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Israeli archaeologists discover ancient quarry

JERUSALEM (AP) – Israeli archaeologists have uncovered an ancient quarry where they believe King Herod extracted stones for the construction of the Jewish Temple 2,000 years ago, the Israel Antiquities Authority said Monday.

The archaeologists believe the 1,000-square-foot (100-square-meter) quarry was part of a much larger network of quarries used by Herod in the city. The biggest stones extracted
from the quarry would have measured three yards (meters) long, two yards (meters) across, and two yards (meters) high.

The archaeologists said the size of the stones indicates they could have been used in the construction of the Temple compound, including the Western Wall, a retaining wall that remains intact and is a Jewish shrine.

“The dimensions of the stones that were produced in the quarry that was revealed are suitable for the Temple walls,” said Ofer Sion, the dig’s director.

The two-week excavation, which was conducted before construction begins on an apartment complex at the site, also uncovered pottery, coins and what appear to be tools used in the quarry dating to the first century B.C.

“Finding a large quarry related to the largest building project ever undertaken in Jerusalem … that’s more than just another discovery,” said archaeologist Aren Maeir of Bar-Ilan University, who was not involved in the excavation. “It’s an additional block that slowly reveals the picture of construction in ancient Jerusalem.”

Herod was the Roman-appointed king of the Holy Land from 37 B.C. to 4 B.C. and was known for his many major building projects, including the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple. The Second Temple was destroyed in A.D. 70 by Roman legions following a Jewish revolt.

Excavation at the site is almost complete, and the Israel Antiquities Authority says construction of the apartments will begin in the coming weeks.

Because of the amount of ancient remains in Israel, builders are required to carry out a salvage excavation before beginning construction. Such digs regularly turn up important finds.

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Prehistoric flute found in cave is oldest known musical instrument

Flutes are found in nearly every culture. In this image taken at McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas, Airman Fredy Pasco, a native of Peru, plays the zampoña, an Inca instrument he has been playing since he was 6 years old. U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Harold Barnes III.

BERLIN (AP) – A bird-bone flute unearthed in a German cave was carved some 35,000 years ago and is the oldest handcrafted musical instrument yet discovered, archaeologists say, offering the latest evidence that early modern humans in Europe had established a complex and creative culture.

A team led by University of Tuebingen archaeologist Nicholas Conard assembled the flute from 12 pieces of griffon vulture bone scattered in a small plot of the Hohle Fels cave in southern Germany.

Together, the pieces comprise a 8.6-inch (22-centimeter) instrument with five holes and a notched end. Conard said the flute was 35,000 years old.

“It’s unambiguously the oldest instrument in the world,” Conard told The Associated Press this week. His findings were published online Wednesday by the journal Nature.
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Ancient well, and woman’s body of same era, found in Cyprus

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) – Archaeologists have discovered a water well in Cyprus that was built as long as 10,500 years ago, and the skeleton of a young woman at the bottom of it, an official said Wednesday.

Pavlos Flourentzos, the nation’s top antiquities official, said the 16-foot (5-meter) deep cylindrical shaft was found last month at a construction site in Kissonerga, a village near the Mediterranean island nation’s southwestern coast.

After the well dried up it apparently was used to dispose trash, and the items found in it included the poorly preserved skeleton of the young woman, animal bone fragments, worked flints, stone beads and pendants from the island’s early Neolithic period, Flourentzos said.

The skeleton could be as old as the well itself, but archaeologists don’t know how the girl died or when and why the skeleton was left there, he said. Radiocarbon dating found the well is between 9,000 to 10,500 years old, he said.

That was around the time migrating humans started to build permanent settlements on the island. Before then, temporary settlements were inhabited by sea-borne migrants using Cyprus as a way station to other destinations.
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Bronze Age tomb uncovered in Bethlehem

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) – Workers renovating a house in the traditional town of Jesus’ birth accidentally discovered an untouched ancient tomb containing clay pots, plates, beads and the bones of two humans, a Palestinian antiquities official said Tuesday.

The 4,000-year-old tomb provides a glimpse of the burial customs of the area’s inhabitants during the Canaanite period, said Mohammed Ghayyada, director of the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

Workers in a house near the Church of the Nativity uncovered a hole leading to the grave, which was about one meter below ground, he said. They contacted antiquities officials, who photographed the grave intact before removing its contents.

They dated the grave to the Early Bronze Age, between 1,900 B.C. and 2,200 B.C.

Jerusalem-based archaeologist and historian Stephen Pfann called the find “an important reference to the life of the Canaanites,” adding that it could give a glimpse into life in the area before the time when the Biblical patriarchs are said to have lived.

While many artifacts exist from this period, intact graves are rare, mainly because of looting, he said.

Intact graves are more useful to scholars because they show how items were arranged.

“Every time a new tomb is found, it adds to the picture,” Pfann said.

The findings will be housed in the Bethlehem Peace Center, a cultural center not far from where the tomb was discovered.

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Mummies to get CAT scans at New York hospital

Egyptian mummies were much sought after by museums in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This Egyptian mummy is kept in the Vatican Museum. Source: Joshua Sherurcij. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

NEW YORK (AP) – Four Egyptian mummies from New York City are getting ready for their close-ups. Brooklyn Museum officials say the mummies will undergo sophisticated CAT scans on Tuesday at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y.

Researchers hope to gain further knowledge about their identities, cause of death, and ancient funerary practices.

Egyptian art curator Dr. Edward Bleiberg said the bodies embalmed for burial by the ancient Egyptians have been packed to survive the 18-mile trip during rush hour.

The mummies range in age from more than 3,000 years old to just over 1,700 years old.

Bleiberg said a 2007 hospital scan of a mummy showed the man was 30 years older than estimated and had died from an infected gallstone.
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On the Net:

Brooklyn Museum: http://www.brooklynmuseum.org

Greece rejects loan of Parthenon Marbles from UK

Metope from the Elgin Marbles depicting a Centaur and a Lapith fighting. Photo by Adam Carr, courtesy Wikipedia.

ATHENS, Greece (AP and ACNI) – Greece’s Culture Minister says he has rejected an offer from the British Museum to return a section of The Parthenon Marbles on a three-month loan.

Antonis Samaras says the deal would have meant renouncing any Greek claim to the 2,500-year-old sculptures, which have been in London for nearly two centuries.

Greece hopes one day to display the British Museum’s Parthenon collection beside its own surviving sections in a new museum that will open next weekend.

In a statement Thursday, Samaras said he was prepared to discuss lending Greek antiquities to the British Museum, “to fill the gap left when the (Parthenon) Marbles finally return to the place they belong.”

China plans new terracotta warrior excavation

Image by Robin Chen, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

BEIJING (AP) – China plans to excavate more of the life-size terracotta warriors at the famed ancient tomb of the country’s first emperor.

Archaeologists hope to uncover more of the elaborately carved officers to add to the 1,000-plus statues already excavated, the official China Daily newspaper said Wednesday. Special care will be taken to preserve the figures’ painted details, which have faded almost entirely in those already taken from the earth and exposed to air.

The new dig is the third undertaken since the tomb was first uncovered in 1974 outside the western city of Xi’an and will focus on a 2,152-square foot (2000-square meter) patch within the tomb’s main pit that holds the bulk of the warriors.
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Chinese cave discovery may represent earliest known ceramics

Water Jar, Yangshao Culture, Neolithic Period (circa 5000-3000 B.C.), excavated at Baoji, Shaanxi Province, China, 1958. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Bits of pottery discovered in a cave in southern China may be evidence of the earliest development of ceramics by ancient people.

The find in Yuchanyan Cave dates to as much as 18,000 years ago, researchers report in Tuesday’s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The find “supports the proposal made in the past that pottery making by foragers began in south China,” according to the researchers, led by Elisabetta Boaretto of Bar Ilan University in Israel.

The pottery found at Yuchanyan “is the earliest so far,” Boaretto said.

Bad conscience leads to return of Israeli artifact

JERUSALEM (AP) – A man returned a 46-pound chunk of a medieval marble pillar he took from an archeological site in Jerusalem more than a decade ago after suffering pangs of guilt, Israeli authorities announced Tuesday.

The section of column was reported missing in 1997 from a site in Jerusalem’s Old City. Last month, a Christian clergyman in New York contacted the Israeli Antiquities Authority and asked for forgiveness for the member of his congregation who had taken the stone, a statement from the IAA said.

The stone arrived this week along with a note from the man who took it, in which he explained he considered the stone as a souvenir he would use “to pray for Jerusalem.”

Italy recovers lost Byzantine frescos from Greece

ROME (AP) – Italian cultural authorities have recovered two precious Byzantine-era frescos ripped from a church in southern Italy by looters 27 years ago that ended up at the home of a shipping heiress on a remote Greek island.

Earlier this week the Carabinieri art squad showed off the delicate frescos and other artifacts recovered by Italy as part of its crackdown on illicit antiquities trafficking. In all, police say they recovered more than euro3 million ($4.1 million) worth of stolen statues, busts, and ancient pots.

Police say the frescos were discovered as part of investigations into Marion True, a former curator of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. True is on trial in Rome with art dealer Robert Hecht, accused of knowingly acquiring dozens of allegedly looted ancient artifacts. Both deny wrongdoing.

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