Turkey’s Roman city of Allianoi has been completely buried with sand and will soon be submerged by waters from a new dam. “The method is obsolete and it will destroy, rather than protect, the ancient site,” said Ilker Ertugrul of the Istanbul Chamber of Architects.

The excavation of one of the few colonial-era steel mills in North America will be back filled because the state of New Jersey cannot afford to turn the Trenton site into an archaeological park. “Let’s focus the money on current parks, and let’s preserve [the Petty’s run site] properly so we can open it again when we have money to build a really cool interpretive center with staff,” said Irene Kropp of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection.  

Chinese archaeologists say they have excavated a 2,400-year-old pot of soup from a tomb near the ancient capital of Xian.  

Two 1,500-year-old sculptures of serpent’s heads have been uncovered at the ball court in the Maya city of Tonina in Chiapas, Mexico, further strengthening its resemblance to the ball court described in the Popol Vuh.  

More than two tons-worth of encrustation have been removed from the USS Monitor’s steam engine at The Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia. “If you consider that it spent nearly 139 years underwater, it’s in outstanding shape – though some of the wrought iron has seen better days. And there are some copper alloy parts that look brand new when they’re first uncovered – like they just came off the shelf,” said conservation project manager Dave Krop.  

New regulations issued by the Department of the Interior require museums and other institutions to hand over American Indian remains and funerary objects that cannot be linked to modern cultural groups to “other Indian tribes,” or “to an Indian group that is not federally recognized,” or even to rebury the remains.  

A tiny bone fragment found on the southwestern Pacific island of Nicumaroro had been thought to be a turtle bone, but scientists are now testing to see if it may have belonged to lost pilot Amelia Earhart.  

The Guardian provides the story of the discovery of the Frome Hoard in an English field last April. Archaeologists think the more than 50,000 coins were deposited all at once as a metal offering to the gods.  

It is December, so the “Blue Santa” article has made another appearance.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Monday, December 13, 2010. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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