More than 500 repatriated artifacts have been put on display at Iraq’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  There’s more to the story of the rescue of the 4,400-year-old statue of King Entemena. “Now he’s going back where he belongs,” said John Russell of the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Russell authenticated the sculpture when it was recovered in a sting operation in the United States.

For the past 10,000 years, cultural changes have shaped human evolution, according to Ben Potter of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Timothy Taylor of Bradford University would add that the invention of the baby sling by Stone Age women spurred human evolution. ”The invention of the baby sling, which allowed more babies to successfully mature outside the female body, instantly removed the barrier to increased head and brain size,” he said.  

A wooden box removed from a cairn in the Canadian Arctic could contain records left by the Franklin Expedition in 1845, or perhaps papers written explorer Roald Amundsen, who navigated the Northwest Passage in 1905. The box will be opened at the Canadian Conservation Institute.  

Four years ago, a man dug up a 1,200-year-old psalter in an Irish bog. Now scientists think that the book’s leather cover may have come from Egypt. “The cover could have had several lives before it ended up basically as a folder for the manuscript in the bog,” said Raghnall O Floinn of Ireland’s National Museum.  

What remains of the 2,000-year-old port of Leukaspis, also known as Antiphrae, could soon be open to tourists. Located on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast at the modern resort town of Marina, the ancient city was home to wealthy wheat and olive merchants until a tsunami in 365 A.D. washed it away. “I am quite happy it still exists, because when I was involved there were big plans to incorporate this site in a big golf course being constructed by one of these tycoons. Apparently the antiquities authorities didn’t allow it,” said Polish archaeologist Agnieszka Dobrowlska.  Here’s a photograph of three reconstructed Roman pillar tombs at the site.  

The Theban Desert Road Survey investigates caravan routes and oasis settlements across Egypt’s desert. Two weeks ago, the announcement of the discovery of a 3,500-year-old administrative, economic, and military center at Kharga Oasis marked its “most spectacular find.” “The desert was not a no man’s land, not the wild west. It was wild, but it wasn’t disorganized,” said John Coleman Darnell of Yale University.  

The family of a World War II air raid warden has revealed rare, color home movies of London during the Blitz.  And a German bomber will be retrieved from Britain’s southeastern coast.  

A Saxon boat hollowed out from a piece of oak and five animal skulls were found in the River Ant in Norfolk, England.  

Two gold bracelets crafted during the Bronze Age were rescued from a pile of dirt in Kent, England. The earth had been removed from a trench by archaeologists and volunteers in a large-scale excavation ahead of a road construction project.  

Three shipwrecks discovered in the straits between Turkey and the Greek island of Rhodes could offer researchers new insights into the transition from medieval to modern shipbuilding. “The real import of those vessels were they just happen to be from that period when you’re moving from those oared vessels that had guns on them to sailed vessels that had guns on them,” said Jeffrey G. Royal of Florida’s RPM Nautical Foundation.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Tuesday, September 7, 2010. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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