The main road entering Jerusalem during the Byzantine era has been uncovered in the Old City. The street’s location corresponds to a mosaic map of the ancient city on the floor of a church in Madaba, Jordan.   Google News offers more photographs of the stone road.

Another section of the Great Wall was discovered in a remote section of northwestern China during a nationwide survey. “The remains of the wall were well protected without being destroyed by human activities. They were only partly destroyed by flood and sandstorm,” said Liu Yulin of the Jinta Museum. This section of the Great Wall was constructed during the Western Han Dynasty (465-221 B.C.).   

Customs officials in Dubai stopped an attempt to smuggle Iraqi artifacts that they found hidden inside some chair cushions. The artifacts included bronze figurines, pottery, and coins.  

In England’s Leicesershire County, community archaeologist Peter Liddle has organized an exhibit of medieval religious objects uncovered by metal detectorists. The objects were probably carried by pilgrims to Christian shrines. “The relics are like a kind of code which helps us to piece together the history of people’s lives not recorded in many history books. They are absolutely invaluable in bringing this history to life,” he explained.    

Peru’s transportation minister has announced that Machu Picchu will reopen in three weeks. Temporary bridges are being installed in order to restore train service to the Inca citadel.  

A gun stolen from the West Seneca Historical Museum in western New York State has been recovered in a pawn shop. The gun is said to have belonged to William Shepard, the last known survivor of the Jessie James gang. The brothers who stole the gun are themselves notorious for stealing historical artifacts from local museums.

 A new species of cattle (Bos buiaensis) has been discovered at a site in Eritrea that also contains early human remains. “This means that the humans have been eating Bos since the beginnings of the genus Homo,” said paleontologist Bienvenido Martinez-Navarro of the Universitat Rovira I Virgili in Spain.

Santa Lucia de Acuera was a remote Franciscan mission near Florida’s Ocklawaha River. Excavators have uncovered the footprint of a large building that was probably its church, in addition to pottery, beads, animal bones, and arrowheads. “Unlike the other Timucua, who were Catholicized, these people were not. They stayed true to their traditional ways,” said Willet Boyer III of the University of Florida.  

Underwater oxy-tools were used to cut open a safe on board the wreck of the infamous SS Keilawarra. The iron steamship sank in 1886 off the coast of New South Wales, Australia, when it was rammed by another vessel.  The New South Wales Heritage website has an excellent article on the collision and the sinking of the SS Keilawarra.  

British tour companies are taking their clients to Peru, but not flood-damaged Machu Picchu. This article has a spectacular picture of the Vilcanota River during the floods.   

A shipwreck buried in the mud of a harbor in Durban, South Africa, has been identified as the SS Karin. The steam ship sank in 1927 while carrying a load of sugar and diesel. “What I gathered, she was loaded badly and was top-heavy and listing,” said maritime archaeologist Vanessa Maitland.