Italy’s government has opened Pompeii to private ventures after cutting its restoration funding from $75 million to $15 million. There has been a 20 percent drop in tourism revenues at the open-air museum, but many blame the garbage crisis in nearby Naples for the decline.

Byzantine mosaics have been uncovered in the town of Kyustendil, Bulgaria. “The names of the home’s owners are written on the mosaics and it is the first time when such artifacts have been discovered in Bulgaria,” said archaeologist Rumen Spasov.  

Graffiti is plaguing ancient monuments in Athens. “Graffiti is vandalism, it’s an element of conflict, and sometimes things that are nice are also ruined in the process,” said a 28-year-old “street artist.”  

The Giza Plateau has been “modernized” with a fence, closed-circuit TV cameras, infrared motion sensors, X-ray machines, and metal detectors. How is the new plan to make visiting the Pyramids easier for tourists working?    

A copper ax, furnace, and pots containing traces of melted copper uncovered at the Plocnik site push back the Copper Age in Serbia by hundreds of years, according to archaeologist Julka Kuzmanovic-Cvetkovic.  

The member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will meet in Myanmar to compose a memorandum of understanding to crack down on the illegal trade in antiquities. “If our antiques make their way to their countries through illegal channels they will return them to us, and when we find their antiques we will give them back,” said U San Win, director general of the Department of Archaeology at Myanmar’s National Museum and Library.

The Utah Historic Preservation Office and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced their plans to nominate archaeological and rock art sites in Nine Mile Canyon for the National Register of Historic Places. Energy companies are drilling in the canyon, and vibrations and chemicals from the heavy equipment could damage the rock-art panels.   This editorial calls for the end of truck traffic in Nine Mile Canyon.

Here’s a summary of what preservationists have tried to do to save Ireland’s Hill of Tara from highway construction. Their new argument suggests that the downturn in the country’s economy requires Ireland to save its historic resources as tourist destinations.  

Peru’s foreign minister, Jose Antonio Garcia Belaunde, attended negotiations in New York City with representatives from Yale University. Last spring, Peru threatened to take Yale to court in order to secure the return of artifacts from Machu Picchu. “The fact that the minister feels that it’s appropriate for him to intervene suggests that there is a desire to reach an understanding,” said Yale archaeologist Richard Burger.  

New Bedford, Massachusetts, became an economic superpower known as the Whaling City in the nineteenth century, and then a center for textile production. Industrial archaeologist Mark Foster saved 1,800 books and ledgers in the Merchants Bank from rare book dealers, and got them into the hands of the New Bedford Whaling Museum’s librarian.   

A Roman villa has been unearthed at a supermarket site in Budapest.