Iran’s three “salt men” could be endangered by the renewal of a mining permit. It is thought that the three men, whose bodies have been preserved in salt, died in a mine collapse.

During Philly Beer Week next month, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery will debut Theobroma, a chocolate ale based on residues found in a pot in Honduras. “This was the most elite beverage in the Americas. It was made for the kings and the gods,” said Patrick McGovern of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. 

Archaeologists think that a nineteenth-century bottle dump uncovered at the site of a court building in New Zealand was used by a bottle factory, and not as a trash pit by tippling court staff. 

A fifteenth-century map, which had been stolen from Spain’s National Library, was returned earlier this week. Australian authorities seized the map at an art gallery in Sydney, after it had been handled by dealers in Argentina, London, and New York. Other Spanish maps are still missing. 

Ancient skeletons discovered over the years in Portsmouth, England, will be tested for signs of tuberculosis as part of a study of the evolution of the disease. 

There’s more information on the Maya use of mica-laced paint on the Rosalila temple in Honduras at National Geographic News.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Friday, February 8, 2008. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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