U.S. Federal Immigrations and Customs Enforcement authorities say that smuggling of antiquities from around the world into the U.S. has doubled in the past two years. “This whole market is driven by the demand for all kinds of antiquities, and the demand is constantly increasing,” explained Robert Sharer, a curator at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

Undercover police arrested four people trying to sell medieval artifacts in Thessaloniki, Greece. More artifacts were found during raids on the suspects’ homes.  

Excavations at Knidos have been suspended since late April because a newly restored column in the city’s stoa collapsed during a storm. The project leader, Ramazan Ozgan, has been accused by the Turkish government of negligence, but two reports by independent experts say that Ozgan could not have known about an internal crack in the base of the column because it was covered in calcite. Ozgan has gone to court to try to overturn the decision to cancel his excavation permit.  

Bulgarian archaeologist Georgi Kitov has died.  

In his family’s ancient pharmacy, Giovanni De Munari found an eighteenth-century recipe to concoct a “digestive drink” promising long life. “My ancestors may not have known the names of the chemicals, but they knew that red wine, and Chianti in particular, had therapeutic properties,” he said.  

Three sarcophagi were uncovered in a tomb during construction work in Larnaca, Cyprus. One of them is said to be marble and shaped in the form of a woman.  

Some of the artifacts recovered from Canada’s South Saskatchewan River are described in this article on the SS City of Medicine Hat, which sank in 1908 when it crashed into a bridge.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Monday, September 15, 2008. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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