A colossal red-granite statue of the god Thoth has been unearthed near the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III in Luxor, Egypt.

Scientists have replicated a 1.3 million-year-old date for Mexico’s Xalnene Ash, which is said to contain some controversial so-called footprints. Optical stimulated luminescence tests suggested that the ash and was 40,000 years old, and hence, that modern humans reached the Americas much earlier than previously thought. “Considering what we know about the timings of hominid migrations out of Africa up into Europe and Asia, it is highly improbable that hominids could have made it to the Americas by 1.3 million years before present,” said Darren Mark of the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre.  

Jewelry and coins dating to the thirteenth century were discovered at a construction site in Andhra Pradesh, India. The Hindu offers a slideshow of the objects.  

Small glass vessels dating to the fourth century have been unearthed at the Strumica Fortress in eastern Macedonia. Archaeologists also found decorated pottery from the Bronze Age.  

A terracotta medicine bottle was found in Bodrum, Turkey, where archaeologists also uncovered the remains of walls, water pipes, a freshwater spring, and five terracotta sarcophagi containing skeletal remains. “This is the first known finding of a medicine bottle from the Hellenistic period in ancient Halicarnassus,” said archaeologist Ece Benli Bagci.  

Researchers from the James River Institute of Archaeology used ground-penetrating radar to look for an eighteenth-century estate in Yorktown, Virginia. A British fort is also thought to be located on the property. “There is a very strong likelihood we will find a host of significant archaeological features,” said archaeologist Nick Luccketti.  

Chile’s National Monuments Council says that 56 archaeological sites were damaged during the 2010 Dakar Rally. The office is asking the country’s National Sports Institute to pay damages.  

Demonstrators have tried to stop the removal of 1,400-year-old human remains from the site of a future hospital emergency room in Ashkelon, Israel. The protestors say the bones are Jewish and should not be disturbed, according to religious practice. Archaeologists say the graves belonged to Christians or pagans from the Byzantine period.  There’s more on the demonstration and politics in Israel at The Independent.  

The government of Indonesia continues to discuss the haul of artifacts salvaged from a 1,000-year-old shipwreck off the coast of West Java. Indonesia has not ratified the United Nation’s convention on the protection of underwater cultural heritage.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Monday, May 17, 2010. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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