A mural at the Maya site of Calakmul, Mexico, depicts scenes from the lives of ordinary people, and reveals the words for “maize,” and “salt.” “This is the first time that we’ve seen anything like this,” said Simon Martin of the University of Pennsylvania Museum. The murals had been protected with a layer of clay when a new structure was built on top of them.  

The partial text of a badly eroded stele found in the sunken city of Heracleion has been published by the Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology. The city sank in the Nile Delta 1,300 years ago.  

The Getty Conservation Institute will join Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities at the tomb of Tutankhamun for a five-year cleaning and restoration project.  

Hydrocarbons from Saharan dust that settled on the sea floor off the coast of West Africa indicate that rainy weather may have made it possible for early humans to cross the desert and migrate out of Africa some 93,000 years ago.  

Construction work at a known archaeological site in Saanich, British Columbia, turned up human bones thought to be 1,000 years old.  

An engraved spoon belonging to a crew member has confirmed that a shipwreck in North Carolina’s Pasquotank River is the CSS Appomattox.  

A new study of the 93 medieval chess pieces discovered on Scotland’s Isle of Lewis in 1831 suggests that they may have also been used to play Hnefatafl, a popular game in medieval Scandinavia. The rules to Hnefatafl have not survived.  

The third-century remains of Queen Himiko’s palace may have been uncovered near the Hashihaka ancient burial mound in Kyodo, Japan. Some think the legendary queen was buried in the mound.  

A partial silver-plated serving set removed from the USS Arizona is set to be auctioned off in Cincinnati. The items are thought to have been recovered from the war grave sometime between May 1942 and May 1943 by a Navy diver who was salvaging ammunition, weaponry, and personal items from the Pearl Harbor wreckage.

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

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