A marble sculpture stolen from an Albanian museum has been returned. Italian police discovered the bust of Asclepius in a private home in 2004.

Spiegel Online investigates the Henri Stierlin’s claim that the bust of Nefertiti in Germany’s Altes Museum is a modern fake. “You can prove a fake, but you can’t prove originals. That’s an epistemological problem,” said Stefan Simon, a material scientist at the Rathgen Research Laboratory.  

The bottom of Lake Champlain has been carefully mapped, and nearly 300 historic shipwrecks have been located, in addition to airplanes and railroad cars. You can view underwater video and photographs of one of the finds in this short introduction to the project.  

A team of students from the University of South Carolina, led by state archaeologist Jon Leader, will begin to map a Civil War naval yard that is now partially submerged. They will also look for three cannons from the CSS Pee Dee, which was scuttled in March, 1865.  

Scientists are coming forward to respond to the claims made about “Ida,” the fossilized skeleton of a 47-million-year-old primate. “They claim in the paper that by examining the anatomy of adapids, these animals have something to do with the direct line of human ancestry and living monkeys and apes. This claim is buttressed with almost no evidence. And they failed to cite a body of literature that’s been going on since at least 1984 that presents evidence against their hypothesis,” said paleontologist Richard Kay of Duke University.  

Greg Stemm, CEO of the salvage company Odyssey Marine Exploration, is in the press again today, too. Times Online writer Tim Bouquet describes him as “a fusion of Jacques Cousteau, Ernest Hemingway, and Donald Trump.”  

The Maine Department of Transportation will try to excavate a rock that some locals believe was used by American Indians to grind corn. Archaeologist Leon Cranmer of the Maine State Historic Preservation Commission hasn’t found any evidence of occupation in the area, but others want to save the rock from road crews anyway. “If this is a legend only and not an Indian rock, my idea is it might carry more weight as a legend, not so much to preserve it but to create something for the tourists to see,” explained one resident.

 Residents of Kathmandu say that the authorities have turned a blind eye to the plunder of the Hindu Pashupatinath Temple area, which is a World Heritage Site. “Thefts are on the rise. As a result, the beauty of these temples has been diminished,” said Badri Puri, an 82-year-old watchman at Bishworup Temple.

Greg Stemm, chief executive of the American salvage company, Odyssey Marine Exploration, says he is “shocked and surprised by the degree of damage we found in the [English] Channel,” especially in the area where the wreck of the HMS Victory was found. The report on the damage done by commercial fishing was produced by Sean Kingsley of Wreck Watch International. A Google search for “Wreck Watch International” only produces references to Odyssey Marine Exploration projects. Sean Kingsley is more widely known for his search for first-century treasures from Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.

The media blitz continues with the 47-million-year-old fossil now known as “Ida.”   This article from the Associated Press offers a different opinion about how the fossil fits into the evolutionary tree. “I actually don’t think it’s terribly close to the common ancestral line of monkeys, apes, and people. I would say it’s about as far away as you can get from that line and still be a primate,” said K. Christopher Beard of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh.   National Geographic News has an x-ray of the creature’s skeleton.   The article from the Associated Foreign Press has a few more details about the story behind the discovery of the fossil, and Reuters mentions that “Ida” was linked to humans because of the shape of the talus bone in her ankle.   

A 3,000-year-old jar handle bearing the name of an ancient king, “Menachem,” in Hebrew script was uncovered on Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives. “It’s important because it shows that they actually used the name Menachem during that period. It’s not just from the Bible, but it’s also in the archaeological record,” said Ron Beeri of the Israel Antiquities Authority.  

Admission to Greece’s new Acropolis Museum will only cost one euro for the first six months.