The head of a statue of Agrippina the Younger, Nero’s mother, has been recovered by Italian police. The terra cotta artwork was stolen more than twenty years ago from Pompeii. An art trafficker in Piacenza had reportedly tried to sell statue for a dentist.

Human remains buried in twelve basalt boxes were uncovered in western Mexico near the Ceboruco volcano by archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History. The boxes also contained statuettes of elderly women and pottery. “Each of the basalt boxes, which are separated at about three or four meters (nine feet to 13 feet) from each other, are built with about eight basalt stones and covered with sandstones that were intentionally fragmented as a part of some unknown ritual,” said archaeologist Lourdes Garcia. The scientists estimate the unique cemetery to be about 1,000 years old.

The large and impressive Alepotrypa Cave in southern Greece was used by Neolithic people as a shelter for their village, a cemetery, and a worship space before the entrance to the cave collapsed 5,000 years ago, possibly due to an earthquake. “It’s sealed, and not opened again until the 1950s,” said William Parkinson of Chicago’s Field Museum and a member of The Diros Project, which is excavating Alepotrypa Cave. Evidence of funeral rituals involving setting the cave walls on fire and painted funeral vases suggest that the massive cave and its enormous, cathedral-like hall and lake could have inspired the myth of Hades. “It’s a very awesome place, in the literal sense of the word,” added Parkinson.

Germany’s Society of Maritime Archaeology has begun a campaign to attach signs to shipwrecks in the Baltic Sea. The signs warn that the wrecks are protected monuments and that taking anything from them is a crime. “The technical equipment generally available keeps on improving, which means that hobby divers and people who don’t have the best intentions are able to reach ever more wrecks,” said archaeologist Detlef Jantzen. The area had been off limits to recreational divers during the Communist era in East Germany.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Thursday, October 18, 2012. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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