James Cuno has been named president and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust, which adopted a policy in 2007 that new museum acquisitions must have a clear ownership history dating back to 1970. Yet Cuno has argued against laws that give governments ownership of artifacts found within their borders. “We’re bound to bring works of art into this country legally. I have argued against the laws, but I haven’t broken the laws,” he said.

Reports from China claim that an airtight copper pot containing 2,000-year-old wine was found in a Western Han dynasty tomb in Henan province.

A timber keg full of butter was unearthed in a bog in Galway, Ireland. The butter is estimated to be between 2,000 and 2,500 years old. “It would have been a substantial loss to the family that buried the butter in the bog that they never recovered it. Perhaps the person who buried it died or forgot where it was left,” said archaeologist Ross MacLeod.

In the nineteenth-century, more than 50 enslaved African Americans lived at the estate of Dr. John Mackall Brome, in what is now Maryland’s Historic St. Mary’s City. Graduate student Terry Brock is working to reclaim their history. “They want me to go through data that hasn’t been analyzed and put together the best story I can. They gave me all the excavation data from five or six field seasons of archaeology,” he explained.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Thursday, May 12, 2011. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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