Queen Eadgyth’s bones may have been found in Magdeburg Cathedral. Eadgyth was brother of Athelstan, thought to be the first King of England, and wife of Holy Roman Emperor Otto I. “In the Middle Ages bones were often moved around, and this makes definitive identification difficult,” explained Harald Meller of Bristol University.    Here’s a photograph of a statue thought to represent Eadgyth and Otto I.

A study of the Y chromosome suggests that most British males are descended from the first farmers who migrated across Europe from the Near East some 10,000 years ago. Most women, however, are descendants of hunter-gatherer females. “Maybe back then, it was just sexier to be a farmer,” quipped scientist Patricia Balaresque.   

In England, a man was arrested in his West Sussex home and items of “considerable antiquity” were seized, including Roman and medieval coins, ivory and silver, brooches, buttons, and horse equipment. Police suspect the 51-year-old of “nighthawking.”   

This report from The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies states that the Anahita Temple has been damaged by modern construction. The Zoroastrian temple is the oldest surviving stone structure from the Parthian Dynasty in Iran.   

Last November, the mayor of Izmir, Turkey, sent a letter to the director of the Louvre Museum, requesting the return of two sculptures from ancient Smyrna. Director Henri Loyrette replied that the statues had been purchased legally in the Turkish market in 1680 and cannot be returned.

The cool and brackish Baltic Sea is getting warmer, and shipworms are moving in and threatening to devour historic shipwrecks and submerged prehistoric settlements.   

Chemical analysis has shown that pine resin had been used to seal a 2,000-year-old amphora unearthed in Morocco.   

A report from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History says that archaeologists have discovered some bodies that had been dismembered after death and decomposition in Baja California.   

A paper has been published about the so-called relics of Joan of Arc (ca. 1412-1431), which have been shown to be a mummified cat leg bone and a human rib dating between the sixth and third centuries B.C. The bottle containing the bones appeared in 1867. 

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Wednesday, January 20, 2010. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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