Police in Lima, Peru, arrested a woman who attempted to send a mummy to France through Bolivia’s postal service. The mummy is thought to be Incan and about 750 years old.

Meanwhile, the history department of Brigham Young University received two human skulls via the U.S. Postal Service. “No note at all. It had a return address of Augusta, Montana, with the name of “Jim Crow,” and that was it,” said BYU police Sgt. Mike Mock. Utah’s state archaeologists will examine the skulls.  

The Bill Barrett Corporation, which travels Utah’s Nine Mile Canyon Road with heavy equipment, is offering grants for the study and protection of the canyon’s rock art and archaeological sites.   

Cancer was very rare among the ancient Egyptians, at least those who were mummified, according to a study by scientists from the University of Manchester. Still, life expectancy was only about 40 years.  

The FBI has seized cuneiform tablets and other artifacts that had been smuggled out of Iraq from an antiquities dealer in California.  

The Associated Press has picked up on the discovery of a 5,900-year-old garment made of reeds in an Armenian cave.  

Scientists have developed a new, high-tech way to protect silver artifacts from corrosion.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Wednesday, October 27, 2010. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

Comments posted here do not represent the views or policies of the Archaeological Institute of America.