Archaeologist Ehud Netzer, age 76, was critically injured in a fall at Herodion, where he has worked for 30 years. Three years ago, he uncovered King Herod’s grave.

A tomb has been found in Kuelap fortress, built by the Chachapoyas culture in northern Peru. Inca-style ceramics that may have been imported from Cuzco were also found. “This tomb has an unusual dimension and was sealed by a thick stuffing. As we were cleaning, we ran into materials that we had never found before in other structures of Kuelap,” said director Alfredo Narvaez.  

Paleontologists have discovered fossilized bones from three African anthropoids, the ancestors of monkeys, apes, and humans, in central Libya. “This extraordinary new fossil site in Libya shows us that in the middle Eocene, 39 million years ago, there was a surprising diversity of anthropoids living in Africa, whereas few if any anthropoids are known from Africa before this time,” said Christopher Beard of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. He thinks the animals may have first evolved in Asia, and then migrated to Africa.  

The Global Heritage Fund has released a list of 12 cultural sites in danger of disappearing. National Geographic Daily News has a photograph of each one and brief descriptions of the problems, including erosion, war, neglect, unregulated tourism, and urban sprawl.  

Utah’s state archaeologist Kevin Jones has examined the two skulls mailed to Brigham Young University. He thinks that they are ancient American Indian remains, perhaps from the Fremont or Anasazi cultures. “That’s all we know right now,” he added.  

In a joint project between scientists from France and Tunisia, the remains of a young man discovered in a sepulcher at Carthage Byrsa have undergone dermoplastic reconstruction. “The distance that separates the centuries has been erased, the bones are given flesh and the eyes light up anew in a young man who lived right here six centuries before our own era,” enthused the French ambassador Pierre Menat.  

A cache of jewelry was found in Estonia by a local resident with a metal detector. He called an archaeologist to the scene.

Police in Lima, Peru, arrested a woman who attempted to send a mummy to France through Bolivia’s postal service. The mummy is thought to be Incan and about 750 years old.

Meanwhile, the history department of Brigham Young University received two human skulls via the U.S. Postal Service. “No note at all. It had a return address of Augusta, Montana, with the name of “Jim Crow,” and that was it,” said BYU police Sgt. Mike Mock. Utah’s state archaeologists will examine the skulls.  

The Bill Barrett Corporation, which travels Utah’s Nine Mile Canyon Road with heavy equipment, is offering grants for the study and protection of the canyon’s rock art and archaeological sites.   

Cancer was very rare among the ancient Egyptians, at least those who were mummified, according to a study by scientists from the University of Manchester. Still, life expectancy was only about 40 years.  

The FBI has seized cuneiform tablets and other artifacts that had been smuggled out of Iraq from an antiquities dealer in California.  

The Associated Press has picked up on the discovery of a 5,900-year-old garment made of reeds in an Armenian cave.  

Scientists have developed a new, high-tech way to protect silver artifacts from corrosion.