Carbon-dating indicates that an inscribed piece of pottery found at the Elah Fortress bears the earliest known writing used by ancient Hebrews. The 3,000-year-old text “is a social statement, relating to slaves, widows, and orphans,” said Gershon Galil of the University of Haifa.

A Sumerian settlement has been discovered in southern Iraq.  

French scientists have shown that the lead in ancient Egyptian eye make-up helped protect against infections.  

You can follow the University of Pennsylvania’s excavation at the UNESCO World Heritage site of Luang Prabang in Laos at a daily blog written by Amy Ellsworth. The team is investigating a cave that had been used as a Buddhist temple, and an Iron Age burial.  

Martin Beckmann of the University of Western Ontario examined the wear and tear on the Alexander mosaic, unearthed at Pompeii in 1831, and presented his analysis at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in Anaheim, California. “The patches basically show us the mosaic through the Romans’ eyes, and tell us what interested the ancient viewer,’ he said.   

How much contact did Neanderthals have with modern humans? Steven Churchill of Duke University is experimenting with stone points and pig carcasses. He is trying to determine if the Neanderthal male known as Shanidar 3 was injured by another Neanderthal or in a hunting accident, or if he was killed by a modern human with a projectile weapon. 

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Friday, January 8, 2010. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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