Former prosecutor Paolo Giorgio Ferri spoke to Il Giornale dell’Arte about his efforts to crack down on the illegal excavation of antiquities in Italy. “Italian legislation is extremely lenient: it is easier to end up in prison for stealing a pair of jeans than it is to go to jail for stealing an ancient vase,” he said.

Marion True, former antiquities curator at the Getty Museum, also spoke to The Art Newspaper about her trial in Italy for antiquities trafficking. The statute of limitations for all crimes she was accused of committing expired, ending her five-year-long trial without a judgement.  

The Cyrus Cylinder will remain on display in Iran for three more months.  

Excavation of a well-preserved Zapotec grave at the site of Mitla in Mexico supports the hypothesis that thighbones were removed by later generations and used, perhaps, as scepters.  

Geneticists at the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA will make another attempt to extract DNA from an 18,000-year-old H. floresiensis tooth. Success could solve the dispute over the classification of the Hobbits.  

There have been plenty of “media-mangled science stories” in recent months. Brian Switek of Wired reviews the coverage of the Hobbits and carrion-eating storks that lived on the Indonesian island of Flores.  

Roman legionary quarters built at the beginning of the first century A.D. have been unearthed in the Crimea. Polish archaeologists suspect that the fort is nearby.  

Mass graves discovered at a psychiatric hospital in Austria may hold the remains of 220 victims of the Nazis. “We know that murder was actively carried out at other psychiatric institutions, by overdosing patients, neglect or undernourishment,” said historian Oliver Seifert.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Wednesday, January 5, 2011. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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