Heavy rains have triggered another collapse at Pompeii. This time it was parts of the rebuilt garden wall surrounding the House of the Moralist.

Rock art in Nevada’s Red Rock Canyon has been spray-painted with graffiti. “We can get them restored but it will be very, very expensive to remove the paint without damaging the pictographs,” said Pat Williams of Friends of Red Rock Canyon. A reward has been offered for information that leads to the conviction of the perpetrator.  

Pakistan’s customs officials seized more than 250 artifacts looted from multiple sites at the Allama Iqbal Airport.  

Clay pipes stamped with the names of prominent Englishmen have been unearthed at Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the New World. The pipes are thought to have been made between 1608 and 1610, probably to impress investors in the Virginia Company. “The skilled tradesmen and craftsmen among them were seriously experimenting with ways to produce profit-making exports for the investors back home,” said William Kelso, director of archaeology for Historic Jamestowne. 

At the site of Tel Megiddo in Israel, archaeologists and natural scientists are working together to analyze samples. The goal is to obtain more accurate dates for their finds. “Scientists in the field may come up with different questions than archaeologists. It’s different from having an archaeologist define the question and then call in a scientist to address that specific issue,” explained archaeologist Joseph Maran of the University of Heidelberg.  

Government authorities in Myanmar have reportedly ordered that a new path be found for a railway line being built near the ancient city of Mrauk-U. Track construction had damaged pagodas and walls.  

The conservation lab responsible for the Confederate submarine the H.L. Hunley has helped Charleston’s Walled City Task Force with some soggy artifacts. “It was a worry. Conservation is a long and expensive process,” said Charleston Museum archaeologist Martha Zierden. The bits of leather shoes, wood, and metal have been stabilized.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Tuesday, November 30, 2010. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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