Forty-two artifacts that had been lent to the Guimet Museum in Paris by the government of Bangladesh despite public opposition have been returned. Scholars in Bangladesh were concerned that the ancient objects would never come home.

Six Elamite bas-reliefs in Iran’s Khuzestan Province have been damaged by the iron covers installed to protect them from rain.  

Rasho Rashev, director of the National Archaeological Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, was one of eight people killed in a fire on the Sofia-Kardam train line. Rumors in his home town of Shumen suggest that Rashev was assassinated by looters.  

The Honouliuli internment camp site held 300 Hawaii residents in 1943. Archaeologists and concerned citizens want to list the camp on the National Historic Register. If you watch the video version of the story, you’ll see artifacts from the camp.   This article on the camp features interviews with people who were imprisoned there. “Not so nostalgic. No buildings and only bushes. The place was an Army camp, right now all bushes,” said Harry Urata, now 89 years old.   

In New Hampshire, realtors could be required to tell potential buyers if any Native American artifacts have ever been found on a piece of property, and that if any artifacts do turn up in future digging, a state archaeologist must examine the site.  

This report from Iraq says that 213 Iraqi archaeological sites have been looted since 2003.  

Greek Culture Minister Michalis Liapis says that Ancient Olympia is ready for the torch-lighting ceremony that will kick off the Beijing Games later this month. The area around Olympia was heavily damaged during forest fires last summer.  

Here’s another article on the new bust of Johann Sebastian Bach made with computer modeling techniques and a copper replica of Bach’s skull made in 1894. An earlier version of this story implied that Bach’s actual skull was used.  

An entry fee will once again be charged at the Roman Forum, beginning March 10.  

The body of Padre Pio, a Capuchin friar who died in 1968, was exhumed by the Catholic Church for display later this year.

Biologist Jared Taglialatela of the Yerkes National Primate Research Center said, “If we really want to talk about the big differences between humans and chimps – they’re covered in hair and we’re not.” Taglialatela and his team made PET scans of chimp brains while they were communicating, and found a similarity with human brains.

Another royal tomb may have been discovered in Ibb. The Yemen Observer was not able to confirm the reports, but speculates that the Bureau of Archaeology may be trying to keep the news under wraps.  

Historic buildings and Hindu and Sikh temples in Peshawar are collapsing from neglect or being razed to make way for shopping centers.  

In Lebanon, a “30-year-old mountain of filth” sits just a few yards away from the tourist sites of the ancient Phoenician port city of Sidon.  

Artifacts in the museum at Tel Hatzor National Park were damaged during an earthquake two weeks ago. The museum has been closed due to a lack of visitors.  

Beeswax continues to wash up on the shores of Oregon more than 300 years after Spanish galleons carrying tons of the material disappeared. The wax was used to make candles for Catholic churches.  

Peruvian officials have again traveled to Yale University to review an inventory of Inca artifacts from Machu Picchu. Some say a final agreement on the return of the artifacts will be reached between the two sides by the end of March, while others are critical of the negotiations. “Nobody from Peru has ever been allowed to do this inventory with the boxes opened,” Eliane Karp de Toledo, former first lady of Peru, told the press.  

In Greece, two men were arrested on suspicion of trying to sell an illegally excavated, Roman-period statue.  

Poet Seamus Heaney was one of many who spoke on BBC Radio Ulster about the construction of the M3 motorway through the Tara Skreen valley.  

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull opens in theaters on May 22, but the movie’s promotion schedule is well underway. This article is about marketing the swashbuckling archaeologist to younger ticket buyers online.