Newsdesk Archive

ROMAN experts believe a bust of a goddess found at Groundwell Ridge is of national importance. On first examination, archaeologists believed the lead bust might be that of Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, or Luna, the goddess of the moon. Now, two experts in Roman iconography, Anthony Beeson and Dr Patricia Witts, say that the deity does not portray Minerva or Luna, but the Egyptian goddess of the Earth, Isis.

CAIRO: Ramses II, son of the Sun god, the greatest warrior king and the most prolific builder of ancient Egypt, has been defeated by the rumble and fumes of modern traffic. His monumental pink granite statue outside Cairo central rail station has all but vanished within a sarcophagus of scaffolding erected to enable experts to prepare it for removal next year to a less polluted site outside the city.

Nearly 200 artifacts from the Dominican Republic, some dating back to 2500 B.C., have been seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents, officials announced Tuesday. The artifacts include arrowheads and stone carvings, some smaller than a fingernail, and are called pre-Columbian because they predate Christopher Columbus' 1492 arrival in the Americas.

A prehistoric village has been restored at a Hongshan culture site in Chifeng City, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, enabling visitors to learn about the life of Chinese forefathers at least 5,500 years ago. The village, covering more than six hectares of land in Hongshan Forest Park, comprises six old-style houses and a fish pond. The exhibit also includes dozens of sculptures of scenes from daily prehistoric life, including fishing, hunting and production of stone and chinaware implements.

Iranian archeologists hope to find out the quarries that provided special stones for artifacts made throughout the Jiroft civilization, Iranian Cultural Heritage News Agency reported on Sunday. The archeological site has so far produced some artifacts contemporary with the Mesopotamian civilizations and over the years, experts have traced back Jiroft stone artifacts in such ancient nations as Iraq and Syria. Archeologists intend to establish the way Iranians mined these quarries over 5,000 years ago and carried the stones to their city, today located in the southern province of Kerman, said Nader Ali Suleimani, head of the research team.

Two million-year-old blood and fat on stone tools found in South Africa are giving clues about what hominids ate and how they lived, says an Australian researcher. Molecular archaeologist, Dr Tom Loy of the University of Queensland, reported his analysis of biological residues found on quartz stone tools at a recent ancient biomolecules conference in Brisbane. "I looked at them and there was blood everywhere," Loy said of the tools, which are among the oldest of their kind, and came from the Sterkfontein caves 60 kilometres northwest of Johannesburg.

ALAMO -- Just a half-hour drive down a bumpy, dirt road and a short hike through a pristine part of the Pahranagat Range sits a focal point of Lincoln County's American Indian heritage. The Shooting Gallery, as it's known in rock art circles, has endured summer heat, snowy winters and flash foods for more than 1,000 years. There are 575 rock art panels in a two-mile stretch of the range, with some 5,000 images in all. But within the past few years, all-terrain vehicle tracks lead to where looters have left their mark while digging for artifacts beneath prehistoric etchings that depict raindrops, reptiles, waterfalls, bighorn sheep and ancient hunters.

Archaeologists are unearthing the remains of a Roman bridge. The ruins of the bridge, which would have once crossed the River Tyne, have been undisturbed for thousands of years in Corbridge, Northumberland. The site has been monitored since the 1970s by archaeologists concerned at erosion of the remains by the river. In 1995 a trial excavation revealed the rapid rate and severity of the damage caused by erosion, which has increased in recent years.

VADODARA: In an underwater exploration in the Gulf of Cambay, National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) scientists discovered almost 9,500-year-old bricks made of clay and straw. Archaeological experts of the MS University who, too, are involved in a part of the exploration near Surat and the coast of Gulf of Cambay, however, feel that a further insight into the size of the bricks can confirm its age and its period. The bricks, believed to be pre-Harappan, have been identified to be of the Holocene age. In the NIOT surveys in the 17 sq km area, stone artefacts like blade scraper, perforated stones and beads were found. The bricks, according to NIOT scientists, were used for construction. It indicates that the people of that age led an advanced form of life. The artefacts found on the seabed, 20 to 40 ft below the present sea level, consisted of housing material. "It is important to confirm the brick size as people of the pre-Harappan age made bricks in the ratio of 1:2:3. A confirmation on the brick size can add more credence to the discovery," says head of the archealogy and ancient history department V H Sonawane. Visit the Underworld page at this site for Graham Hancock's extensive research on the area...

ARCHEOLOGISTS have discovered 50 tombs dating back to the late Minoan period, around 1400 BC, and containing a number of artifacts on the Greek island of Crete, ANA news agency reported today. The tombs were part of the once powerful ancient city of Kydonia, which was destroyed at the time but later rebuilt. The oldest among them contained bronze weapons, jewellery and vases and are similar to the tombs of fallen soldiers of the Mycenaean type from mainland Greece, said the head of the excavations, Maria Vlazaki.

Iranian archeologists are seeking for public funding to explore the ruins of a vast urban citadel, left from the Parthian dynasty (247 B.C.-226 A.D.), in Khorasan Province, east of Iran.

A TEAM of Scottish experts have used the latest computer technology to protect a priceless 2300-year-old Greek statue. Hermes of Praxiteles, the sole surviving work of one of classical Greece's finest sculptors, was threatened by earthquakes as it stood in the country's most important archaeological museum in Olympia, the birthplace of the Olympic games.

Ever since a digger clattered into a buried wall seven years ago, experts have been intrigued and perplexed by Swindon's mysterious Roman complex. But yesterday, English Heritage revealed that the enigmatic site in the heart of a housing estate was once a magnificent, luxurious villa. Today and tomorrow, members of the public have their only chance to view the historic find before the site is buried once again. English Heritage was overjoyed at uncovering the well-preserved remains of a spacious Turkish bath-like complex after a seven-week dig at Groundwell Ridge. Experts said the elaborate Roman baths and heating system, dating back nearly 1,900 years, exceeded their highest expectations.

The battle over Kennewick Man, one of the most complete skeletons ever found in North America, appears to be over. Four Northwest tribes seeking to bury the 9,300-year-old bones have announced they will not take their fight to the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) after losing in lower federal courts to scientists who want to study the remains, The Oregonian reported in its Friday editions.

To Ethiopians it is what the Parthenon marbles are to Greeks: a keystone of their identity, whose absence has long bedevilled relations with the country that removed it. For more than 60 years the monument, a fourth century obelisk looted from the early Christian site of Axum stood incongruously in a Rome piazza being fouled by pigeons and blackened by pollution. But last November, after the Italian government yielded to decades of pressure from Addis Ababa, the 200-tonne sacred column was meticulously divided into sections for its return to Ethiopia, where a national holiday was promised for the day of its arrival. Nine months later that day has yet to come.

The most extraordinary smile has been beaming down at Romans from hoardings all over the city this week. It belongs to a statue of the Apollo of Veio, the vanished Etruscan city a few miles north of central Rome. Yesterday, after the first painstaking restoration since the statue's discovery 80 years ago, it went on display in Rome's National Etruscan Museum in Villa Giulia. The terracotta statue was assembled from 30 fragments found in 1916 in a cave at the site of the vanished city. In 1944 more pieces came to light, enabling archaeologists to add the statue's right arm.

Archaeologists have been digging up pottery, stone tools and other artifacts in Georgia for years, but until recently there was no coordinated effort to locate the historic treasures submerged along the coast and in rivers and streams. Georgia has joined at least eight other states, including Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina, in launching a state-funded underwater archaeology program. As the state's first official underwater archaeologist, Jason Burns is organizing a network of divers and historians to identify the state's submerged relics, including 2,000 shipwrecks. "When you think of underwater archaeology, it's not just shipwrecks," Burns said. "We're interested in everything from submerged prehistoric sites, to docks, piers and wharves." Before moving to Georgia, Burns helped with the recovery of the Civil War submarine H.L. Hunley from the harbor in Charleston, S.C., and helped study the Confederate Sloop CSS Alabama, sunk by a Union warship near Cherbourg, France, in 1864.

Ammonia may have been found in Mars' atmosphere which some scientists say could indicate life on the Red Planet. Researchers say its spectral signature has been tentatively detected by sensors on board the European Space Agency's orbiting Mars Express craft. Ammonia survives for only a short time in the Martian atmosphere so it must be getting constantly replenished. There are two possible sources: either active volcanoes, none of which have been found yet on Mars, or microbes.

Stephen Hawking says he was wrong about a key argument he put forward nearly 30 years ago on the behaviour of black holes. The world-famous physicist addresses an international conference on Wednesday to revise his claim that black holes destroy everything that falls into them. It appears black holes may after all allow information in them to escape. His new findings could even help solve the "black hole information paradox", a crucial puzzle of modern physics.

A new name is being added to a list of the East Midlands' famous literary sons. Previously, poet Lord Byron and novelist D H Lawrence topped the list, but now Romantic poet William Blake has joined them. He is considered the quintessential Cockney poet, but a team at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) have traced his roots back to a village in north Nottinghamshire.

large water cistern that was used as a coffin was recently unearthed at a construction site in Taidong County, in Chulu Village of Beinan Township. The burial method is a combination of the traditions of the Bunan, Paiwan and Rukai tribes, making the discovery worthy of further research, said Fu Chun, a researcher at the National Museum of Prehistory. The bones inside the coffin were still well preserved. In addition, several of the teeth of the person had been pulled out, as is customary among some indigenous tribes. Also found with the body were a silver bracelet, ceramic beads and other accessories, as well as a pair of sandals from the Japanese colonial era (1895-1945).

Following the alleged haul in London of several Iranian artifacts belonging to the Jiroft civilization , Iranian officials are pressing the British government to make an inquiry to the case and, if true, extradite them according to international conventions, Iranian Cultural Heritage News Agency reported on Wednesday.

HAMILTON - Archaeologists sifting through the soil below Rosedale Park to make way for rerouting of Red Hill Creek have uncovered the remains of two Iroquoian longhouses. A team of city-hired archaeologists that is in its second week of working with consultants for the Six Nations band has also found two middens _ ancient garbage heaps. "We're still trying to figure out the extent of the site," said Carol Ann Wood, as osteologist working with the Six Nations band. "There's a very good chance that with this large a site that we're going to find burials."

Nasa's Spirit rover is gearing up for a challenging ascent on Columbia Hills, the high ground it will explore for clues to the history of water on Mars. Spirit is undergoing a "tune-up", a kind of training regime to prepare it for the climb. Its twin, Opportunity, is exploring inside the 130m-wide Endurance Crater, after which it will probably head south to the mysterious "etched terrain".

An American scientific team has disputed what was thought to be the definitive identification of the remains of the Russian royal family, executed by the Bolsheviks in 1918, London's Daily Telegraph said Monday. The Russian government in 1998 identified bones found in a common grave in Yekaterinburg, formerly Sverdlovsk, as belonging to Tsar Nicholas, Tsarina Alexandra and three of their daughters.

A new study of over 3,000 human skeletons in a Croatian archaeological collection suggests that cancer is more common today than at any point in humankind's history, the report's authors say. A team of Croatian archaeologists and medics studied ancient human remains dating from 5,300 B.C. to the mid-19th century. The bones, which came from 21 archaeological sites scattered around the eastern European country, are stored at the Skeletal Collection of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Zagreb.

Archaeologists have unearthed evidence of a Roman fort and a Stone Age settlement near a pub in Chesterfield. Experts were called in when developers discovered the artefacts on land underneath the Old Feather's Pub on Lordsmill Street. Some of the pottery dates back to the 1st Century AD. Maria Barnes from Chesterfield Museum said the discovery indicates the town's Roman settlement was larger than previously thought.

An influential panel of researchers says the US space agency (Nasa) should not rule out a space shuttle mission to repair the orbiting Hubble telescope. Nasa requested the report from the US National Academies after being criticised for the decision to ban future shuttle servicing flights. The ban was deemed necessary because of new safety rules brought in following the loss of the space shuttle Columbia. The report says it is vital to repair Hubble by manned or unmanned missions.

Farmers in Riodeva cleared stones from their almond orchards for generations, never dreaming they were tossing aside dinosaur bones -- and laying a trail for one of Spain's greatest fossil finds. But when two palaeontologists stumbled across a field scattered with the fragments they knew they had probably found a valuable cache, and when digging began in early 2003 it revealed a horde beyond their wildest hopes.

According to Max Wyss, when the Beatles first shook the world with hits like "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "She Loves You," in the early 1960s, scientists were clueless as to why the Earth literally rattles and trembles on occasion. "What I'm trying to say is this is a very young, recent advance to know why this planet has earthquakes," said Wyss, who is the director of the World Agency of Planetary Monitoring and Earthquake Risk Reduction in Geneva, Switzerland.

Danish scientists aim to better understand whether life can survive on Mars by subjecting terrestrial bugs to conditions present on the Red Planet. They are using a "biochamber" to simulate the temperature, radiation and chemical environment found on Mars. The University of Aarhus work will study how whole communities of microbes respond at different soil depths.

Last year a remarkable exhibit came to light. Hidden in the vaults of a London museum was a scrap of paper containing a few strands of hair. The paper was crudely fashioned into an envelope but the words on it immediately caused a stir: "Hair of his Late Majesty, King George 3rd." For Professor Martin Warren, it was the clue that would help him finally solve the mystery of King George's illness. His investigation is featured in a BBC documentary, Medical Mysteries.

The Department of Archaeology and Heritage will soon renovate Al Hail castle and palace, one of the oldest and most impressive historic monuments in the emirate, dating back to the Iron Age (1300-300 BC). Nestled in Wadi Al Hail, 13km west of Fujairah, the old castle and its watchtower are well-known because one of the palaces was once occupied by the Al Sharqiyin ruling family.

A long-rumoured secret crypt of Italy's mighty Medici family was discovered by scientists yesterday after a hunt reminiscent of an Indiana Jones movie. The vaulted chamber was found under a stone floor behind the main altar of the Medici chapels in the church of San Lorenzo in Florence. Under the gaze of sculptures by Michelangelo and his pupils, researchers lifted a stone slab to find seven steps leading down to the entrance. According to Italian media reports, the hidden crypt is between 2.1 metres (7ft) and 2.4 metres high and six metres by at least four metres wide. Yesterday's discovery is the latest development in a remarkable project. Since last month, a team of paleopathologists from American and Italian universities have been digging up the bodies of 49 members of the Medici family buried in the church of San Lorenzo.

Chinese soldiers sent to the Great Wall centuries ago did not just spend their time keeping alien invaders out -- they also decorated their watch towers with ancient graffiti, state media said. Archeologists studying a section of the wall in northeastern Liaoning province were surprised to find carvings of symbols representing love and peace, the Xinhua news agency reported. The historical record may offer an explanation, as it shows the general in charge of this part of the wall in the late 16th century allowed soldiers to bring their families along in order to boost morale.

A caesar's wife may have to be above reproach, but one of them lost her head centuries ago. The head was found late in the 19th century by a roving Guardian reporter who later became a distinguished archaeologist; her body was only found nine years ago, in modern Croatia; but now the two have been re-united at an exhibition in Oxford.

More than half of the resplendent past of Central India, one of the oldest human settlements in the world is all set to be lost, thanks to the administrative apathy that has allowed and is allowing monuments and sites of great archaeological importance to simply perish in Narmada Valley Project. The impending destruction of more than 60 explored and unexplored sites in single tehsil of Harsud is just a tip of the iceberg. Hundreds of similar sites, lots of them unexplored and expected to be carrying important links to pre-historic life and monuments of archaeological, historical, religious importance would simply cease to exist within next two to three years, archaeological experts have warned.

An English cave has been described as the "Sistine Chapel of the Ice Age" after the discovery of 80 engraved figures in its limestone ceiling. The discovery at Creswell Crags was announced on Tuesday. It comes a year after the initial discovery of 12 engraved figures, which were trumpeted as the earliest examples of prehistoric cave art in Britain.

In 1706, Paul Lucas, traveling in southwest Turkey on a mission for the court of Louis XIV, came upon the mountaintop ruins of Sagalassos. The first Westerner to see the site, Lucas wrote that he seemed to be confronted with remains of several cities inhabited by fairies. Later, during the mid-nineteenth century, William Hamilton described it as the best preserved ancient city he had ever seen. Toward the end of that century, Sagalassos and its theater became famous among students of classical antiquity. Yet large scale excavations along the west coast at sites like Ephesos and Pergamon, attracted all the attention. Gradually Sagalassos was forgotten...until a British-Belgian team led by Stephen Mitchell started surveying the site in 1985.

Even in ruins, Karnak Temple remains a spectacular sight. Within the temple enclosure is a cluster of pylons, sanctuaries, chapels and obelisks, forming a vast open-air exhibition of history set in stone. Much of the site still remains to be explored. This year, following a methodological plan of excavation, conservation and archaeological research, a team from the Centre Franco-Egyptian d'Etude des Temples de Karnak (CFEETK), along with their Egyptian colleagues, have executed an ambitious project in five areas of the temple.

Researchers have been over Bamiyan, site of ancient Buddhist relics, with a tooth comb. Yet on Wednesday, a Japanese team reported the first discovery in 40 years of new cave murals. The paintings, found in the Da'uti area of Afghanistan's Bamiyan Valley in June, are near the remains of two giant Buddha statues destroyed by the Taliban in March 2001. The team, from the National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, also confirmed during field work conducted June 15 to 29 that a 2.5-meter tall enclosure in the Bamiyan Valley was an old stupa site. The team is helping preserve the Buddhist cultural heritage of the Silk Road center, designated a World Heritage site in July 2003.

"There are two distinct buttes lying just east of the Wood River, another shallow tributary of the Tanana that flows out of the Alaska Range. The eastern butte reaches 1,051 feet, about 500 feet above the surrounding flats. The pair lies about 20 miles north of the range. Archaeological digs on all three buttes have turned up projectile points made by Native Americans about 6,000 years ago, according to a summary of cultural resources compiled by Fort Wainwright."

An undiscovered Roman town may exist in south-west Essex, according to archaeological evidence being uncovered in London. A large Roman road has been found heading out of London towards what is now the village of Chipping Ongar, 11 miles west of Chelmsford. Archaeological evidence suggests Chipping Ongar was an important communications hub in Roman times and probably the site of a small town.

A TWO-thousand-year-old child's skeleton has been found in a 'time team' dig at Worksop - hailed as one of the most significant archaeological finds in the region for years. The child was still adorned with bangles and bracelets, and is believed to be from a high-ranking Iron Age tribe which flourished during the Roman occupation. The site on Raymoth Lane, Gateford, is being excavated by Polish expert Alex Cetera before more than 200 Barratt homes are built on top of it.

Archaeologists have uncovered pottery pieces, spear tips made of quartz and a large cooking area in an American Indian settlement dating back to the 13th century. The dig is the latest of several that have taken place over the last few decades along the Roanoke River. A series of floods, which may have forced the group to leave, protected the artifacts and kept them from becoming mixed with the remnants of later civilizations, said Bill Stanyard, a senior archaeologist at the site.

A flood of rare artifacts and the rotted remains of wooden buildings offer surprising insights into life at a Spanish presidio, or military outpost, that vanished under the shifting sands of this barrier island 250 years ago. University of West Florida archaeologists and students, aided by public volunteers, last year recovered more than 40,000 artifacts, and they are digging up more this summer. What they've found shows Presidio Isla de Santa Rosa was more than a typical military and penal colony. Family life also thrived there.

For years archaeologists have clung to the idea that only truly modern humans were artists, and that our Neanderthal cousins spent their entire evolutionary lifetime as boorish philistines. But fresh analysis of a prized set of human bones has dealt a body blow to this cherished theory. The first sparks of artistic creativity are seen in carved figurines found at various sites throughout Europe. The oldest examples are between 30,000 and 40,000 years old, which means they were created about the time that modern humans are thought to have blazed a trail across the continent, displacing Neanderthals as they went.

MANILA (Reuters) - Manila's national museum has filed a complaint against an American treasure hunter for smuggling out Philippine artefacts salvaged from shipwrecks off the country's coast, says the justice secretary. Merceditas Gutierrez said criminal cases of unlawful export of Philippine cultural property would also be brought against a former museum official and employees of a local freight company. She said on Wednesday all of them worked with treasure hunter Philip Greco to export more than 10,000 artefacts, including massive Ming Dynasty statues. The relics lay in Philippine territorial waters.

Archeologists in Israel warn that the ancient stone fortress of Masada is crumbling, the result of a heavy rainstorm last winter. Located high above the Dead Sea in Israel's Judean Mountains, Masada has attracted thousands of visitors since it was excavated in the 1960s. Jews have long regarded this archaeological wonder as a symbol of Jewish pride and courage.

VADODARA: Jains in Khambhat taluka of Anand were overjoyed when around 65 idols temple were unearthed at a construction site in the town. Inscriptions on them suggested that they were over 900 years old. While, the first statue was unearthed on Sunday, many more structures, including idols of Jain deity Ambica Devi, were unearthed on Monday at the site where a mamlatdar office is being built. Senior community members believed excavation might uncover a Jain temple belonging to Tirthtankar Nemnath Swami.

Saturn's rings are a lot dirtier than originally believed, according to new observations by the Cassini spacecraft that show that the inner regions are packed with rock and mud. "We've known for decades the rings are mostly made of water," said Larry Esposito of the University of Colorado at Boulder. "Now we know the amount of water varies, increasing toward the outer edge of the rings.

MILAN (Reuters) - Milan opened the gates to its ancient amphitheater on Monday but there was little for visitors to the 2,000-year-old ruin to see. Hidden behind modern buildings in the center of Italy's financial capital, the gray stone foundations of a few walls are all that remain of the huge oval-shaped amphitheater where gladiators and wild animals once fought to the death. Archaeologists say the arena, built in the first century, was only slightly smaller than Rome's Colosseum. It once boasted 40-meter (130 feet) walls crowned with columns that towered over the outskirts of ancient Milan but was largely destroyed in wars about 500 years later. Local authorities proudly announced the new historical site. Unlike many

NAIROBI, Kenya - Scientists working in Kenya have found skull fragments from what they say was an early, tool-making human that lived more than 900,000 years ago, perhaps filling an important gap in the fossil record. Scientists from the United States, Britain and Kenya found part of a skull of a small adult with some characteristics of Homo erectus, in Olorgesalie, 100 miles southeast of the capital, Nairobi, said Richard Potts, the lead researcher. The skull fragments were found between July and August 2003, and the scientists' analysis was published in Friday's edition of Science magazine.

The Security Authorities in Sultanate of Oman seized last Wednesday at Al-Mazyouta Custom Exist Point, a large truck loaded with antiques. The antiques consist of parts of historic pillars and antiques the size of a piece exceeds one meter, belonging and dating back to Sheba civilization era. The Authorities held the Yemeni driver and his assistant trying to get through the exist point in their way to United Arab Emirate. The smugglers hid the antiques inside the trailer of the truck usually used for loading fuel. The Oman Authority is still interrogating the two detainees, while the Public Antiquities Authority in Yemen is preparing a file on the stolen pieces, which proves them to be Yemeni properties.

JERUSALEM -- Israeli officials say experts can repair vandalism to a priceless 13th Georgian fresco in a Jerusalem monastery, but probably not before the July 28 visit of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili. The fresco, in the Monastery of the Holy Cross, is the only known portrait of famed Georgian poet Shota Rustaveli. Georgian Ambassador Revaz Gachechiladze said the damage to the fresco was discovered Saturday when his wife was conducting a tour of the 11th century Greek Orthodox monastery in Jerusalem's Valley of the Cross.

Georgian archeologists have discovered a monastery complex of the middle ages in the south-west of the village Bakuriani, at the 1700 m of the Black Sea altitude. The archeologists were working on the 185 km of the Baku-Tbilisi-Geyhan pipeline traffic. Givi Ghambashidze, chief of the Tsikhijvari archeological expedition, said that they have found a massive stone wall, in the interior of which they discovered basilica cells, important ceramic utensils, remains of the building.

CANBERRA, Australia (Reuters) -- Australians living in the nation's drought-ravaged capital have been warned to keep their distance from aggressive kangaroos after the iconic marsupials attacked one woman and killed a pet dog. Eastern Grey kangaroos, which can grow 1.7 meters (5.6 feet) tall and weigh 70 kg (154 lb), have started moving out of the parched bush into inner Canberra suburbs during the day to look for grass and water, increasing their contact with people.

NASA's robot space explorers are getting smarter, due in no small part to the human-written software that powers their electronic minds. On Mars, for example, the twin exploration rovers Spirit and Opportunity received a boost in their autonomous driving skills during recent software update by mission controllers. But a team of NASA and Arizona researchers are pushing spacecraft self control even farther, giving their robot the power to conduct its own scientific investigations using software that automatically scans for interesting targets.

Negotiations are underway to further extend the missions of the US space agency's Mars Exploration Rovers. The rover team wants the robots to keep on with their science operations for longer than the 250 Martian days (or sols) they are expected to work.

China aims to send a spacecraft to the Moon in three years' time, the head of the country's space agency, Sun Laiyan, has confirmed to the BBC. In a wide-ranging interview, Mr Sun outlined the next steps China would take in expanding its space efforts. These included unmanned missions from 2007 to orbit and land on the Moon, and to build a Chinese space station.

A brick-lined well and historic underground irrigation system tied to Chandler founder A.J. Chandler has been discovered in the path of the Santan Freeway near Pecos and Alma School roads. The discovery was made during routine environmental checks, Arizona Department of Transportation spokesman Doug Nintzel said. Its significance and how the state will document or preserve it are still undecided, he said.

Canadian scientists say they've found conclusive proof that a tiny, barren Arctic island was the site of Canada's first, and perhaps greatest, mining fraud. In 1577 and 1578, Kodlunarn Island, in what is now Frobisher Bay, was the site of British mariner Martin Frobisher's infamous Arctic Eldorado turned New World financial nightmare. Now two Laval University scientists say there's solid evidence that Frobisher and his chemists were in on a massive fraud that was an Elizabethan-era "prelude to Bre-X." Since the scandal broke more than 400 years ago that the tons of black rock Frobisher brought back to London from the Canadian Arctic near present-day Iqaluit were worthless, there's been speculation about what happened. Was this a massive con job on Elizabeth I and her court, or did Frobisher's assayers mistakenly dupe themselves into believing they'd found gold?

London - Catapult designers were the celebrity scientists of the ancient world, according to a British expert. Until the discovery of gunpowder, the catapult was the most powerful weapon in existence, said historian Serafina Cuomo. The machines, capable of hurling large projectiles long distances, were in high demand during the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans - and so were their makers. But the construction of catapults was no easy task, requiring great mathematical and engineering skill.

Cutting-edge computer technology and state-of-the-art medical scanning techniques have turned a 2,800-year-old mummy into a fully interactive 3-D experience, London's British Museum has announced. Resting in a decorated cartonnage, Nesperennub, a priest buried in Thebes in about 800 B.C., was moved from its display at the museum to undergo a CT-scan at a London hospital and a 3-D laser-scan in Scotland.

XINING, July 6 (Xinhuanet) -- Archeologists confirmed that the human skeletons discovered this May in northwest China's Qinghai Province belonged to three Europeans who lived in China over 1,900 years ago. "The physical characteristics of the bones showed it is a typical European race," said Wang Minghui, an expert with the archeological institute under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The skeletons were spotted at Zhongchuan Town of the province's eastern most Minhe Hui and Tu Autonomous County. Since 2002, archeologists have unearthed nine tombs of Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) at a construction site of a brickfield in the town, but it was not until this May that they felt the skeletons in two tombs "very special", said Ren Xiaoyan, deputy director if the provincial archeological institute, who added they invited Wang, who specializes in human bone identification, to take part in the study on the findings.

NEW DELHI (AP) - Indian archaeologists have found more than 670 names of previously unknown masons and labourers who built the 17th century Taj Mahal, the country's greatest architectural marvel, a newspaper reported Tuesday. The names, written mostly in Arabic and Persian, are etched on the sandstone used in the wall and other peripheral structures on the northern side of the Taj Mahal, the Asian Age newspaper reported. Some names were also written in Hindi, the report said, quoting D. Dayalan, a senior official at the Archaeological Survey of India.

Turkish Cypriot daily HALKIN SESI newspaper (06.07.04) reports that 26 bronze items were found buried in an earthenware jar in a rocky hill near the occupied Galinoporni village, in the Karpass Peninsula. According to the paper, the items are 3200 years old, and are dated in the late Bronze Age. The excavations were conducted by the so-called Famagusta branch of the Department of the Antiquities and Museum of the pseudostate. Among the 26 items which were found, were two well preserved censers, one shovel for coals, of which only a few pieces are known to exist in Cyprus and the Middle East, a closed jug with a handle, five pieces of hook and three large bronze kettles. The paper writes that similar items were found in 1970 near the occupied Sinta Village. These items are now in the Saint Varnavas Museum.

A research team led by a British archaeologist is to travel to China in search of the origins and meaning of a mysterious ancient symbol identified in sacred sites across Britain, Europe, and the Middle and Far East. Striking depictions of three hares joined at the ears have been found in roof bosses of medieval parish churches in Devon, 13th century Mongol metal work from Iran and cave temples from the Chinese Sui dynasty of 589-618.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - When the Roman Empire got tired of pirates terrorizing shipping lanes and nearly bringing the known world's trade to a halt, it went after them hard. It reportedly took the Roman general Pompey just 40 days to locate and wipe out the ships and crews that were preying on shipping. It has taken much, much longer for modern scientists to again find the pirates of the Mediterranean. But Cheryl Ward, an anthropology professor at Florida State University, hopes she's on the verge of rediscovering the ships of the pirates, a thorn in the side of the Romans 2,100 years ago who now may help provide a unique window on what the larger world looked like in late antiquity.

After decades of intense research, the ancient ruins of Mexico and Central America are yielding new insights into the pre-Columbia culture Tikal was one of the most powerful city-states in the Americas. Though magnificent, the ruins of Tikal visible today represent but a fraction of the original city-state. During its heyday, archaeologists say, "downtown" Tikal was about six square miles, though research indicates that the city-state's population may have sprawled over at least 47 square miles. Yet most of Tikal has not even been excavated.

A treasure trove of Ming dynasty porcelain has been recovered from a shipwreck off the coast of Malaysia. About 20% of the salvaged 6,000 blue and white porcelain items are in pristine condition, despite being underwater for about 400 years. Among the recovered items are bowls bearing the mark of Emperor Chenghua, who ruled China in the 15th Century. The 21-metre vessel is thought to have been a Portuguese merchant ship which may have been blown up by a rival ship.

The international Cassini-Huygens probe has had its first opportunity to fly by Saturn's biggest moon, Titan. Already the spacecraft has managed to detect large linear features on Titan's surface which are obscured from Earth telescopes by its thick atmosphere.

A scientist has worked out what a waterfall might sound like in space, ahead of a mission that could find oceans on Saturn's largest moon. Professor Tim Leighton, of Southampton University, recorded a waterfall in Hampshire and worked out the soundwaves a similar fall of liquid methane would make on the moon Titan. He was inspired by the international Cassini-Huygens mission, which could prove him right when its lander reaches the ringed planet's mysterious satellite.

A tiny pre-human who lived more than 900,000 years ago in what is now Kenya may have been a "short experiment" in evolution that never quite made it, scientists said on Thursday. The little skull clearly belongs to an adult and was found last summer at a site where much larger hominids classified as Homo erectus lived, said Richard Potts of the Smithsonian Institution and colleagues.

Some of Utah's Indian leaders are upset that state and federal officials said nothing to them about a canyon filled with nearly untouched ancient settlements, even though the inhabitants could be their ancestors. Officials have known about the string of hundreds of sites in a remote canyon southeast of Salt Lake City since 2002, but tribal leaders found out about it through news reports that began to appear last month. Archaeologists showed reporters part of the area in the Book Cliffs region Wednesday.

A pregnant woman lies on her side with a hand behind her head as if posing for a nude photograph. But her dead body isn't the only thing exposed. Her heart, intestines and 8-month-old fetus are visible as well. The woman was one of more than 200 people who donated their cadavers for use in "Body Worlds: The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies," which makes its U.S. debut Friday at the California Science Center.

Australia's Great Barrier Reef became the world's biggest protected marine network on Thursday, a move environmental groups hope countries in Asia and Central America will copy in a bid to save their endangered coral reefs. Australia has slapped a ban on fishing and shipping on a third of the reef, the planet's largest living structure, protecting one of its main tourist attractions which is threatened by over-fishing, pollution and higher temperatures.

Two amber beads have been found at Kitora tomb in Asukamura, Nara Prefecture, along with two fragments of human bone and a piece of iron, the Cultural Affairs Agency announced. The discovery indicates similarities between Kitora tomb and Takamatsuzuka tomb in the village, where several similar amber beads also were found. The two barrel-shaped amber beads are 9.5 millimeters and 9.3 millimeters in length. Each has a 1.8-millimeter-diameter hole.

This summer's archaeology field school from Harvard University will excavate at La Karaña, an area north of the monumental zone that is never visited by tourists. It appears at first glance to be little more than a gentle slope, but closer inspection shows the entire surface to be covered with huge quantities of ceramics and other artifacts. A little over ten years ago, excavations by Bolivian archaeologist Javier Escalante revealed that this sloped area was formally sculpted into a series of stone terraces that served as platforms for homes. Could this be the place where the people of Tiwanaku lived? We plan to analyze architecture, ceramics, and even microscopic remains to provide information for such questions as: Who lived in the city? Did this population make the food, drink, and elaborate decorations necessary for ceremonies? Were they allowed to attend the rituals at the monuments, or were they simply observers? We hope this season of investigations will provide us with information on the daily life of the people that worked, lived, and worshiped at Tiwanaku.

From the Angkor Wat to the Olympia ruins, the list of World Heritage sites is growing longer and its conservation costs skyrocketing. Cash-strapped UNESCO needs to attract more private funds to its historic sites. The idea underlying UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites is a noble one -- that a number of the world's ancient monuments are of such exceptional value and significance that their preservation should be a global concern and not just left to the countries where the sites are located.

A decorated fragment of a lead sarcophagus (or coffin) dating from the Roman period has been returned to the Syrian National Museum, thanks to the efforts of experts at Newcastle University's Museum of Antiquities. The small fragment, which was brought into the University's Museum of Antiquities by a Newcastle resident, dates to the period between the 2nd century BC and the 2nd century AD. Some years ago, it came into the possession of a Newcastle family, who recently decided they would like to donate it to the University's museums.

ABU DHABI - Remains of the earliest-known inhabitant of Abu Dhabi have been found on the western island of Marawah by the Abu Dhabi Islands Archaeological Survey, ADIAS, as part of their spring excavation season, it was announced on Tuesday. Marawah is part of the Marawah Marine Protected Area, MPA, which is managed by Abu Dhabi's Environmental Research and Wildlife Development Agency (ERWDA). The excavations were carried out at the site of a 7,000 year old village which has the best-preserved and most-sophisticated stone buildings of Neolithic date that are known anywhere in Eastern Arabia. Radiocarbon dates from the building, analysed last year, suggests that the upper layers inside date to between 6,500 to 7.000 years ago, indicating that the original construction may have been earlier

BARNWELL, South Carolina On a hillside by the Savannah River, under tall oaks bearded with Spanish moss, an archaeologist and a graduate student crouched in the humid depths of a trench. They had reason to think they were in the presence of a breathtaking discovery. Or at the least, they were on to something more than 20,000 years old that would throw American archaeology into further turmoil over its most contentious issue: When did people first reach America, and who were they?

HUNDREDS of Byzantine icons, mosaics, and artifacts plundered from Cyprus almost 30 years ago and smuggled to Germany by thieves to sell on the black market will be returned, a judge has said. A German court ruled the larger part of a collection valued at 30 million euros ($52.4 million) would be restored to the Republic of Cyprus after seven years of legal battles with a Turkish man who claimed he was the rightful owner, said Judge Juergen Hanreich, who presided over the Munich state court case earlier this month. The artifacts, recovered during a sting operation in 1997, were looted from Greek Orthodox churches and museums in northern Cyprus in the chaos during the 1974 Turkish invasion of the island, Judge Hanreich said.

Archaeologists pulled aside a curtain on Wednesday to reveal what can only be called a secret garden: the pristinely preserved ruins of an ancient civilization that was long ago lost to the mists of time in the remote cliffs of eastern Utah, then resolutely protected over the last 50 years by a stubborn local rancher who kept mum about what he knew. The ruins, called Range Creek, are spread over thousands of acres, much of it in inaccessible back country and reachable only through a single-track dirt road once owned by the rancher and recently bought by the State of Utah. Preliminary research dates the settlement from about A.D. 900 to 1100, during the period of the Fremont Indian culture.

CAIRO, Egypt (Reuters) - An Egyptian archaeological team has uncovered battlements from Pharaonic times at the ancient eastern gateway to Egypt in the north of the Sinai Peninsula, the Culture Ministry said Wednesday. The find includes three fortifications built in the area of Tharu, an ancient city which stood on a branch of the Nile that has long since dried up, a ministry statement said. The battlements stand on the ancient Horus Road, a vital commercial and military artery from ancient Egypt to Asia. The discoveries, about 20 miles east of the Suez Canal, form part of the defenses that stretched along the route.

In the good old days of the ancient Games, Olympia was the honorable playground of noble athletes, a theater of sacred peace, fair play and somber processions among white marble temples, right? . Wrong. The ancient Games were loud, smelly, sometimes scandalous, every bit as political as their modern counterparts and once even saw a full-scale battle in the middle of a boxing match. . "The games of antiquity were not the hallowed celebrations of amateur athletics which we are often led to believe," said David Gilman Romano, adjunct professor of classics at the University of Pennsylvania. "The ancient Games were in many ways very much like the modern Olympics: intrinsically political, nationalistic and commercial." . The origin of the Games is shrouded in myth, but they are known to have been primarily part of a festival honoring Zeus, the king of the Greek gods. But rather than the somber affair of popular modern imagination, the ancient Games resembled a folk festival, and although the focus was on religion, there was enough eating, drinking and socializing to attract thousands of visitors. . "Ancient authors describe how hideous the conditions were," Romano said, "with the heat, the flies, the squeeze and the smell, and still tens of thousands of people came. It was worth the trip. It was fun." . People traveled from across the Greek world to attend, from Iberia to the Black Sea, in a testament to the importance of the Games as a political and social event. "The Games were like a glue that kept the diaspora Greeks together," said Emmanouil Mikroyannakis, a professor of ancient history at the University of Athens. . Some of the ills of the modern Games that raise grumbles about "the good old days" were not unknown back then. . "Cheating did happen, when athletes arranged who would win, tried to bribe the judges or falsely declared their age to be able to compete in a certain age group," said Ulrich Sinn, professor of classical archaeology at the University of Würzburg in Germany. . "There was no doping as such, but people knew that a certain diet, for example a lot of meat, can make one stronger - there were always tales of athletes who had eaten a whole ox." . Cheating was considered an affront to the gods, and tough rules were in place to deal with it, Mikroyannakis said. A false start in a race was punishable by whipping. "Athletes who lied or cheated," he said, "like wrestlers who sneakily rubbed oil on their body to make it hard for an opponent to grab, had to pay a fine that financed the statues of Zeus that lined the route to the stadium, serving as a deterrent and a warning." . A case of cheating could also lie behind one of the hallmark traditions of the ancient Games - competing naked. Athletes ran clothed until Orsippos of Megara started a new fashion by losing his shorts during a race in 720 B.C. . "During the race, his shorts fell off, winning anyway and setting something of a trend," Romano said. "No one is sure if it was an accident in the heat of the race, or he did it on purpose because he figured he could run faster naked." . Winners received only an olive wreath in Olympia itself, but wealth, privilege and adulation awaited them in their home city as reward for the glory they bestowed upon it. . Athens was one of the more generous cities, offering winners a gift equaling about two years' wages as well as the right to not pay taxes and to receive free meals for life, Sinn added. . Financial incentives were so tempting that some athletes dropped their allegiance to their city of birth and went on to represent another city, enraging their former fans. Some used Olympic victory to pursue other ambitions, like political careers. . Many losers never returned home, out of shame and fear of social reprisals; or, as the poet Pindar put it, they would "slink along back alleyways, shunning enemy eyes and nursing pain, the bite of defeat." . Contrary to modern belief, the Games were not all peaceful, either. "One battle even happened during the Games," Sinn said. "The Elians attacked when athletes were competing in a boxing match. But the Arcadians had expected it and had posted soldiers inside the sanctuary, so it came to a battle right there and then." ATHENS In the good old days of the ancient Games, Olympia was the honorable playground of noble athletes, a theater of sacred peace, fair play and somber processions among white marble temples, right? Wrong. The ancient Games were loud, smelly, sometimes scandalous, every bit as political as their modern counterparts and once even saw a full-scale battle in the middle of a boxing match.

New technology has uncovered amazing secrets about the life of a 2,800-year-old mummy. Elizabeth Grice took an exclusive tour of an exciting 3D exhibition. The bandages are off, and whoompf, we are travelling fast inside the bony cavern of a mummified body, following the line of the spine, curving this way and that, threatening to bump into vertebrae. It's like flying. And under the wrappings, in the layer of remaining soft tissue, we discover that the mummy is unequivocally a man.

Several London underground stations and an iconic 1960s tower block are to be included in a new "Domesday Book" of all 500,000 historic sites and buildings in Britain. The government is compiling the comprehensive list, reminiscent of the record of English settlements commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1085, in an effort to simplify the way historically important sites are granted legal protection. The list forms part of a wider set of heritage conservation reforms which include merging current methods of "listing" buildings but "scheduling" ancient monuments. Farmers will also have to seek permission to plough agricultural land in bid to conserve neolithic sites.

LIMA, Peru - A century after American explorer Hiram Bingham hacked through jungle-shrouded mountains to reach the overgrown ruins of Machu Picchu, heavy tourism and nearby sprawl have endangered the site. That's the finding of U.N. evaluators, who recommended that the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization place Machu Picchu on its endangered list.

YORKTOWN - Proof of the relationship between Jamestown's earliest settlers and Virginia's native Indians has turned up in a 400-year-old Indian trash pit. Archaeologists working at the 10,000-acre U.S. Naval Weapons Station here announced yesterday that an exploration conducted over the past few years has pinpointed the location of a historically important Indian village known as Kiskiak. But even more important, officials said, is the discovery in a Kiskiak "midden," or trash dump, of two fingernail-size pieces of sheet copper used for trade by Englishmen during the earliest years of Jamestown.

Britain's Antarctic ice station has a design problem few architects can have envisaged when it was built -- within a decade it is likely to float away. The existing base is built on an ice shelf which is likely to break off into the sea if global warming continues at its current rate. So now the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) has appealed for designers to come up with a replacement.

Archeologist Duane Quates has been in this area for more than a month, doing preliminary research that may change the way archeologists study settlement patterns. "What I'm looking at mainly is what we call 'settlement hierarchy,'" said Quates, a doctoral student at Michigan State University. "For example, let's take New York City -- it's the biggest city, it's the most complex. Further away you have the suburbs and further away you have the little farmsteads. That's a settlement hierarchy."

Kabul , Afghanistan -- Under the Russians it was barely glimpsed. The Afghan Communists allowed only peeks. Through the years of civil war and Taliban rule, its existence was kept secret by a handful of unassuming museum and bank workers, even as other priceless pieces of Afghanistan's cultural history were destroyed. Now, what is known as the Bactrian gold -- 20,600 pieces of gold jewelry, funeral ornaments and personal belongings from 2,000-year-old burial mounds -- has emerged from hiding intact, a shimmering example of the heights scaled by ancient Afghan culture.

Meet 'Nes' - though he may not have been as nice as he looks. In fact, personality type is now pretty much the only thing we don't know about Nesperennub, an Egyptian priest in his forties who lived 2,800 years ago on the banks of the Nile. In a technological and historical world first, this weekend the British Museum has unveiled or, more accurately, unwrapped the interior of a mummy that had remained sealed since it was made by masters of the ancient Egyptian craft of mummification. The startling operation was carried out without disturbing the intricate wrappings and amulets that were originally placed around his dead body.

More than 13 ancient cemeteries were recently discovered in Membij, near Aleppo dating back to the Byzantine Period.

The Cassini space probe is all set to begin its four-year mission to Saturn - to study the ringed planet and the many moons that move under its influence. Cassini will pass through a gap in those famous rings before making an engine burn to slow it down enough to enter an orbit around the gas giant. The burn starts at 0336BST on 1 July, with the probe's main engine turned towards the direction of travel.

The new images also show foetuses apparently yawning and rubbing its eyes. The scans, pioneered by Professor Stuart Campbell at London's Create Health Clinic, are much more detailed than conventional ultrasound. Professor Campbell has previously released images of unborn babies appearing to smile. He has compiled a book of the images called Watch Me Grow. Conventional ultrasound, usually offered to mothers at 12 and 20 weeks, produces 2D images of the developing foetus. These are very useful for helping doctors to measure and assess the growth of the foetus, but convey very little information about behaviour.

A medieval wall painting has been uncovered during renovation work at a south Wales church. A life-size image of St George standing on a slain a dragon was uncovered at St Cadoc's church in Llangattock Lingoed, near Abergavenny. Discovered during recent renovations at the centuries old church, experts have described the painting as a "special find".

In 1912 Wilfrid Voynich, an American rare-book dealer, made the find of a lifetime in the library of a Jesuit college near Rome: a manuscript some 230 pages long, written in an unusual script and richly illustrated with bizarre images of plants, heavenly spheres and bathing women. Voynich immediately recognized the importance of his new acquisition. Although it superficially resembled the handbook of a medieval alchemist or herbalist, the manuscript appeared to be written entirely in code. Features in the illustrations, such as hairstyles, suggested that the book was produced sometime between 1470 and 1500, and a 17th-century letter accompanying the manuscript stated that it had been purchased by Rudolph II, the Holy Roman Emperor, in 1586.