Police in Spain have arrested 20 people for looting archaeological and paleontological sites.

Last week it was reported that metopes from the Parthenon would be removed for cleaning. This article from the AFP states that their removal has only been proposed by Acropolis site supervisor Alexandros Mantis to Greece’s archaeological council. “Mr. Mantis has stated his position but the archaeological council has not ruled on the issue,” said archaeologist Maria Ioannidou, who heads the Acropolis restoration project.  

Peru’s inventory team says that there are ten times as many Machu Picchu artifacts at Yale University than previously thought.  “Counting is complicated. Do you count lots or do you count every piece?” responds archaeologist Richard Burger in the Yale Daily News.  

Meanwhile, in Bangladesh, archaeologists have waited 21 years for the Chalan Beel Museum to be built, while pots, plaques, coins, statues, and manuscripts sit on the floor of college classrooms.  

A concentration camp where African civilians were imprisoned during the Boer War has been discovered on a farm outside Kimberley, South Africa. “We couldn’t believe it. We had searched for so long and the area was so vast,” said researcher Garth Benneyworth.  

The search for Angola, a free black community in Florida in the early nineteenth century, continues.  

Two graves in the ancient village of Tayata, Mexico, indicate that the Mixtecs began cremating their elite as early as 3,000 years ago.  

British archaeologist John Curtis recounts his time in Iraq immediately following the plundering of the Iraq Museum.  

Here’s the CT scan of the baby mammoth, Lyuba, created by Japanese scientists at a Tokyo medical school.   

It’s not a Roman curse tablet, but a construction worker buried something intended to jinx the Yankees’ new stadium.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Monday, April 14, 2008. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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