Carved stucco panels depicting scenes from the Popol Vuh have been uncovered at the Maya site of El Mirador in Guatemala. The panels date to 300 B.C.

Italy has returned more than 2,000 artifacts, confiscated at an ancient coin show in Verona, to Bulgaria. “The Italian police found that [the Bulgarian sellers] did not have any papers confirming ownership of antique coins and items, arrested them and then released them,” said Bozhidar Dimitrov, director of Bulgaria’s National Museum of History.  

New dates for Peking Man suggest that Homo erectus lived in far northern China 770,000 years ago, during a glacial period. “They may have been freezing their buns off,” commented Rick Potts of the Smithsonian Institution.  

The Athens Acropolis has reopened to tourists, for now.  

German hydromechanics engineer Mathias Doring is studying the “amazing” 66 miles of canals, most of them underground, built by the Romans in modern-day Jordan. The canals brought water to the ten cities of the Decapolis.  

Residents of Hasankeyf, located in southeast Turkey, are said to be tired of waiting to find out if their homes and nearby archaeological site will be flooded by the Ilisu Dam Project. People have been living in the region for 10,000 years.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Thursday, March 12, 2009. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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