Here’s an update on the Cambodia-Thailand border dispute near the ancient Hindu Preah Vihear temple. The recent tensions began when former Thai foreign minister Noppandon Pattama decided to support Cambodia’s bid to make the temple a UNESCO World Heritage site.

A mosaic floor uncovered by Sir Mortimer Wheeler in the 1930s is no longer there, according to archaeologists who were looking for it in Watford, England, at the site of a second-century manor house. “It does make me worry whether this is a one-off or whether other parts of the old Roman town that were recorded by him are also missing,” said archaeologist Simon West.  

English Heritage and the government have pledged that a new visitors’ center will be built at Stonehenge in time for the 2012 Olympics in London. “We have to do this – there is no alternative,” said Lord Bruce-Lockhart, chairman of English Heritage.  

Underwater archaeologists will investigate the stumps of about 50 prehistoric trees in Loch Tay, Scotland. “We’re looking for remains of people traveling up and down the loch, things they’ve dropped, how they’ve used the loch and settlement alongside or in the water, because crannogs were built out in the water,” said Barrie Andrian, who is director of the Scottish Crannog Centre.  

Workers in Safety Harbor, Florida, discovered a 6,000-year-old knife in the city’s Marshal Street Park, and alerted the curator of archaeology at the Safety Harbor Museum of Regional History. “When they realized what they had, they got on the phone,” said city spokesman Brad Purdy.  

Iowa state archaeologist John Doershuk will survey land slated for a new Crawford County Memorial Hospital. “The potential exists for something like a series of burial mounds to be present that could cause serious discussions to take place. That’s a bridge to cross in the future,” he said.  

American writer Susan Spano moved to Rome and took in the sights, described here.  

The Russian government has confirmed that the bone fragments and teeth found last year in Yekaterinburg belonged to Alexei Nikolayevich and Maria Nikolayevna, children of the last tsar. Today marks the 90^th anniversary of the execution of the Russian Imperial family by the Bolsheviks.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Wednesday, July 16, 2008. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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