Coins found beneath Jerusalem’s Western Wall were minted 20 years after King Herod’s death, disproving the widely held belief that he completed the wall. “This bit of archaeological information illustrates the fact that the construction of the Temple Mount walls and [the adjacent] Robinson’s Arch was an enormous project that lasted decades and was not completed during Herod’s lifetime,” read a statement released by the Israel Antiquities Authority.

A contract archaeology firm and a mining company are battling over a report filed with Australia’s Department of Indigenous Affairs. The Yindjibarndi people claim that important archaeological sites have been destroyed because of the flawed or incomplete report. “These places are sacred in our belief, our culture, and our identity,” said Michael Woodley, a Yindjibarndi elder.

Archaeologists from the University of Sydney have finished an excavation in Nea Paphos, Cyprus, where they uncovered walls that had been built on top of an ancient theater during the Middle Ages and a nymphaeum constructed in the first century A.D.

A hand ax estimated to be 100,000 years old was found in Gloucestershire, England.

Alyson Thibodeau of the University of Arizona is researching  the pre-Hispanic turquoise trade between Southwest and Mesoamerica. “My real question is, how can we use turquoise found in the archaeological record to reconstruct exchanged relationships? How can we use turquoise to better understand how the different cultures and different societies of the Southwest U.S. are connected to one another?” she asked.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Wednesday, November 23, 2011. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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