The 500-year-old well-preserved mummy of a woman was discovered at a construction site outside of Seoul, South Korea. Her husband’s tomb is expected to be found nearby. “This mummy will help us study life during the early days of the Joseon Dynasty,” said archaeologist Kim Woo-rim.

Czech and Danish scientists plan to exhume the remains of astronomer Tycho Brahe, who died in 1601. “I don’t know if it’s possible to answer the question of how he died. I think not. I’m more interested in how he lived,” said Jens Vellev of the University of Aarhus.  

Gold Byzantine and silver Venetian coins have been found in a small box at Skopje Fortress in Macedonia.  

Archaeological sites along the Gulf Coast are threatened by the oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon. “Biological resources can recover and archaeological resources cannot,” said Noel Stowe, retired from the University of Southern Alabama.  

In Wyoming, a construction crew digging a water pipeline found a 4,000-year-old campsite where obsidian tools were made. The source of the obsidian we be determined using x-ray fluorescence.  

Here’s an interview with Francisco Etxeberria, who has exhumed the remains of 4,800 people from mass graves in Spain. As many as 200,000 people are thought to have been killed during the Spanish Civil War and the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. “I don’t think we’ll find them all, it’s impossible,” he said.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Thursday, May 13, 2010. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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