An Egyptian sphinx  carved from granite has been recovered by Italian police. During a random vehicle check, they found a looted ceramic artifact and photos of the Egyptian sculpture, which was then recovered from the driver’s home. The statue was probably imported to Italy in the first century B.C., and recently stolen from the Etruscan necropolis of Montem Rossulum.

The lower half of a red granite sarcophagus  built for the pharaoh Merneptah is being reassembled by archaeologists in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings. The giant stone coffin is the outermost of four stone coffins that were carved to hold Merneptah’s mummy. The box would have been too large to fit through the door of the tomb’s burial chamber, however, and archaeologists can see where the door jambs had to be taken apart and rebuilt. Then, when the tomb was robbed more than 3,000 years ago, the thieves used fire and cool water to weaken the stone and hammers to break it into pieces.

Government budget cuts and a lack of private funding will force archaeologists to rebury a marble tomb discovered four years ago in Rome. The monument, which is dedicated to public figure Marcus Nonius Macrinus, collapsed in antiquity, but was perfectly preserved by the mud of the Tiber River. “It is a painful choice, but we cannot risk losing the monument. The marbles can’t face another winter, we must bury the site in order to preserve it,” said Mariarosaria Barbera, Rome’s archaeological superintendent. The tomb could eventually become the centerpiece of an archaeological park on the Via Flaminia.

Artifacts such as projectile points and pottery  estimated to be 1,000 years old have been found along the Puce River in Ontario. Archaeologists are testing the area before a road improvement project can begin. They think that the artifacts were left behind by Western Basin Algonquin tribes, but whoever had been living there had left the area by the time European explorers arrived on the scene.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Thursday, December 6, 2012. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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