In Egypt, soldiers stopped vandals who broke in to Cairo’s Egyptian Museum, ripped the heads off two mummies, and damaged other artifacts during anti-government rioting. Armored personnel carriers and more troops have been sent to guard the Pyramids of Giza, Luxor, and other monuments. The museum is located next to the ruling party headquarters, which had been set on fire.

Some young Egyptians, however, did their best to protect the museum from looters.  But The Washington Post reports that the looters got in through the roof.

Time Magazine has more on the break in and the damage. “Thank God they did not know where the gold is, because if they knew about the jewelry room, this could have been a disaster,” said Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities.

Damage outside of Cairo was not so well controlled, according to reports in NatGeo News Watch. International law enforcement officials have been asked to be on the alert for artifacts being smuggled out of Egypt.  Video of Zahi Hawass’s television interviews have been posted here as well.

Yesterday, Dr. Hawass sent a fax to Discovery News with an update on the state of Abusir, Saqqara, and other heritage sites throughout the country. Reuters has more information on the pillaged warehouses.

ARCHAEOLOGY contributing editor Bob Brier discussed some of the artifacts damaged in the looting on NBC’s “Today Show“:

Contract archaeologist Garrett Silliman is looking for Civil War battlefields in metro Atlanta before they are lost to development. “We can really create a good picture of what was happening even with a limited archaeological record,” he explained.

Archaeology students at Boston University are examining nineteenth-century artifacts from a site at Boston’s “Big Dig.” “Through our work and analysis, it came to light that this was an interesting, alternative household. It was a house of prostitution,” said their professor, Mary Beaudry.

In Norway, archaeologists were surprised to find Bronze Age petroglyphs beneath human and animal remains in a burial mound. It is not clear if the images were made at the same time as the grave.

When did modern humans leave Africa? Primitive stone tools discovered at Jebel Faya in the United Arab Emirates suggest that it may have been more than 100,000 years ago. Lower sea levels would have made it possible to cross the Bab al-Mandab strait that separates the Horn of Africa from the Arabian Peninsula.  There’s a map at Wired.

German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt discusses his work at Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey. He calls the site the “oldest yet found and excavated place of cultic activity,” but you may have read about it as the “world’s oldest temple.”  

French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin is making another bid to explore the Great Pyramid. “I am convinced there are antechambers in this pyramid. What I want is to find them,” he said. Egyptian authorities, however, are not buying it.  

The Thomas Jefferson Foundation is teaming up with Starr Hill Brewery to create Monticello Reserve Ale. Records show that beer was once brewed on the Virginia plantation, although the actual brew house has not been located.