The heavy, scaled armor of Silla Dynasty cavalrymen has been unearthed in Korea’s historic Jjoksaem District. The armor, made for people and horses, was probably used sometime between the fourth and sixth centuries, and up until this discovery, had only been seen in tomb paintings.

In Alabama, a large stone mound thought to be 1,000 years old is being undermined by earth movers. The fill taken from beneath the site, which sits on top of a mountain, is slated for the foundations of a Sam’s Club store at its base. Archaeologists from the University of Alabama found pottery under the rocks, but no sign of human remains. “It’s just a pile of rocks is all it is,” said the town mayor.  

Archaeologist Michael Mueller-Karpe of Germany’s Roman and Germanic Museum in Mainz has followed a court order and surrendered a gold vase he thinks was looted from a royal grave in Iraq. The artifact has been claimed both by Iraq and a German auction house.  

Hexagonal diamonds found among soot on the Northern Channel Islands could indicate that a comet hit the Earth 12,900 years ago. Such an impact could be responsible for mass extinctions of animals at this time. Other theories have suggested that overhunting by Clovis people, or climate change, wiped them out.   

A population boom in south Asia between 35,000 and 28,000 years ago could be attributed to technological innovation, according to Michael Petraglia of the University of Oxford, and Ravi Korisettar of Karnatak University.  

Roman masks unearthed in Pompeii 200 years ago have been rediscovered. The 15 masks are life-sized, but very heavy and made with closed mouths, meaning they were used as models for lighter masks that actors could wear.  

A family in England waits to hear if the remains of an ancestor killed in 1916 in the Battle of Fromelles will be identified from those of hundreds of soldiers buried in mass graves in France. “It would be amazing if we could lay him to rest properly in the cemetery they are creating in Fromelles especially for those who died,” said Rosina Clark, grand niece of Private Walter John Deverell.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Tuesday, July 21, 2009. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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