A collection of Assyrian cuneiform tablets has been unearthed at a temple in southeastern Turkey by a team from the University of Toronto. Gold, bronze, and iron implements, and libation vessels and other ritual objects were also found.

This month, researchers have been documenting the “Graveyard of the Atlantic “off the coast of North Carolina, where vessels from the American and British naval fleets, merchant ships, and German U-boats sank during the Battle of the Atlantic in 1942. “The information collected during this expedition will help us better understand and document this often lost chapter of America’s maritime history and its significance to the nation,” said David W. Alberg, this year’s project leader.  

The bones of an under-aged soldier could be identified from the hundreds of sets of human remains discovered in a mass grave at Fromelles, France. Australian John Gordon was only 15 when he died in the Battle of Fromelles, and Tim Lycett, from the Fromelles Descendant Database, said that the skeleton of a 15- to 16-year-old was exhumed last year. DNA testing will be conducted to try to identify as many of the soldiers as possible.  

Mary Beard of Cambridge University questions the wisdom of calling a “large Roman house of roughly the right date in roughly the right place” Vespasian’s home, in her blog for the Times Online.  

Germany will remember the Battle of Teutoburg Forest, fought between the Romans and Germanic warriors led by Arminius, next month. “This was the big bang that created Germany, according to the myth. The historical facts disprove that but every nation wants to pinpoint its roots and will passionately grasp any opportunity to do so,” said historian Tillmann Bendikowski.  

The discovery of a log boat 25 years ago is helping scientists understand changing sea levels in Yorkshire, England. “By studying lots of clues in the ancient landscape we have been able to put together maps of the valley showing how much of the land was underwater,” said archaeologist Peter Halkon of Hull University.  

Excavations at 3,500-year-old Poverty Point State Historic Site in Louisiana examined circles in the site’s central plaza. “We were able to establish that the different magnetic characteristics of the circles in the plaza correspond to different kinds of constructions,” said Diana Greenlee of the University of Louisiana at Monroe.  

Here’s a summary of the looting of Iraq’s National Museum in Baghdad and the country’s archaeological sites since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.  

Historian A.W.L. Saunders wants to know what is inside a sarcophagus at St. Mary’s church in Warwick, England. He thinks his ancestor, Fulke Greville, may have written some of the works attributed to Shakespeare, and that the answer lies within the “box-like” shapes seen in the sarcophagus with ground-penetrating radar.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Monday, August 10, 2009. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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