Controversial Israeli archaeologist Eilat Mazar of Hebrew University claims that ancient fortifications uncovered in Jerusalem indicate that the city was ruled by a strong central government 3,000 years ago. “It means that at that time, the 10^th century, in Jerusalem there was a regime capable of carrying out such construction,” she said, suggesting that such a government would have been ruled by the biblical kings David and Solomon.    There’s more on Mazar’s excavation at Science Daily.

A 3,000-year-old painted coffin seized in 2008 by US Customs officials will be returned to Egypt. The coffin was smuggled out of Egypt in 1884, and was intercepted while in the possession of an antiquities dealer.   Discovery News has photographs of the coffin.  

Stone tools have been found in India beneath a 74,000-year-old layer of volcanic ash. “This suggests that human populations were present in India prior to 74,000 years ago, or about 15,000 years earlier than expected based on some genetic clocks,” said Michael Petraglia of the University of Oxford. The archaeological team continues to look for human fossils.  

Someone has stolen the head of legendary pirate Klaus Stortebeker, who was executed 600 years ago, from Hamburg Museum, Germany. Police think it may have been taken by a local chapter of Hell’s Angels.  

Plumbing repairs in a Hollywood, California, basement turned up a Civil War-era cannonball. “I just didn’t think it was a good idea to have ancient munitions in your basement,” said homeowner David Goggin, who called the Los Angeles police bomb squad.

 The oldest shipwreck ever found in British waters has been discovered off the island’s southwestern coast. The 3,000-year-old vessel had been carrying tin and copper ingots, weapons, and jewelry from Europe, and had probably been attempting to land at a Bronze Age settlement.

Sri Lanka joins Italy, Greece, and Egypt, and officially requests the return of its cultural artifacts held in international museums and private collections.  

In 2008, Ethiopian President Girma Wolde-Giorgis requested the return of artifacts looted by the British during the invasion of Magdala in 1868. British institutions also hold cultural items taken from Benin and Nigeria. “People of those countries should be able to see the treasures their ancestors created,” said historian Richard Pankhurst, a founding member of AFROMET, the Association for the Return Of the Magdala African Treasures.  

Archaeologists are anxious to get back to work at the ancient Sumerian city of Ur, which lies near a US air base outside the city of Nasiriyah, in southern Iraq. “This site will become perhaps more important than Giza,” said Dhaif Moussin, who currently endeavors to protect the site from looters.   

A 1,400-year-old wine press decorated with mosaics has been uncovered in southern Israel. The Byzantine press produced wine that was probably intended for export to Egypt or Europe, according to Uzi Ad of the Israel Antiquities Authority.  

Five unfinished bricks from China’s Neolithic period have reportedly been unearthed in Shaanxi Province.   

Horse-drawn streetcars were once stored and serviced in a Boston basement that is now the produce department of a grocery market. “There’s actually still metal from some of the tracks under the floor tiles,” said assistant general store manager Chris Adams.  

A gang of international smugglers was arrested in Pakistan for looting a Gandhara-era statue of Buddha.   

Göbekli Tepe, Turkish for “potbelly hill,” was built by hunter gatherers and is the oldest temple site in the world, according to Klaus Schmidt of the German Archaeological Institute. “There are no traces of daily life. No fire pits. No trash heaps. There is no water here. First the temple, then the city,” he claims.   Learn more about Göbekli Tepe in the November/December 2008 issue of ARCHAEOLOGY.  

Several artifacts have been found at an English field suspected of being the site of the Battle of Bosworth, where King Richard III was defeated by Henry Tudor in 1485. “They show us that people of the very highest status were fighting here,” said archaeologist Glenn Foard.  

Archaeologists are investigating the Pequot War, which was fought between 1636 and 1638 in southeastern Connecticut. “There’s more known about that period than any other part of tribal and early colonial history and that’s because of the war and all the documentation that went with it,” said Kevin McBride of the University of Connecticut and the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center.