An Ottoman-era pipe, adorned with the phrase “Heart is language for the lover,” has been found in Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter. “Pipes were also used as a piece of jewelry that could be worn on a garment, and smoking itself was popular amongst both men and women,” said Shahar Puni of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Customs officials in Jakarta seized two eighteenth-century cannons at Soekarno Hatta Airport. The people in possession of the cannons claimed to have purchased them in an antiques shop, but the items were not licensed to leave Indonesia. The authorities are continuing to investigate the case.

Japanese businessman Yuzo Yagi has promised to donate one million euros for the restoration of a brick and marble pyramid that was constructed in Rome in 12 B.C., after the conquest of Egypt, as the burial place for Gaius Cestius, a Roman magistrate.

Some 2,000 timbers and hundreds of artifacts have been recovered and restored from the medieval ship discovered in Newport, Wales, ten years ago. “When you go to see the ship in a museum in five of six years, rebuilt, you’re not going to need any imagination. It’s going to look like a ship and it’s going to blow you away,” said Toby Jones, curator of the project.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Friday, December 30, 2011. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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