Newsdesk Archive

Vivid frescoes of stampeding bulls, horses, and other animals drawn by Stone Age artisans grace the walls of many European caves. The most spectacular examples are found in Altimera in Spain and Lascaux and Chauvet in France. For many years the total lack of cave art in Britain dating to the same period perplexed researchers. Britain was inhabited, after all. And throughout the Ice Age, it was linked to mainland Europe by a land bridge. Last year researchers discovered a handful of simple bird and animal carvings in the caves of Creswell Crags, a limestone gorge in Nottinghamshire, northern England.

ORENBURG. Aug 19 (Interfax-Volga) - Archaeologists have found household appliances and weapons of the Sarmat epoch (4th century BC) in the area of the Filippovsky burial mounds in the Orenburg region, a source in the Orenburg regional administration's culture department told Interfax. The archaeologists found bronze items, including a boiler with animal-style handles, a brazier, mirrors and cosmetic vessels, Central Asian ceramic dishes, quivers, daggers and cuirass fragments. The origin of some finds is still unknown, the source said.

QUMRAN, West Bank -- Rival groups of scholars excavating a dusty plateau overlooking the Dead Sea are arguing over who lived there in biblical times -- ordinary farmers or the Essenes, a monastic sect believed by some to be a link between Judaism and early Christianity. The Essenes were the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls, more than 1,000 ancient texts found a half-century ago in the caves above Qumran, one of the most significant discoveries in the region. But some Israeli archaeologists say the placement of the scrolls in the caves doesn't mean the Essenes lived at Qumran, arguing they have found evidence the plateau near the caves was a plantation inhabited by seasonal workers.

LIMA, Peru (AP) -- An American-led expedition has discovered five new districts in what its leader describes as a massive metropolitan complex spread along a river valley through thick mountainous jungle on the eastern slope of the Peruvian Andes. "It is the oldest Chachapoyan find that we know of to date," said 31-year-old expedition leader Sean Savoy, just returned from leading a 21-day return trip to the ruins of Gran Saposoa, located some (335 miles) 540 kilometers north of Lima. Savoy, son of famed 77-year-old explorer Gene Savoy and a Peruvian mother, told The Associated Press in an interview Monday night that he believes the jungle metropolis, covering more than 25 square miles (65 square kilometers), dates to the 7th century.

The Qumran myth is alive and well, despite recent attempts to disprove it, according to archaeologists digging at the site. The archaeologists, who are financed by Christian fundamentalist organizations, believe that despite recent theories to the contrary, there was a community at the place sometimes called "the oldest monastery in the Western world." The archaeologists said at a news conference yesterday that they intend to find the proof that the residents of the site indeed wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, found in nearby caves.

South and North Korean archaeologists, in their first joint excavation, have discovered thousands of pieces of relics from as far back as the Old Stone Age, Xinhua reports. Various historic sites and remains, up to the Joseon Dynasty, were unearthed from the construction site of an industrial park at Kaesong town in North Korea close to the border with the south.

Europe is warming up more quickly than the rest of the world, and cold winters could disappear almost entirely by 2080 as a result of global warming, researchers predicted Wednesday. Heat waves and floods are likely to become more frequent, threatening the elderly and infirm, and three quarters of the Swiss Alps' glaciers might melt down by 2050, the study prepared by the European Environment Agency (EEA) said.

LOGAN, Utah (SPACE.com) -- Time is drawing closer for the maiden liftoff of the privately financed Falcon 1 launch vehicle, built by Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) of El Segundo, California. But the march to the launch pad has not been easy. The firm has encountered engine troubles, supplier problems, mounds of regulatory paperwork and other costly woes requiring far more money to be spent than initially projected.

SALISBURY, England (Reuters) -- Whoever built Stonehenge, the 5,000-year-old circle of megaliths that towers over green fields in southern England and lures a million visitors a year, couldn't have planned for the automobile. If they had, they might have defused a growing controversy over proposals to dig a massive car tunnel a few hundred yards from one of Europe's best-known historical sites. Conservation groups, the Highways Agency and white-robed druids -- a pagan order that celebrates Stonehenge as a center of spiritualism -- are fighting over a 200 million pound ($367 million) proposal for a 1.3-mile-long tunnel.

Among new finds during the first season of a three-year dig are 18th Century games pieces, a Roman bronze spoon, medieval tweezers, a bone comb, dice and two pottery gaming pieces. Other more unusual discoveries are fruit seeds, fish bones and parasite eggs, possibly dating back to the 13th or 14th centuries. Goat horns and leg bones left attached to animal skins when they went to the tanners may help experts learn more about Chester´s important medieval leather industry.

When he's not lecturing and writing within ivy-covered buildings in the button-down world of academia, Stephen Houston spends weeks and months at a time far from home, playing in the dirt. Mayan stone panel Of course, as an internationally renowned scholar, exploring ancient civilizations in remote, primitive areas of Mesoamerica is all part of his job. "It's an unusual life I live," says Houston, who has taught at Brigham Young University the past 10 years and whose groundbreaking research on the mysterious Mayan culture has garnered him international acclaim. "A lot of things I do are out of most people's experience. It's hard to communicate what it's like being an archaeologist to others. They have no idea of the moments of joy and terror that we experience." Those experiences during his many trips to Mesoamerica sound like they're out of a script of an Indiana Jones movie. "Uncovering a hieroglyphic inscription that no human being has looked at in 1,500 years, then being able to read what they're saying almost instantly, to me is pure joy," Houston says. "So is opening a royal tomb and seeing a place that must have been enveloped by emotion and religious beliefs over 1,000 years ago."

A British archaeologist is set to reveal what he believes to be the location of John the Baptist's cave to the west of Jerusalem, The Times reported on Monday. Shimon Gibson, 45, has found a cave with a ritual baptism pool, rock carvings and pottery, which he linked to John the Baptist and his followers, the newspaper said. According to the New Testament, John baptised Jesus in the River Jordan. The Times said Gibson would reveal details at a press conference on Tuesday to be held at the cave, near the village of Ain Karim, which Christian tradition regards as John the Baptist's birthplace.

KIEV, August 16 (RIA Novosti) - Near Voitenki village (Kharkov region, Ukraine) archeologists unearthed an ancient Goth settlement. The Goths lived in the Kharkov region alongside of Slavs 17 centuries ago, ICTV channel reported. According to the archeologists, this is one of the largest settlements of the Kingdom of Germanarika, which was located in modern Ukraine.

History runs deep in Greece, so when you start digging for a modern subway, it's hard to stay focused on the present. As Athens rushed to expand its subway system in time for the Olympics, work was repeatedly halted by the discovery of ruins and artifacts. Tunneling for the Monastiraki Square station, inaugurated last year, was delayed for two years because of archaeological finds.

While excavating Sarvestan Palace, one of the most magnificent monuments of the Sassanid era (226-651), Iranian archeologists have unearthed a vast archeological site south of Iran, Iranian Cultural Heritage News Agency reported.

A 17th-century prison in Sicily where hundreds were tortured during the Inquisition is being turned into a museum, featuring the anguished graffiti of those once tormented there. The cells are entirely covered with prisoners' graffiti, their hopes and prayers and portraits of the saints, Domenico Policarpo, the architect in charge of the restoration, said Tuesday.

A simple carved wooden figure could hold the key to an amazing new theory about the true meaning of Norfolk's Seahenge site. Scientists have carbon-dated the relic, found in the Thames Estuary in 1912, and discovered that it dates back to the same period as the older of Norfolk's two timber circles. Archaeologists now believe instead of being composed of plain wooden posts, parts of a Bronze Age timber circle found close to the site of Seahenge could have been decorated with carvings resembling native American totem poles.

Kublai Khan was a conqueror of boundless appetite. When Japan refused to obey and pay tribute to the Mongolian ruler, he was outraged. Twice during the 13th century he sent massive fleets to invade Japan, possibly trying to seize its storied gold. Each time, though, the khan's aggression was repelled not by the Japanese military but by sudden storms that killed most of the invaders and destroyed their ships. The Japanese dubbed these storms kamikaze, or divine wind.

PLAGUED by a plethora of ailments from cracking, erosion and flaking to delamination, sugaring and sulphation, the Parthenon has been under restoration for the lifetime of Athenians under the age of 20. Planning how to tackle the job had gone on for 10 years before it started. The work is still far from finished. Begun modestly enough as a rescue operation to halt deterioration of the marble due to a host of factors, among them air pollution and acid rain, the enterprise has expanded exponentially since taking the temple apart has revealed fresh decay.

The remains of a colossal seated statue of Ramses II, thought to be about 13 metres tall and weighing 700 tons, have been discovered in a shanty area of the Upper Egyptian city of Akhmim, adjacent to the open-air museum. The lower part of the limestone statue is seated on a throne, to the right and left of which are figures of two of the pharaoh's daughters and princess- queens, Merit-Amun and Bint-Anath.

A new robot, currently being designed by a Singaporean university, will hopefully explore the bowels of the Great Pyramid next year, a noted Egyptologist said on Wednesday. "The manufacturing of the robot will start in October, with the university footing the bill. The exploration will likely start next year," Zahi Hawass, chairman of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, told reporters. "Stone doors inside the Great Pyramid could not just be there as an ornament. They must have a function and hide something behind them," he said. "They could not just be there for dead King Cheops (Khufu) to slip through on his journey to heaven, as is widely believed," he said.

An archaeological dig at Leiston Abbey in Suffolk has unearthed what is thought to be the burial site of a medieval monk. The discovery was made as a local youth group was excavating the site in a dig organised by Suffolk County Council's archaelogists.

Egypt's Minister of Culture Farouq Hosni said that a Belgian mission excavated a tomb sculptured in the rock with a skeleton and funeral furniture inside. The tomb, which was found in Wadi Hosh, Aswan, south Egypt, dates back to the pre-history age (4,000) BC. He said that the analysis clarified that the dead is a lady aged between 40 and 50. Meanwhile,Chairman of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) Zahi Hawas said on Wednesday that an Australian arrested while prowling around the Sphinx at the pyramids area in Giza recently in search of "the key to the universe" was just an ardent cultist who did no harm to the monument. In statements on Wednesday, Hawas said that Mark Prisdan, who was arrested recently near the Sphinx, claimed he was a "prophet" and was searching for the key to the universe with the Pharaohs.

SHE would have been a highly-skilled artisan who was buried 1500 years ago, her body covered with ornate jewellery and emblems of her high status. Yet, with her rings still adorning her toes, she was laid to rest in one of the most unusual burial sites known to archaeologists: beneath the floor of a busy Iron Age workshop. The discovery, at Mine Howe in Orkney, is extremely rare for an Iron Age site in Scotland and has baffled the team carrying out the dig.

VELIKY NOVGOROD, August 10 (RIA Novosti) - In Veliky Novgorod (northwestern Russia) next to the ancient Annunciation Church, archeologists opened eight burials in the territory of a necropolis dating back to the 12th-14th centuries. Seven were buried in wood coffins, and one was in a stone sarcophagus. Over the next two days the scientists intend to open a minimum of three more sarcophaguses found half a meter below ground at a church built near Veliky Novgorod in 1179. The necropolis with its several burial sites that date back to the pre-Mongolian period of the history of Rus, was discovered during research work near the Annunciation Church last year.

China's thriving and modern metropolis of Shanghai was first established nearly 6,000 years ago, about two millenniums earlier than previously estimated, experts and state press have said. Newly discovered artefacts in Shanghai's outskirts prove the first inhabitants migrated from neigbouring Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces more than 6,000 years ago, Song Jian, director of the Shanghai Cultural Relics Management Commission, told AFP. Mr Song said new archaeological evidence, including pieces of a human skull, show that today's teeming city of 17 million was first populated some 2,000 years earlier than thought.

Hadrian's Villa, the largest and among the most sumptuous of the villas built by Roman emperors, is open for floodlit evening tours. Visitors to the villa, which is situated near Tivoli, about 25km east of Rome, will be given guided tours of the site by an archaeologist. There are four guided tours each evening from Thursday to Sunday until August 29.

For a few days last week, the top forensic anthropologists in the United States thought they were finally going to get their chance to study Kennewick Man. The eight-year legal battle over the 9 300-year-old bones, one of the oldest skeletons found in North America, appeared finished after five northwest Indian tribes decided not to pursue their case to the US supreme court. The tribes claimed that Kennewick Man was an ancestor and should not be desecrated by scientific study.

THE remains of a sixth century princess found in a Lechlade archaeological dig have been placed in a museum. Because she was buried among jewellery, archaeologists decided to nickname her Mrs Getty. This was a joking reference to the wealthy American oil dynasty. Mrs Getty's was one of 219 bodies recovered from an Anglo-Saxon burial ground in Butler's Field, Lechlade, in 1985.

ARCHAEOLOGISTS have made a remarkable 1400-year-old discovery which indicates early medieval Scots were better educated than their southern counterparts. Re-examination of an ex-tremely rare leather artefact, originally thought to be a jacket and which was displayed in Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow for 40 years, has revealed that it was actually a book satchel.

The annual Perseid meteor shower, which peaks on 12 August, could provide a "spectacular" show this year, experts have forecast. Sky watchers can expect to see meteors from a dark location on 12 and 13 August after 2330 BST, but they may be treated to two early "surges".

"The world famous scene of the transportation of a monolithic statue from the quarries at Hatnub, east of Tel Al-Amarna, to Deir Al-Bersha is reproduced in almost every book on ancient Egypt. Yet most people are unaware that the statue's destination was this relatively little known burial ground in the Eastern Desert," said Harco Willems, professor of Egyptology and director of the Belgian archaeological mission at work at the site of Al-Bersha. At a lecture at the Netherlands-Flemish Institute last month he voiced the opinion that publicity for the site is long overdue.

Excavation at the Shamal tomb, the largest grave of the Umm Al Nar period to have been discovered so far, will resume after a seven-year hiatus in November. A senior official from the Ras Al Khaimah museums and antiques department said the tomb was discovered in 1997. The middle of the third millennium BC saw the rise of the Umm Al Nar period (2600-2000 BC), the most important period in the development of civilisation in the UAE.

An Egyptian researcher says he has uncovered evidence of corruption and nepotism going back some 3,000 years. A daily newspaper has published details of the study on its front page under the headline Thebesgate after the name of an ancient Egyptian city. The paper says it is Egypt's oldest case of political corruption and official cover-up.

A human skeleton dating back to the Crusader era (12th century) was discovered recently in Jaffa during excavations carried out by the Israel Antiquities Authority. The excavations are being carried out on a street in the Jaffa flea market to save potential relics before the area undergoes renovation. According to the director of the excavations, Martin Fileshtoker, the burial was conducted after the Crusader era and it is not known whether the person was Jewish. The bones will be handed over for burial to religious council officials.

Two ancient seals were disclosed during excavations in Bulgaria. The seals found in the Veliki Preslav basilica are said to have belonged to Byzantine dignitaries. Over 100 golden coins were also found during the excavations. More than 20 graves were unearthed as well. Experts point out that the graves date back to the time when Veliki Preslav was no longer a capital of the Bulgarian tsars.

Archeologists, who have been working in the area since March, said they spotted ten rock paintings dating back at least 2,000 years ago at Jinsha River in southwest China's Yunnan province. Near Baoshan township in Naxi Autonomous County of Yulong in Yunnan province, the paintings are believed to have been completedby Diqiang tribe people, who lived in the northwest and migrated to the south about 2,000 to 3,000 years ago, said He Jinlong, headof the field work team and associate researcher with Yunnan Provincial Institute of Archeology.

Giant tsunamis, super volcanoes and earthquakes could pose a greater threat than terrorism, scientists claim. Global Geophysical Events, or "Gee Gee's", as they are nick-named, are not being taken seriously enough, they say. The global community needs to monitor these risks, and develop strategies to cope in the face of a catastrophe.

A stunning image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope shows a galaxy that looks like a twin of our own. NGC 3949 is a large spiral galaxy and, in astronomical terms at least, is relatively nearby at around 50 million light-years away from Earth. Galaxies like this help astronomers understand more about our own.

A 24-YEAR archaeological dig which has transformed Wales' view of the Iron Age is to be wound up. The site at Castell Henllys, has become one of the largest and most important excavations in the UK since trowels first hit the soil near Newport, Pembrokeshire, in 1981. For almost a century it has been known that the hillside was occupied by our ancestors but little was known about them or how they had lived. Now their fort has been uncovered baring secret stashes of sophisticated artefacts such as querns for grinding corn, spindle whorls for weaving, brooches, spear heads and horse harnesses.

Pantelleria - Archaeologists have discovered the remains of a 4 000-year-old doll, thought to be the world's oldest toy, Milan's Corriere della Sera newspaper reported on Thursday. The doll's head, discovered during excavations on the southern island of Pantelleria, is about four centimetres long, with carved facial features and a curly head of hair. Experts have dubbed the significant find the "Barbie of the Bronze Age". "The body was made out of wood or material and was not preserved," said head archaeologist Sebastino Tusa. Archaeologists made the find while examining the remnants of a hut on a Bronze Age settlement.

An Egyptian vase that for 30 years was dismissed as fake by experts, was yesterday revealed to be genuine - and older than the Pyramids. Tests carried out at York University have revealed the vase to be from a very early Egyptian burial dating back more than 5,000 years. Experts believe the vase may be one of the earliest depictions of an Egyptian burial on a ceramic vessel in the world.

Beirut, Aug 4, IRNA -- Archaeologists said in Beirut on Wednesday that they have unearthed 10 giant stone tombs belonging to the era of Achaemenid rule over Lebanon near the southern city of Saida. As'ad Seif, an archaeologist, told IRNA that the tombs dated back to 500 BC. He added that the tombs had been located inside a cave, and that each five of them had been covered by two round stone plates. Seif also said several pieces of bones had been discovered in the graves. He further stressed that Saida Archaeology Department believes that more indications of the Persian rule could be excavated in the area, adding that the department has accordingly stepped up efforts to that outcome.

Historians at the British Museum have been studying a 13th century crucifix unearthed in a Northamptonshire field by treasure hunter Steve Kane. The solid silver cross was found by Mr Kane while he was using a metal detector in the field at a farm near Grendon. The father-of-two had been scouring the land at Grendon House Farm, which is owned by Jim Brodie in the village's Main Road, for more than two hours when he found the crucifix, which dates back to the 1200s, two inches under the surface.

The wreck of a Byzantine ship whose period is datable between the third and the fourth century after Christ, was found on the seabed of Ragusa by Carabinieri underwater squads of Messina. The ship is a few metres under the water on "Circe's sandbanks", in front of Marina di Marza's coast, near Ispica. Ragusa's superintendence will make some researches after summer, because in this part of sea there are now many tourists. The area is now delimited and will be controlled by Carabinieri to avoid thefts or damages.

GREENVILLE, Miss. - Describing his innovative use of technology as creative grant writing, Tommy Hailey, an assistant professor of archaeology from Northwestern State University in Louisiana has taken the drudgery of an archaeological dig to newer and greater heights. While other studies have been done from the air with blimps, this is believed to be the first use of a power parachute by an archaeologist.

Archaeologists have unearthed ancient tools on the site of a planned $18 million bypass around downtown Granite Falls. The carved stones were found during a routine environmental study and likely won't affect the road's construction, which is scheduled to start in 2007, Snohomish County Public Works officials said. "The good thing about all this is that we're finding it during our preliminary engineering and not discovering it during construction," said Crilly Ritz, a senior environmental planner with Public Works. "If you find something during construction, it can affect your schedule." It's hard to determine the exact age of the artifacts because of the area's acidic soil, said Phil LeTourneau, the principal investigator for BOAS, a Seattle archaeological firm that Snohomish County hired to study the site. Similar items at other sites have been dated at 4,500 to 7,000 years old, he said.

A trowelful of pips and sediment is in the process of overturning the centuries-old snobbery with which mainland Italian connoisseurs have regarded the rustic wines of Sardinia. The world's largest wine producer has discovered that it owes a massive debt to the island's growers. Dutch and Italian archaeologists digging in the fertile Sardara hills north of Sardinia's capital Cagliari said yesterday that they had discovered grape pips and sediment dating to 1,200BC. Sardinia, it seems, may be the cradle of European wine culture.

Millennia of back-breaking graft by prehistoric northerners, which created one of the greatest ancient monuments in Britain, may be brushed aside in a matter of months by modern quarrying, according to campaigners and archaeologists in North Yorkshire. At risk are the immediate surroundings of the vast dumbbell-shaped earthen henges of Thornborough near Ripon which form the biggest Neolithic complex between the Orkneys and Stonehenge, although their scale can now only be appreciated from the air.

tomb dating to the Hafeet era (3,200 BC to 2,600 BC) that may be the only well-preserved piece of construction from the period has been discovered by a British hiker on a mountainous ridge in Taffif. Barbara Couldrey, a resident in Ras Al Khaimah, who has been hiking for many years in various countries, recognised the ancient construction as a Hafeet tomb and later gave the location and all other information to the archaeology section at the Ras Al Khaimah Museums and Antiques Department, which confirmed the discovery.

Scientists working in the flooded ruins of an ancient fishing camp in Israel have found evidence that the village's residents collected wild grain, pounded it into flour and possibly baked bread at least 10,000 years before the advent of cultivated crops. Researchers found traces of barley and perhaps other grains in the seams of a grinding stone unearthed at Ohalo II, a settlement that stood on the southwest shore of the Sea of Galilee 22,000 years ago. The discovery is the oldest evidence yet found of humans processing cereal grains.

TALL AL-UMAYRI, Jordan: A 3,500 year old temple from the Late Bronze Age has been discovered at Tall al-Umayri just south of Amman. The walls and cultic shrine of a temple dating from about 1,500 BC were uncovered at the end of July at the Bronze and Iron Age archaeological site by excavators working for the Madaba Plains Project and the Jordan Department of Antiquities.

CAIRO (Reuters) - Builders laying the foundations for a mosque in northeast Cairo found a tomb dating from the Pharaonic period intact but submerged in ground water up to the ceiling of the tomb, official sources said Sunday. The tomb contains an unopened basalt sarcophagus, slivers of gold dedicated to the ancient Egyptian gods Isis and Horus, and inscriptions showing the tomb belonged to a man called Ankh Khansu Derat Hor, the official news agency MENA said. It also has the four Canopic jars in which ancient Egyptians tried to preserve the liver, stomach, lungs and intestines. The head of the Supreme Council for Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, said the tomb dated from the New Kingdom, which lasted from the 16th to the 11th century BC.

Cairo - Egyptian archaeologists recently discovered parts of what appears to be the biggest yet statue of ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II. Sabri Abdel Aziz, an official at the Egyptian Higher Council for Antiquities (HCA), said on Sunday that an Egyptian mission had recently discovered the head, chest and base of a statue of Ramses II (1298-1235 BC). The discovery was made in the city of Akhmim, 474 km south of Cairo. The statue, depicting Ramses II in a sitting posture, was believed to have stood 12 metres high, Abdel Aziz said, and dates from the ninth dynasty

CROTON-ON-HUDSON -- It was tough digging for archaeology students Erin Head and Matt Napolitano. Cold seeped through their wet suits. Scooping up the submerged muck roiled the water like stirred coffee. And the visibility beyond their masks was just a few inches. "Some days you can't see your hand in front of your face," said Head, standing waist-deep in a Hudson River bay. So it goes in the submerged world of underwater archaeology. Instead of wearing khakis, diggers at Croton Point Park this month donned wet suits and scuba gear as they dug up discoveries beyond the reach of landlocked archaeologists. Daria Merwin and a team of students found buckets full of submerged stone artifacts where the Croton River flows into the Hudson, about 30 miles north of New York City. "I know it's stone tools, but it's stone tools people haven't seen in few thousand years," said Merwin, an adjunct professor at State University at Stony Brook.

Archaeologists have unearthed a number of stone and bone tools and earthenware vessels in the southern coastal province of Vung Tau after 20 days' excavation ending Sunday. The findings include stone axes, bone hammers, and earthenware household items such as pots and dishes. Their designs link them to similiar ancient artefacts found in archaeological sites in the southern province of Long An, dating back some 3,000 years.--Enditem

POMPEII, Italy -- For Pompeii's 2 million yearly visitors, the overwhelming attraction is the captivating view of daily life in the Roman Empire evoked by the city's temples, taverns, houses and public baths, and ever-popular brothels with their erotic frescoes. They might fail to notice the newly dug trenches at the city's southwest exit that nevertheless provide a glimpse of a fact obscured by Pompeii's better-known association with the imperial era: A non-Roman civilization thrived here for three centuries, with its own temples, houses, baths and saucy sexual practices.

LIMA: US and Peruvian archaeologists have discovered two Inca observatories in central Peru, which they said are the most imposing of the stone structures found to date. The discovery of the observatories, announced Friday, is the result of five years of searching in Huanuco province. One of the two, known as Ushnu, is larger than the observatory of Cuzco, the largest previously found, archaeologist Juan Luis Pino told the local media. It measured 48m long, 32m wide and 4mhigh.

Located on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, Qumran is famous throughout the world as the place where the Essenes, who have been widely described in studies, conferences and exhibitions as a type of Jewish "monk," are said to have lived and written the Dead Sea Scrolls. However, based on findings soon to be published, Israeli archaeologists now argue that Qumran "lacks any uniqueness."

A Roman font dating back more than 1,600 years has been unearthed in a Lincolnshire field. The 4th century artefact is one of only 18 to be discovered in Britain and has been described by archaeologists as a "significant" find. It is thought the find, which has been cut into pieces, reflects a period of religious tension in the country between Christianity and Paganism. The font was located by metal detector experts Gary Lee and Jim Wilkinson in a farmer's field near Market Rasen two weeks ago.

A UNIQUE project to map the vast extent of a Roman settlement will take place in Bradford on Avon. Archaeologist Mark Corney, working with his team of 20 for the third year on the excavation of the Roman villa site in St Laurence School playing fields, hopes to map the settlement. He predicts it extends as far north as Atworth, as far south as the northern fringes of Trowbridge and as far west as the River Avon. The villa would have been a wealthy landowner's house and there would have been a network of tenant farms and settlements extending out.

Four years ago, scientists thought they had found the perfect place to settle the Noah flood debate: A farmer's house on a bluff overlooking the Black Sea built about 7,500 years ago -- just before tidal waves inundated the homestead, submerged miles of coastline and turned the freshwater lake into a salty sea. Some believed the rectangular site of stones and wood could help solve the age-old question of whether the Black Sea's flooding was the event recounted in the Biblical story of Noah.

The 100-tonne rubble pile that was a colossal Buddha statue until the arrival of a Taleban demolition squad three years ago still lies at the bottom of its surviving giant niche, a heap of rocks and sand dwarfed by the vast space cut into a sandstone escarpment 17 centuries ago. In the towering hole of its twin small Buddha, half a kilometre away along the spectacular cliff dotted with caves that were once monks' meditation chambers, a ghostly outline of the second vanished statue can be made out, just about, against its back wall. At dusk it almost looks as if the Buddha is still there, seen from across the lush valley of wheat fields and stands of poplar trees which was once home to the creators of these destroyed marvels.

The jewelled cross pulled from an archaeological dig in rural Aberdeenshire does not, admittedly, look like much. Caked in heavy mud and withered by age, it could easily be overlooked. But the cross is the latest piece in a jigsaw puzzle that is casting new light on the remarkable life of a medieval community.

ST. MARYS, GA -- Archaeologists have made a rare discovery at Cumberland Harbor near St Marys. They have found evidence of a fort and barracks dating back to the early 1800s. Scott Butler is the lead archaeologist at the excavation and he's excited about what they're finding. "This was a war of 1812 site and they are very rare in the United States. There aren't many of them especially in the South." Peter Point is one of the few sites in the United States where archaeologists are finding remains of where soldiers lived during the early 1800s.

PHNOM PENH (AFP) - At a bustling market in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's heritage is being sold off, piece by piece: ancient beads are snapped up at two for a dollar, while 15 dollars secures a 3,500-year-old stone tool. Sales of such ordinary antiquities are booming at markets across the kingdom, robbing it of a rich history archaeologists are only just beginning to study after decades of conflict ended here in 1998, experts warn.

POMPEII, Italy -- For Pompeii's 2 million yearly visitors, the overwhelming attraction is the captivating view of daily life in the Roman Empire evoked by the city's temples, taverns, houses and public baths, and by its ever-popular brothels with their erotic frescoes. This summer, visitors might be forgiven for failing to notice a series of newly dug trenches at the southwest exit to the city. The site looks like an example of below-street plumbing in mid-repair, yet it provides a tiny glimpse of a fact obscured by Pompeii's better-known association with the imperial era: A non-Roman civilization thrived here for three centuries, with its own temples, houses, taverns, baths and saucy sexual practices. Last month, a team of archaeologists from Italy's Basilicata University uncovered the remains of a structure built by the Samnites, a mountain warrior people who conquered, inhabited, built up and ruled Pompeii before Roman chariots wheeled into town. The diggers were looking for something else -- remains of Pompeii's harbor. Instead, they found a pre-Roman temple wall, clay offerings to the Samnite goddess of love, and a basin and terracotta pipes indicating the site of a ritual bath. The Basilicata researchers were digging below Pompeii's surface because the focus of excavations had changed. For the past 250 years, most excavation has concentrated on the Roman city that was suspended in ash and stone by the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79.

EXCAVATIONS at a large hill fort in East Lothian have uncovered what archaeologists believe to be one of the nerve centres of Iron Age Scotland. The new findings at Traprain Law, near Haddington, include the first coal jewellery workshop unearthed in Scotland as well as hundreds of artefacts giving new insight into life in the 700BC-AD43 era. Experts who have been working on the site for several weeks are now able to paint a picture of a densely populated hilltop town which was home to leaders of local tribes, following the discovery of multiple ramparts, Roman pottery, gaming pieces, tools and beads.

CHICAGO--Archaeologists working in southern Peru found an ancient brewery more than 1,000 years old. Remains of the brewing facility were uncovered on Cerro Baúl, a mountaintop city over 8,000 feet above sea level, which was home to elite members of the Wari Empire from AD 600-1000. Predating the Inca Empire by at least four centuries, this Wari brewery was used to make chicha, a fermented beverage similar to beer that played an important role in ritual feasting and drinking during Peru's first empire. Ancient Peruvians made chicha with local grains and fruit, which is quite different from today's commercial beers typically made with barley and hops.

The UK government has launched a consultation document to consider the repatriation of human remains held in Britain to aboriginal groups. Thousands of ancient human parts - from hair samples to whole skeletons - have been collected by UK museums. The latest initiative will review the report issued last year by the Working Group on Human Remains. It recommended scientists should seek out descendants for permission to hold on to body parts up to 500 years old.

AN AMBITIOUS project to uncover ancient archaeological remains dating back to the Bronze Age is due to start in east Dorset next month. A team led by archaeologists from Bournemouth University plans to investigate a number of round barrows from around 2000BC at Knowlton Circles, south of Cranborne, as well as other ancient monuments along the Allen Valley. Historians believe this part of Dorset was heavily occupied 4,000 years ago, but very little is known about how these early people lived. Project leader John Gale, who is organising this summer's dig with both university students and local volunteers, said: "It could be very exciting. There are hundreds of round barrows in this area, although many are hard to spot on the surface.

More than 80 leading archeological experts are participating in an international conference in Chifeng, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, to exchange the latest information on Hongshan, a prehistoric relics site. Relics excavated at the Hongshan ("Red Mountain") site originated around 5000 BC to 6500 BC. Now a part of Chifeng City, the site was discovered in 1935. Some of the relics found at Hongshan have led archeologists to conclude that the heads of Chinese dragons may have been inspired by boars in addition to horses and cattle.

An Aboriginal group has prevented native Australian artefacts from returning to the UK museums from which they were loaned. BBC News Online looks at other disputed treasures and the growing calls to have them repatriated. The Elgin Marbles are seen by millions of people every year In 1810, a total of 56 sculpted friezes, depicting gods, men and monsters, were removed from the Parthenon in Athens by British ambassador Lord Elgin. They were brought to Britain and housed in the British Museum where they have remained.

Nearly 18 months after Columbia's shocking demise, sistership Discovery is in the home stretch of a massive overhaul to once again return the shuttle fleet to flight. Overseen by an ambitious and soft-spoken 34-year-old woman, shuttle Discovery stands still inside a massive hangar, encased by work platforms like the queen bee in a hive. Technicians and engineers, huddled in groups of three or four, crawl over and inside the ship, attaching panels, monitoring test equipment, consulting work sheets.

It was like the Super Bowl, Woodstock, Mardi Gras, a holy pilgrimage and Chippendale dancers all rolled into one. The setting for the earliest Olympic Games some 3,000 years ago was both a sanctuary of soaring marble temples and a foul, drunken shantytown plagued by water shortages, campfire smoke and sewage. The athletes, glistening from olive oil, competed naked. Gymnasiums were restricted to keep the sex trade from overrunning events on the field.

CT and laser-scanning techniques have combined to examine the mummy of a priest buried in Thebes 2,800 years ago, and to recreate his life and death. Nevine El-Aref stepped into the world of cutting-edge technology to see how the secrets were revealed

ZHENGZHOU, July 25 (Xinhuanet) -- Archaeologists said that the palace city discovered last spring at the Erlitou site in Yanshi City, central China's Henan Province, may be the earliest palace city ever discovered in China. "The design of the city had erected a model for later dynasties in designing their capital," said Dr. Xu Hong, who leads the archaeological investigation team at the Erlitou site of the Institute of Archaeology, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

A NORTH Wales housewife found a bronze age knife crafted 4,500 years ago while digging in her vegetable patch. Marylyn Sheldon knew she had discovered something special after unearthing the flint blade at her Llanarmon-yn-Iâl home, in Denbighshire. On Wednesday experts at the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, confirmed it was a bronze aged blade forged around 2,500BC.

IN the shadow of a crumbling mansion, a team of archaeologists have made one of the most exciting discoveries of a 10-year dig. It may only be a small fragment of marbled pottery from northern Italy, dated around 1600 to 1650, but it is the only piece of its kind found in Scotland and is one of only three ever to be found in Britain. Archeologists at the dig, at Fetternear in rural Aberdeenshire, said that it casts important light on Scotland in the Middle Ages.

The discovery of 3,700-year-old chariot tracks has pushed back the appearance of vehicles in China by 200 years, the country's media has reported. "It advances the history of China's vehicle use up to the Xia Dynasty (2100 - 1600 BC)," said Xu Hong, who leads the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' archaeological investigation team at the Erlitou archaeological site in Yanshi city, central Henan province. The two parallel tracks were discovered on the grounds of a palace at the site, Xinhua news agency reported. Erlitou, discovered in 1959, was the largest residential human settlement in China and east Asia nearly 4,000 years ago.

In the alphabet of Egyptology, Abydos comes first. It is the last resting place of the first kings of the first dynasty, 5,000 years ago. It is the birthplace of the cult of the divine king. It is also the launchpad for the Egyptian cult of death. Abydos is several kilometres from the Nile, and roughly halfway between Cairo and Aswan: a long way from both ancient Memphis, and the stunning temples of Thebes and Luxor. But Egyptology begins in Abydos, in the first systematic evidence of the Egyptian pact with mortality.

The enduring mystery surrounding the demise of Napoleon Bonaparte has just been given another twist. The official verdict, supported by an autopsy, was that l'Empereur died of stomach cancer on May 5, 1821, at the age of 51, while in exile on Britain's South Atlantic island colony of St. Helena. But French conspiracy theorists suspect that Napoleon was slowly poisoned, either by the British, or by his confidant, Count Charles de Montholon, who was supposedly in the pay of French royalists opposed to the emperor's return to France.

Among the rare archaeological finds discovered under the Central Manezh Exhibition Hall in central Moscow is a seal with a serpent-headed Medusa depicted on one side and a unicorn on the other, which experts believe was used to mark traded inventory. The seal is just one of more than 3,000 artifacts found by archaeologists in four months of excavation underneath the Manezh, which was partially destroyed by fire in March. Earlier this summer, archaeologists discovered the 850-year-old remains of a young woman, a sword from the 13th or 14th century and a rare Peter the Great coin.

Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Jul. 21 (UPI) -- A Kyrgyz-Russian expedition has embarked for an ancient city covered by Lake Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan, local media reported Wednesday. Issyk-Kul, 2,250 square miles in area, is a mountain lake in the north of the country. Historians and legends tell about a disappeared island in the lake with fortifications near the north coast where Tamerlane, the Tartar conqueror in southern and western Asia and ruler of Samarkand, held noble prisoners in the 14th century, the Vecherniy Bishkek newspaper said.

The jolly image of rotund Friar Tuck could be only partially true, according to a recent study of skeletal remains from monks that lived during the Middle Ages (476-1450 A.D.) that revealed most monks were overweight, but perhaps not entirely jolly because they suffered from conditions associated with obesity, such as arthritis.

BEIJING (AFP) - China has started work to reinforce the caves where the 500,000-year-old Peking Man was found, following reports that parts of the site was in danger of collapsing, state media said. Thirty scientists and engineers have been assigned to the three-month project at the Zhoukoudian area, a World Heritage site 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Beijing, the China Daily reported.

Iranian archeologists plan to identify the food basket and diet of the people who lived in the historical site of Sialk over 7,000 years ago, Iranian Cultural Heritage News Agency reported on Friday.

BEIRUT: Myths surrounding ancient religions and cults have long preoccupied humanity's understanding of history. Yet they remain a mystery to us, especially in the absence of written texts. One such cult, that of Mithrae, said to have existed during the age of the Roman Empire, was widely spread among Rome's army. Vestiges going back to this faith have been discovered in areas under Roman control, in Europe, Britain and even Asia. Archaeologists used to believe this cult was born in the Middle East, that it had its roots in the Persian Zoroastrian cult and later spread to Europe. But a major archaeological discovery of a cave in Syria seems to suggest the opposite.

WASHINGTON: What killed ancient conqueror Alexander the Great is still a mystery, pitting scientists who favor West Nile virus against those who lean toward a death from typhoid. History says Alexander, king of Macedonia, died at 32 in 323 BC after several days of fever in Babylon. However, the cause of the fever was always unclear. Many hypotheses have been advanced: poisoning, malaria or cirrhosis of the liver, as well as typhoid or West Nile virus. The dispute resurfaced in the July issue of "Emerging Infectious Diseases," published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which published several arguments disputing the West Nile virus theory.

Fresh data on sprites, jets and elves - strange flashes of coloured light in the Earth's upper atmosphere - is being returned to Earth by a new satellite. The Taiwanese Rocsat-2 spacecraft has been in orbit for two months and is studying the high-altitude phenomena. They are believed to be discharges of electricity from above thunderstorms, part of a global electrical circuit. Rocsat-2's first goal is to make a map of the distribution of the flashes and how often they occur, say scientists.

The Cassini space probe has observed lightning in Saturn's atmosphere. The probe detected radio wave emission from storms, which varied with the planet's latitude and rotation. This is the first direct observation of lightning in Saturn's atmosphere, although the Voyager probe made an indirect detection in the 1980s.

The Cassini-Huygens mission which reached Saturn last week has sent back startling images of the planet's famous rings viewed in ultraviolet light. The pictures processed by University of Colorado researchers depict the famous feature in shades of turquoise and red.

The project to exhume the remains of several members of the Medicis, the family that dominated the Florentine Renaissance, has taken a new turn this month as researchers discovered a secret crypt containing the mysterious bodies of seven children and an adult. The vaulted chamber was found under a stone floor behind the main altar of the Medici Chapels at Michelangelo's church of San Lorenzo in Florence. The researchers stumbled across it while searching for the final resting place of the last Grand Duke Gian Gastone, who probably died from obesity and kidney stones.

Michigan native Sandra Anderson is set to be sentenced on August 24 in Federal Court, Southern Division of the Eastern District of Michigan, for planting evidence at a crime scene and making false statements to authorities. A respected scent-detection dog trainer and handler, Anderson pled guilty earlier this year. Since the charges were filed last fall, the work of Anderson and her dog Eagle has been questioned.

When industrialists propose development in France, the National Institute of Preventative Archaeological Research, better known as Inrap, investigates areas that are primed for construction. This past year, Inrap has made three important discoveries: ancient ships in Lyon, mosaics in Doubs, and an Iron Age cemetery in Puisserguier. The Lyon excavation in central eastern France, carried out in advance of a planned parking lot at Saint George Park, revealed remains of three ships from the first-second century A.D. These ships share a unique structure; they have a flat wood bottom held together by nails. The size of the ships, with the largest being 50.53 feet in length and 9.84 feet in width, indicates that they were most likely used to transport cargo.

The coins were unearthed in West Norfolk at the end of April by Charles Sproule, of Midway Villa, Fincham, and were declared treasure trove by coroner Bill Knowles last week. The news comes after Mr Sproule's last find of a 17th century gold brooch and 34 silver Iceni coins were declared treasure trove by an inquest last month.

ARCHAEOLOGISTS bidding to unearth a Tudor palace in the grounds of Forty Hall have struck nothing but gravel. The team were hoping to unlock the mystery of Elsynge Palace, a favourite haunt of King Henry VIII, which now lies buried under the grounds of the historic mansion. But in a joint initiative between Enfield Council's museum service and Enfield Archaeological Society (EAS), the historians came up against a wall of clay.

Bronze Age ritual human sacrifice may have been rarer than believed, according to a unique study of ancient DNA from bones in central Europe. German anthropologist Dr Susanne Hummel from the University of Göttingen presented her team's research at a recent ancient DNA conference in Brisbane, Australia.

Wine snobs might shudder at the thought, but the first wine-tasting may have occurred when Paleolithic humans slurped the juice of naturally fermented wild grapes from animal-skin pouches or crude wooden bowls. The idea of winemaking may have occurred to our alert and resourceful ancestors when they observed birds gorging themselves silly on fermented fruit and decided to see what the buzz was all about.

Portuguese archeologists said they have discovered the largest Islamic necropolis in the country, and possibly in the Iberian peninsula. Around 35 skeletons have so far been found at the cemetery, at Santarem, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Lisbon and which was the capital of an independent kingdom in the 8th century when Muslims from North Africa occupied the Iberian peninsula. The site covers 3,400 square meters (36,000 square feet), making it the largest of its kind in Portugal, said Antonio Matias, the archeologist in charge of the site, quoted by the Lusa news agency.