The skeletons of 55 people, silk clothing with gold thread, and 1,700-year-old jewelry were discovered in Ephesus. Austrian archaeologist Sabine Ladstatter said she was surprised to find precious items, since Ephesus has been plundered throughout history.

A Roman palace dating between the fifth and sixth centuries A.D. has been uncovered in the ancient city of Edessa, in southeastern Anatolia, Turkey. “The tesserae used for the mosaics of this palace are very small, which shows that the workmanship of the mosaics was very good. This shows that the palace belonged to an important administrator of the Eastern Roman Empire,” said archaeologist Mehmet Önal.  

A sixth-century A.D. tomb was found within a room of a house excavated in Kaukana, Sicily. The tomb held the remains of a woman who had been buried first, and a child who had been added later. Christian and pagan symbols were found in the grave and the house.  

Did Norsemen bring Christianity to northern Scotland before the arrival of Saint Columba in 536 A.D.?  

Prehistoric river channels once fed by monsoons have been spotted in the Sahara with satellite radar. Could Homo sapiens have followed those rivers north out of Africa?  

More than 1,000 historic graves were excavated in Tucson, Arizona, to clear the way for a public building project. Known as the National Cemetery, it came into use in 1862, and as many as 2,000 people had been buried there.  

Last spring, the Navy demonstrated its autonomous undersea vehicles carrying remote sensing equipment in Narragansett Bay, giving Rhode Island’s underwater archaeologists a look at the Revolutionary War artifacts buried under the silt. “The only thing holding underwater archaeology back is that when you bring an artifact up, you need a place to keep it and preserve it,” said Charlotte Taylor, an archaeologist with the Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission.  

Methamphetamine addicts are known by law enforcement officials for looting American Indian sites of points and pots. This article describes the connection between the drug and the obsessive digging.  

If you took the Indiana Jones trivia quiz listed last week, you know that Dan Akroyd made a cameo appearance in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The actor has now put his name on “Crystal Head Vodka,” which comes in a skull-shaped bottle.

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

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