The world’s oldest operating irrigation system, located in Dujiangyan, China, has survived last week’s earthquake. The system¸ built in 256 B.C., diverts the flow of the Minjiang River with bamboo-framed islands.

Specialists in Iraqi archaeology will meet in Berlin next month to discuss the damage done to Babylon by U.S. and Polish troops. Vibrations from helicopters and heavy armored vehicles shook the ancient buildings that had already been harmed by Saddam Hussein’s restoration projects.   

In England, the foundations of a thirteenth-century tower were uncovered at Oxford Castle, built by the Normans in the 1070s.  

Space archaeology is rewriting the history of Cambodia, Iraq, Easter Island, Egypt, and Guatemala, according to this article from Popular Science. Be sure to view the slide show.  

The forward ballast pump has been removed from the Hunley, the Confederate submarine discovered in 1995 off the coast of Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina. Scientists will begin to scrape the concretion off the sub’s hull.  

“He makes archaeology seem fun, and if he makes archaeologists seem sexy, we’re all grateful,” Geoff Emberling of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago quips in this article on the heroic character of Indiana Jones.

Happy Birthday Brooklyn Bridge! On May 22, 125 years ago, parades, fireworks, and a speech by President Arthur celebrated the opening of what Harper’s Weekly dubbed “our most durable monument.”

Two men attacked Stonehenge, chipping a piece off the Heel Stone with a hammer and a screwdriver. Security guards spotted the vandals, and prevented further damage, but police are still looking for the rogues.   

A team from the University of Wyoming’s archaeology department will help the Fremont County Sherrif’s Department look for evidence in the 1980 disappearance of a woman and her two sons.  

A report from Lithuania announces the discovery of a Buddhist monastery carved in the bluff overlooking Afghanistan’s Harirud River.  

Manchester Museum has covered up its unwrapped mummies, after some visitors complained that their nakedness displayed a lack of sensitivity.  Museum goer Josh Lennon commented, “The museum response to complaints is pure Monty Python-they have now covered them from head to foot, rendering the exhibition a non-exhibition. It is hilarious.”   This shorter version of the story has a photograph of the modest mummy.  

This report from Russia states that Spain and Egypt will cooperate and look for the wreck of a ship thought to have been carrying the mummy of the pharaoh Khafre when it sank off the coast of Spain.   

Australian archaeologists are preparing to excavate a site in Melbourne where Europeans lived between 1840 and 1860, when a brewery moved into the vicinity.  

MSNBC’s science editor Alan Boyle directs readers to archaeological vacations and resources for armchair archaeologists, including, of course, ARCHAEOLOGY.  

The release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull today has prompted the Canadian National Post to explore the historic ties between spying and archaeology, using information from ARCHAEOLOGY.  

Here’s to Marion Ravenwood, “Indiana Jones’ secret weapon.”