A section of retaining wall that protects Vietnam’s Thang Long Royal Citadel has collapsed, flooding the UNESCO World Heritage site with muddy water. The damage was caused by the construction of a new National Assembly House. 

Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s Minister of Antiquities, announced that a special police force will be put in place to protect the country’s archaeological sites and museums. 

The War Between the States began 150 years ago today, when Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter. Be sure to see the images that accompany this Discovery News article on how Civil War photography changed modern warfare. 

Were Neanderthals just unlucky? Mathematicians Armando Neves of the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil and Maurizio Serva of the University of Aquila in Italy developed a model which shows that even low rates of interbreeding with modern humans could have led to Neanderthals’ extinction. 

Steve Caruso, an Aramaic translator, has examined the text of the lead codices reported to be early Christian documents discovered in a cave in Jordan. Archaeologist Peter Thonemann of Oxford University analyzed the images engraved on the pages. They agree that the little books are fakes.  And a television show titled “The Nails of the Cross,” has also been released just in time to capitalize on the Easter season. But as the Israel Antiquities Authority commented, “There is no doubt that the talented director Simcha Jacobovici created an interesting film with a real archaeological find at its center, but the interpretation presented in it has no basis in archaeological findings or research.”

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

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