Violence in Cairo set fire to the Institute d’Egypte, a research center founded by Napoleon Bonaparte in the late eighteenth century. The institute housed more than 190,000 books, including handwritten descriptions of Egypt’s monuments by French scholars. Volunteers are sifting through the debris, looking for items that can be saved. “The burning of such a rich building means a large part of Egyptian history has ended,” said the director, Mohammed Al-Sharbouni.

Four men were arrested in southeastern Bulgaria for looting a Thracian burial mound. They had entered Bulgaria from Greece in order to dig.

Dog domestication occurred without significant human intervention, and probably happened in different times and places around the world, according to evolutionary biologist Susan Crockford. She was part of the team that examined a 33,000-year-old canine skull discovered in Siberia’s Altai Mountains.

Modern European and American dogs are descended from dogs imported from Southeast Asia, according to a new study of DNA conducted by an international team of scientists. The dogs probably traveled west along ancient silk trade routes.

Archaeologist Maja Djordjevic led an excavation of an Iron Age site in southern Serbia, but found that it had been heavily damaged by torrential rains and intensive agriculture. The team did uncover pottery and traces of a Roman villa.

Archaeologist Alice Gorman specializes in space archaeology. “I’m actually looking at rockets and planetary landing sites and orbital debris,” she explained.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Tuesday, December 20, 2011. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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