' broader, rounder features. "They appear more similar to southern Asians, Australians and populations of the South Pacific Rim than they do to Northern Asians," said Dr Gonzalez of Liverpool John Moores University. "DNA analysis of the Mexican remains suggest these people were at least partly contemporaneous to the first native American Indian settlers on the continent," she added. "We think there were several migration waves into the Americas at different times by different human groups. The timing, route and point of origin of the first colonisation of the Americas remains a most contentious topic in human evolution."

QUARRY workers have discovered an ancient graveyard which is giving archaeologists an insight into the lifestyle, nutrition and health of early Christians in Scotland. Machine operators unearthed 19 graves in a previously unknown 1500-year-old cemetery at the quarry. Experts are analysing 17 skeletal remains found at the site to glean more information about the dawn of Christianity in Scotland and its impact on the native Picts.

Fans of Shakespeare are getting the chance to thumb through some of the earliest copies of the Bard's plays. The British Library is putting online 93 high-resolution digitised copies of 21 of Shakespeare's plays. The texts date from Shakespeare's lifetime and are pamphlet editions of plays prepared to be sold after performances had finished.

LONDON Perhaps the mystery surrounding the ancient kingdom of Kush in present-day Sudan will be resolved the day its language - written both in hieroglyphs and cursive letters - can be understood. For the moment, we can only marvel at the glimpses that its sculpture or its objects, many of them uncovered in recent excavations, allow us into a history as old as that of Egypt. "Sudan: Ancient Treasures," on view at the British Museum until Jan. 9, may be hopelessly pedestrian in its display, but if only for some of the stunning works on loan from the Sudan National Museum in Khartoum, this is one of the season's revelations.

LANZHOU, Sept. 11 (Xinhuanet) -- Four ceramic balls unearthed in northeast China are believed to be weapons of ancient hunters some3,000 years ago. Chinese archeologists discovered four such balls, 2-4 centimeters in diameter, in Guanghe County, Gansu Province, and before the finding people only knew of the ceramic balls from historical documents. The balls are red, yellow and black. Some are solid with slick surfaces, some are hollow with fictile grains inside.

When New Zealand archaeologist Dr Stuart Bedford was handed a large piece of ancient broken pottery in Vanuatu this year he thought it was a joke. At Port Vila for a wedding, all thoughts of the nuptials deserted him as he stared at the piece of highly decorated Lapita pottery. "I thought I must have been in another country," he said.

PENANG Sept 11 - Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi Saturday urged Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) to step up archaeological research so that Malaysia will have a rich collection of the country's human civilisation through their material remains. The Prime Minister said research in archaeology should be intensified as the findings could be used as proof and reference to the future generation on the achievements and civilisation of Malaysians. "I fully support efforts made by USM. I hope its initiatives in the archaeological field must be stepped up to a point archaeologists from throughout the world come to USM's Archaeological Centre for reference on Malaysia's ancient history," he said when launching a book entitled "Archaeology in Malaysia" authored by the centre's director Datuk Prof Siti Zuraina Abdul Majid and published by USM.

Astronomers working in Chile think they may have taken the first direct image of a planet circling another star. The star, called 2M1207, is 230 light-years away and is very much smaller and fainter than our own Sun. The pictured companion is 100 times fainter still and tested the technical limits of the Yepun telescope. Astronomer Christophe Dumas said: "It is a strange feeling that it may indeed be the first planetary system beyond our own ever imaged."

A pottery vessel discovered at the oldest, best-preserved Neolithic village in eastern Arabia may be evidence of early trade across the Persian Gulf between southern Mesopotamia and an island community off the coast of the United Arab Emirates. Found on the island of Marawah near the UAE capital Abu Dhabi, the 7,000-year-old pottery vessel has a pale-green surface and is painted with black geometric lines and chevrons--characteristics of pottery from Tell Al-Ubaid in southern Iraq, the heart of Mesopotamia. The design is also similar to that found on pottery made in the Susiana region of southern Iran during the fifth millennium B.C. Archaeologists suggest the presence of the pottery indicates trade at a surprisingly early time between peoples on the gulf.

RENO, Nev. -- Two men convicted of stealing ancient American Indian rock etchings from a national forest were sentenced Wednesday to short prison terms. Defense lawyers said they will appeal because the men did not know -- and federal prosecutors failed to prove -- the petroglyphs were valuable archaeological artifacts. U.S. District Judge Howard McKibben sentenced Carroll Mizell, 44, Van Nuys, Calif., who has a prior criminal record, to four months in prison and two months house arrest. John Ligon, 40, Reno, was sentenced to two months.

A plan to cover 3,000-year-old cairns on Exmoor with fabric to help protect them has been rejected. The National Trust applied for planning permission for the scheme on Dunkery Beacon, but this was turned down by the National Park Authority.

Archaeology students have this summer unearthed the foundations of a unique 4000 year old "longhouse" at Alta in the county of Finnmark. The longhouse was more than 10 metres long, had two fireplaces in the middle, and must have housed at least 10-12 persons.

A Viking burial ground, which has held bodies undisturbed for 1,000 years with all the trappings of the Sagas including swords, jewellery and firemaking materials, has been uncovered in Cumbria, after a chance find by a metal detector. The site - thought to contain the first formal burial of bodies discovered in England - is believed to date from the 10th century, when the Vikings had been Christianised, but were evidently still hedging their bets. Full details of the find at Cumwhitton, which has caused international excitement, will be announced this morning.

Albuquerque, NM, Sep. 7 (UPI) -- A New Mexico archeologist is giving his dog credit for finding a camp site of the nomadic Folsom people who wandered through 10,000 years ago. Bruce Huckell said evidence has been found of some of the earliest humans to live in the middle Rio Grande Valley, thanks to his dog, Chuska, who led him to some small stone flakes that often mark an ancient camp site. Huckell is the senior research coordinator at the University of New Mexico's Maxwell Museum, and is leading the dig at the Boca Negra Wash Folsom Site, the Albuquerque Journal reported.

Scientists in Leicester are marking the 20th anniversary of the invention of genetic fingerprinting. The breakthrough was made accidentally by Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys at the city's university on 10 September 1984. Since then, the technique has been used to trap criminals, identify victims of war, settle paternity disputes, and prove the claims of clones like Dolly.

Thanh Hoa (VNA) - Archaeologists from Viet Nam and Japan have unearthed valuable artefacts inside the citadel of the Ho Dynasty (1400-1407) in central Thanh Hoa province. The excavated area, covering 46.5 sq.m at the highest site inside the citadel in Vinh Loc district, was the main part of the royal palace, including the Nhan Tho palace - the king's residence, and Hoang Nguyen court hall, according to historic files

EXETER, England (Reuters) - Anthropologists stepped into a hornets' nest on Monday, revealing research that suggests the original inhabitants of America may in fact have come from what is now known as Australia. The claim will be extremely unwelcome to today's native Americans who came overland from Siberia and say they were there first. But Silvia Gonzalez from John Moores University in Liverpool said skeletal evidence pointed strongly to this unpalatable truth and hinted that recovered DNA would corroborate it.

How did hundreds of thousands of bronze coins from the reign of Alexander Jannaeus (Yannai) end up on the bottom of the Dead Sea? For some years now rumors have been circulating among antiquities afficionados in Israel about a huge coin hoard discovered along the Dead Sea shore. According to Donald Zvi Ariel, head of the coin division at the Israel Antiquities Authority, an acquaintance from Haifa University approached him 15 years ago with an envelope containing 190 ancient coins. The contact recounted visiting the Dead Sea, at a spot somewhere south of Ein Feshkha, sticking his hand down into shallow water and bringing up a handful of coins from the bottom. Since the area where the coins were found is in the West Bank, Ariel refrained from examining them carefully and sent the envelope to the office of archaeological affairs at military government headquarters.

OSLO (Reuters) - A replica of the Kon-Tiki balsa raft will sail the Pacific in 2005 to study mounting environmental threats to the oceans since Thor Heyerdahl made his daredevil 1947 voyage, organizers said on Monday. One of Heyerdahl's grandsons will be among the six-strong crew for the trip from Peru aiming to reach Tahiti, about 310 miles west of the Raroia atoll where the Kon-Tiki ran aground after traveling 4,970 miles in 101 days.

The Genesis probe, which left Earth in 2001 to gather particles blown off the Sun, returns its cargo on Wednesday. It will eject a capsule that will enter Earth's atmosphere at 40,000km/h (24,000mph) before slowing, with the help of a parachute, to fall over the Utah desert.

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - A pair of French Egyptologists who suspect they have found a previously unknown chamber in the Great Pyramid urged Egypt's antiquities chief to reconsider letting them test their theory by drilling new holes in the 4,600-year-old structure. Jean Yves Verd'hurt and fellow Frenchman Gilles Dormion, who has studied pyramid construction for more than 20 years, are expected to raise their views during the ninth International Congress of Egyptologists in Grenoble, France, which starts Monday. They also published a book about their theory this week.

Iranian archeologists have managed to discover some signs of Achaemenid settlements near the ancient southern city of Bam, almost completely ruined in a horrendous earthquake last December. Archeological studies, including aerial photos and geophysical surveys, have revealed over the past few months some historical sites with relics ranging from the Achaemenid dynasty to the Islamic era, stretched on a 20-square-km patch of land, south of the Iranian capital city of Tehran. "One of the major finds has been the foundations of a castle with an area of 400 square meters, surrounded with remains of some houses," Shahryar Adle, an expert with the Bam project.

ROME (Reuters) - The Torlonia Statues, regarded as one of the world's greatest private collections of ancient Roman sculpture, will go on display again after 40 years in storage, Italy's Culture Ministry says. Named after the aristocratic family which formed it over centuries, the Torlonia collection includes 620 marble and alabaster statues and sarcophagi from the Roman empire. Among the works are busts of Julius Caesar, sculptures of ancient gods and masterful Roman copies of Greek statues.

Sudan, torn by civil war, human misery and upheaval, was not always that way. For centuries Africa's biggest country was a jewel in the continent's cultural crown -- rich, powerful and a meeting point between the Mediterranean, southern Africa and the Middle East. In a bid to offset the modern image of violence and misery epitomised by the crisis in the western region of Darfur where thousands of people have been killed and more than a million uprooted, the British Museum is staging a major exhibition. "We are trying to highlight what an amazing country Sudan is," curator Derek Welsby told Reuters on a pre-opening tour.

A new Thracian treasure was unearthed in a highland tomb in Bulgaria. A golden necklace and a pair of earrings were disclosed by Bulgarian archaeologists working the region near the city Kazanlak. Dozens of Thracian mounds are spread throughout this region, dubbed "the Bulgarian valley of kings" in reference to the Valley of Kings near Luxor, which is home to the tombs of Egyptian Pharaohs. The Thracian tribes lived on the fringes of the Greek and Roman civilizations, often mixing and clashing with the more advanced cultures until they were absorbed around 45 AD. Archaeologist Georgi Kitov, head of the team, pointed out that the precious jewellery dates back to the first half of the 4th century BC. The golden beads of the necklace are hollow and the weight just 20 grams.

The secrets of a prehistoric village that once stood in Decatur County may remain locked away forever after thousands of ancient axes, arrowheads and other primitive tools were dug up and carted away. Three southern Indiana men have been arrested in the case after conservation officers, following a tip, found the men digging with shovels, picks and garden hoes, said Steve Reinholt, a state Department of Natural Resources field officer.

Native American leaders urged a major Southern Nevada developer and a federal agency to protect rock art, ancestral burial grounds and other sites sacred to several Southwestern tribes during an emotional hearing Tuesday night.

ARCHAEOLOGISTS investigating the discovery of remains in Caerleon believe the timbers formed part of a 300-year-old bridge which once spanned the River Usk. Timber remains were discovered by Environment Agency workers improving flood defences along Isca Road in Caerleon. Experts from Gwent and Glamorgan Archaeological Trust believe the find is the remains of a bridge recorded as destroyed by a storm in 1772. The main find consists of one pier of the bridge. It is a piece of oak seven metres long pierced by three mortice holes into which it is thought the tenons of three uprights that would have supported the road would be fitted.

Dynasties and empires rose and fell along the Wei He River valley, where Xi'an lies. While the emperors are gone, their legacy awaits the spades and brushes of archaeologists exploring this crucible of Chinese history and culture. The terracotta warriors, one of archaeology's greatest accidental finds, hint at what else could lie under the barely scratched fields where emperors and aristocrats lie interred beneath 500 burial mounds.

Egypt's antiquities chief on Thursday revealed a 2,500-year-old hidden tomb under the shadow of one of Giza's three giant pyramids, containing 400 pinkie-finger-sized statues and six coffin-sized niches carved into granite rock. Zahi Hawass, the director of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, said archaeologists had been working for three months to clear sand from a granite shaft found between the pyramid of Khafre -- also known by its Greek name of Chephren -- Giza's second-largest tomb of a pharaoh, and the Sphinx.

Multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) was used for the first time to produce a detailed 3D model of the face of an Egyptian man who lived nearly 3,000 years ago--without having to unwrap his mummified corpse, say a multidisciplinary group of Italian researchers that included physicians, anthropologists and forensic scientists. MDCT was used to image the completely wrapped mummy of an artisan named Harwa, which had been on display at the Egyptian Museum in Torino, Italy. MDCT created 3D images, which were then reconstructed to create all the features of the mummy's face. A physical plasticine and nylon model was sculpted based on the 3D image. The facial reconstruction revealed Harwa to be 45 years old at the time of his death and was detailed enough to reveal a mole on his left temple. "The only other way to have gotten the information we got from MDCT would have been to unwrap, destroy and otherwise alter the conservation of the bandages and the mummy," said Federico Cesarani, MD, of the Struttura Operativa Complessa di Radiodiagnostica in Asti, Italy, and lead author of the study.

PLANS to expand a quarry near an ancient monument have been likened to dropping Stonehenge into the River Avon. The comment comes from archaeologists backing protestors fighting the expansion of Nosterfield Quarry, close to Thornborough Henges, near Bedale, North Yorkshire. George Lambrick, director of the Council for British Archaeology, is one of several senior archaeologists who have spoken out against the plans by owners Tarmac Northern.

A Bronze Age burial ground in Co Down has been unearthed during work on a dual carriageway on the Belfast-Dublin route. The construction scheme on the A1, between Loughbrickland and Beech Hill, has led to a number of important archaeological finds that provide evidence of a settlement site stretching back thousands of years. A cemetery of eight early Bronze Age ring ditch barrow cremation burials, dating to 1800 BC, have been excavated and recorded, following three months of work by 12 archaeologists. Kev Beachus, the head archaeologist, said: "The wealth of archaeology uncovered provides a fascinating insight into the lives of our ancestors."

Archaeologists are beginning to dig into Teesside's Iron Age past at an excavation at a farm in Redcar. The work at Foxrush Farm is being organised by Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council and Tees Archaeology. It will last for two weeks before dozens of local schoolchildren will be given the chance to explore the site and surrounding woodland. Any samples uncovered will be sent to scientists at the University of Durham to analyse.

Archaeologists have unearthed two buildings dating back to the 1200s. Historical evidence shows that one of the largest settlements in Wales during 13th century is somewhere in the area. But archaeologists have said the exact location has never been pin-pointed, and they hope that the excavations have revealed the lost city. Stuart Wilson, who is part of Monmouth Archaeological Society, said he was convinced the dig would reveal further evidence of the city's existence a few miles south of the present-day village of Trellech.

The chances of scientists making one of five remarkable discoveries by 2010 have been hugely underestimated, according to bookmakers. Ladbrokes says it has had to slash the odds for one of the breakthroughs - the first detection of gravitational waves - after a rush of bets from punters. The five also include intelligent life being found on one of Saturn's moons and fusion power stations being built.

BAMIAN, Afghanistan -- Archaeologist Zemaryalai Tarzi can barely bring himself to look at the ravaged cliff face where two ancient Buddhas towered until the Taliban infamously blasted them to bits. "For me, everything there is over," Tarzi says, pointing toward the heap of peach-colored dust and chunks of rock that used to be one of the massive statues. "It hurts my heart to go there and see what has been lost." But the scientist, who began his career in the sleepy valley in Afghanistan's central highlands more than 35 years ago, isn't letting the destruction get the best of him. He has turned his back on the cliff, stuck his trowel in the earth and is on the hunt for a magnificent relic perhaps five times as large as the ones that incurred the Taliban's wrath: the long-lost sleeping Buddha of Bamian.

A Bronze Age cemetery is one of a number of prehistoric settlements that have been discovered in County Down. Neolithic homes, which date to 4000 BC, were also uncovered by archaeologists along the A1 road near Newry. Evidence from the excavation is being preserved before work begins on upgrading the road at Loughbrickland.

Among the six million artifacts were items from Lewis and Clark. But records were poor: How could she find out which ones they were?

Astronomers on Tuesday announced the discovery of a new -- and possibly abundant -- class of planets that has more in common with Earth than the uninhabitable gas giants previously discovered. "We are closer to answering the question, 'Are we alone in the universe?'" said Anne Kinney, director of NASA's Universe Division, Science Mission Directorate. "We aim to answer that question by looking for planets, eventually imaging them and ultimately diagnosing the presence of life on those planets."

CALGARY -- Simple fragments of ceramics and eerie burial grounds are among the artifacts unearthed in Nicaragua by Canadian researchers who say their findings could change the long-held history of the Central American country. For generations, Nicaraguan children have been taught that their ancestors came from central Mexico as migrants around 1000 AD, and that in 1300, a second wave made the trek. Both were believed to have brought their Aztec or Nahua culture and language with them. At least, those were the lessons passed on from the Spanish conquistadors who arrived in Nicaragua in 1529.

A previously unknown prehistoric settlement and a Roman farmstead have been unearthed in Herefordshire. The area was discovered on the Arrow Valley floodplain below the ancient castle at Staunton-on-Arrow and dates back more than 4,000 years. The Roman settlement was discovered downstream at Pembridge. As part of the project archaeologists teamed up with farmers and residents in the area to explore the history of the river valley.

The Sudan of today is ravaged by inter-ethnic violence and on the brink of a humanitarian disaster. Yet 200 millennia ago the area that is now Sudan was at the cutting edge of technological and cultural development, creating what some scholars believe was the world's oldest known piece of art. Now the people of its successive kingdoms, who humbled the pharaohs of Egypt, fought to a draw the power of Rome and held off the might of the Muslim Arabs, are to be recognised in an exhibition at the British Museum.

Excavations carried out since 1987 in the ancient city of Kelenderis in the Aydincik district of Mersin (a Southern Turkish city) turned up pre-historic artifacts for the first time this year. Kelenderis Excavation Head and Selcuk University Archeology Department Professor Dr. Levent Zoroglu explained that while the ancient city of Kelenderis dates back to the 8th century B.C., archeologists digging at the site uncovered ceramic pieces that are almost 5,000 years old. Zoroglu indicated that the ceramic pieces were discovered in the ancient city's acropolis, where excavations have been ongoing for the past four years. "These pre-historic findings are important since we came across them for the first time in Kelenderis, which is a port city on the Mediterranean cost between Silifke and Anamur and referred to as Saranduva in Hittite texts."

London's storied British Museum is shining a fresh light on a 3,000-year-old mummy, pointing to high-tech times ahead for the venerable world of Egyptology. An ongoing museum exhibit, Mummy: The Inside Story, presents a 3-D look at the unopened mummy of Nesperennub, an ancient Egyptian priest. Using the latest in medical technology, visitors see under the mummy's wrappings and flesh, catching researchers' insights into the art that went into its creation.

When Auguste Mariette, the celebrated founder of modern archaeological excavations and preserver of Egypt's monuments, made his remarkable discovery of the rock- hewn tombs of the sacred Apis bulls at Saqqara in 1851, his activities were watched over by Egyptian government officials. In those days there was no restriction on the excavation of monuments for exportation abroad. Indeed, Mohamed Ali actually used ancient treasures as bargaining tools in return for foreign expertise. However, his grandson Abbas Pasha liked to keep a closer eye on things. He instructed guards to take up quarters on the Saqqara necropolis and watch what was going on. It was not that he was concerned about antiquities so much as he had little confidence in the French in general.

RENO, Nev. (AP) - All the digging that's going on for the train trench through downtown Reno has produced an unexpected archaeological bonanza - a prehistoric site that may be as much as 4,000 years old and unlike any other site discovered in Nevada.

Alliances are being forged between archaeologists and metal detectorists after years of skirmishing. Professional archaeologists have complained that detector enthusiasts have destroyed the context of finds and valuable information by simply digging up objects while club members claim they behave responsibly and find items which would otherwise be lost to history.

ERZURUM - Various archeological and cultural findings prove that Turks had come to Anatolia around 2000s B.C., Associated Prof. Semih Guneri said on Friday. Prof. Guneri and his team recently unearthed artifacts in excavations in Turkey's eastern provinces of Erzurum and Hakkari. According to experts, steles discovered by Associated Prof. Veli Sevin in Hakkari in the past will shed light on the question of ''When did Turks first come to Anatolia?''. Experts started to discuss this matter when a statue head which was sculpted around 2000s B.C. and was unearthed in Bulamac Tumulus in Pasinler town of Erzurum under a project to reveal Turkish Culture's Archeological Resources in Central Asia (OTAK), carried the traces of Turkish culture.

CANBERRA - Headless bodies buried 3000 years ago at the oldest cemetery found in the Pacific Islands were set to reveal the secrets of the first humans to colonise Vanuatu, Fiji and Polynesia, an Australian research team said. The Australian National University (ANU) team said today traces of the Lapita people, who are the ancestors of all Pacific Islanders beyond the Solomons, had been found in more than 100 other archaeological digs across the region.

HISTORY is again being re-written by archaeologists who have made another discovery about a landmark stronghold that was once the seat of the earls of Caithness. It had already been discovered that the site in Caithness was built a century earlier than was previously thought, and that two ruins - Castle Sinclair and Girnigoe Castle - are part of the same structure. Now archaeologists have unearthed a previously unrecorded feature of the medieval castle near Wick. This week they have started to expose an eight-metre long section of a stone tower - or barbican - on ground directly opposite the west gatehouse of the structure now known as Sinclair Girnigoe Castle.

CHOUF: A 170-square-meter natural grotto concealing a 64-cubic-meter natural well was discovered recently in the Chouf town of Ain wa Zein, when property owner Jihad Hassanieh was clearing his land of rocks. The grotto is formed of three galleries where two pottery shards dating back to the Byzantine epoch was found. In an attempt to prepare the land to install a pond for irrigation, Hassanieh dug a 15-meter wide, 18-meter long and 4.9-meter deep opening that unveiled a path to the grotto. He immediately contacted the Directorate-General of Antiquities.

ATHENS - (KRT) - Aggelos Papandropoulos points to the east pediment of the Parthenon ruins, one of the man-made wonders of the world, and by far the most enduring symbol of his country. "There is much that is missing from here that is very beautiful," the historical preservationist explains. "It is the politicians who have to bring back what is missing. I merely work here. But there is much missing, and it is very beautiful."

The biggest Viking gold arm ring ever found in Britain has been discovered in a builder's attic in York. Archaeologists said they were amazed by the solid gold ornament, weighing 325gm (11.5oz) which was found by the man's family after his death. Viking rings have been discovered throughout the Norsemen's empire, but most of them are silver. Only one other gold one, considerably smaller, has been found in Britain. "These rings would have certainly belonged to someone extremely important," said Simon Holmes of the York shire Museum. "If you're taking that amount of precious metal out of the currency pool and wearing it as an ornament, that says something about your status."

LONDON, England (AP) -- A German who had his lower jaw cut out because of cancer has enjoyed his first meal in nine years -- a bratwurst sandwich -- after surgeons grew a new jaw bone in his back muscle and transplanted it to his mouth in what experts call an "ambitious'' experiment. According to this week's issue of The Lancet medical journal, the German doctors used a mesh cage, a growth chemical and the patient's own bone marrow, containing stem cells, to create a new jaw bone that fit exactly into the gap left by the cancer surgery.

We are pleased to announce that Greg Taylor of The Daily Grail has added a number of interesting new articles to the Forum section of our site. We would like to thank Greg for this wonderful contribution to our permanent collection of writings. For access to the articles follow the link below...

Sacred relics lie scattered beneath the deserts of the Middle East. In Iraq, our religious history is being obliterated; in Israel, it's a question of faith

AMMAN: The early prehistory and archaeology of the Middle Pleistocene, or Ice Age, is being revealed in remarkable detail in studies in southern Jordan. The work, begun in the late 1990s, has documented the presence of Homo erectus, our ancient ancestor, at a series of archaeological sites at Ayoun Qedim in the al-Jafr Basin.

Mount Vernon, Virginia - Americans know George Washington as the dour founding father with white hair and ponytail depicted on their currency, but most people have little idea what the nation's first president really looked like beyond this stock image. Researchers are hoping to change that by embarking on a massive detective hunt to flesh out his appearance in every detail. Specialists at Washington's home in Mount Vernon, Virginia, 25km outside Washington, DC, are gathering dozens of artefacts including snippets of hair and clothing that will be analysed over the next year.

HERAKLION, Crete - Once upon a time, on a Greek island in the Mediterranean, the mighty thunder god Zeus descended from Mount Olympus to try to win the love of a girl named Europa. When he failed, he visited her in the form of a great white bull. The result of this mystical union was the birth of the demigod Minos, the king of Crete who took his throne at the age of 9 and built a great empire with a palace of wonders in its center. The ruins of the Palace of Knossos lie three miles west of Heraklion, Crete's largest city, with roughly 170,000 residents. The legend of the Minoan king born of a bull is alive in the stone, wood and dust of the ruins: More than 4,000 visitors are drawn every day to this place where myth and reality collide.

TEHRAN (MNA) -- A part of the main gate of the Sultaniyeh Dome complex was unearthed during the most recent stage of excavations at the site. According to the head of the excavation team, a part of the gate was discovered while the group of experts and archaeologists were digging ditches to decrease dampness. Mohammadreza Qorbanzadeh said that after studying the decorations on the brass-plated door, experts have come to the conclusion that the door was made in the 14th century by the Ilkhanids and was part of the main gate of the Sultaniyeh Dome complex.

Israeli archeologists have uncovered a 5,000-year-old Canaanite city and a 2,000-year-old Jewish village from the Second Temple period alongside each other in the Modi'in area. The adjacent ancient sites, which were known to exist but previously lay untouched, lie on a barren, wind-whipped hilltop spanning 120 dunams near the present-day Israeli town of Shoham.

European scientists have discovered what they describe as the smallest Earth-like planet orbiting a star outside our Solar System. The planet is 14 times the size of Earth - not so large that it qualifies as a gas giant - and is close enough to the star that it is unlikely to be icy. Dr Nuno Santos, of the University of Lisbon, said the new planet could be thought of as "super-Earth-like".

The world has barely begun to recognise the danger of setting off rapid and irreversible changes in some crucial natural systems, a scientist says. Professor John Schellnhuber says the most important environmental issues for humans are among the least understood. He told a briefing in Sweden that the Asian monsoon was one of the "tipping points" that could change very quickly.

Eminent world scientists have voted Ridley Scott's Blade Runner the best science fiction film to date. The 1982 movie, in which retired cop Harrison Ford hunts four renegade human replicants, came top in a poll of 60 scientists by the Guardian newspaper.

Israeli archeologists have uncovered a 5,000-year-old Canaanite city and a 2,000-year-old Jewish village from the Second Temple period alongside each other in the Modi'in area. The Antiquities Authority says that the quality and extent of the finds uncovered during the three-month excavation at both sites is "unprecedented."

From now on, anyone will be able to place bets on whether the biggest physics experiments in the world will come good before 2010. For two weeks, British-based bookmaker Ladbrokes is opening a book on five separate discoveries: life on Titan, gravitational waves, the Higgs boson, cosmic ray origins and nuclear fusion.

University of Arizona researchers are trying to determine how much rain to expect based on how often lightning strikes. The researchers already have come up with quotients for small-scale storms in Florida and large-scale storms in the Midwest. Now they're working on the relationship between lightning and rainfall in Arizona by using data from a local company that specializes in lightning detection.

Live radio transmissions by the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (CyBC) were taken off air Tuesday after the broadcaster was forced to fumigate its flea-infested studios, officials said. Action was taken after some staff reported sick and the cause of the problem was found to be the dozens of stray cats that roam CyBC's HQ and have made it their home thanks to cat-loving employees.

The remains of a prehistoric town believed to date back 15,000 years and belong to an ancient Berber civilization have been discovered in Western Sahara, Moroccan state media said on Thursday. A team of Moroccan scientists stumbled across the sand-covered ruins of the town Arghilas deep in the desert of the Morocco-administered territory.

Bulgarian archaeologist Georgi Kitov has uncovered an ancient gold mask and a ring featuring an "Olympic" rower. He declared: "The mask is a portrait of a Thracian king, from what I believe is the tomb of Teres".

Five George Washington University students and their archaeology professor went to Armageddon this summer, not to search for clues to a cosmic battle yet to come between Good and Evil, but to seek understanding of civilizations past. One of the most important issues they addressed was whether a palace attributed to King Solomon in what is now northern Israel was in fact built by Solomon, the son of King David renowned for his wise leadership and for his illicit relationship with the queen of Sheba.

Quang Ninh (VNA) -- Ceramic artefacts and relics of ceramic furnaces have been discovered at an area of Lam Nghiep hill in Quang Lam commune in the northern coastal province of Quang Ninh.