Officials in Pakistan have seized dozens of artifacts that were plundered from the “Taliban-infested” northwestern section of the country. The police found the 2,000-year-old Gandhara statues, bronzes, and plaques mixed in with plastic and wooden objects while searching a flat-bed truck in Karachi. An investigation is underway, but Qasim Ali Qasim, director of the Sindh province archaeology department, thinks the artifacts were smuggled into Karachi one or two pieces at a time before being shipped out through Afghanistan. “The thieves and mafias involved in this business dig in the northwest, which is filled with Gandhara sites with little control by the authorities,” he explained.

Reports from China claim that a sealed bronze wine vessel discovered in a tomb in Shaanxi province contains liquid wine. The tomb dates to the Zhou Dynasty (1046 to 771 B.C.), and contained six vessels. The container in question has not been opened.

A sixteenth-century map created by cartographer Martin Waldseemueller has been found between the pages of a nineteenth-century book in Germany. Waldseemueller is said to be the first to document and name America, which he depicts as a “boomerang shape.” Only four other copies of the map are known to exist. “It seems to be a second edition and this is a unique map. Until now, we have no signs for a further map like this,” said Sven Kuttner of Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich.

Danish archaeologists from Aarhus University estimate there are 200 houses at the elite site they are excavating in northern Germany. They think they may have found the Viking town of Sliasthorp, which according to eighth-century texts, was a strategic military center for the first Scandinavian kings. They have also uncovered a long house that was burned down in the tenth century. Written sources indicate that Sliasthorp was attacked at that time. “Both Dannevirke and Hedeby – two of the world’s largest monuments from the Viking Age – could be controlled from this place,” said archaeologist Andres Dobat.

Some hydrologists and ecologists are concerned that new water systems installed at the Giza Plateau could erode the bedrock under the Sphinx and the pyramids, leading to their collapse. Others say the new system, which controls drainage from a nearby village, will stop automatically when the subterranean water levels reach a safe depth. “Such levels are natural,” said the Minister of State for Antiquities, Mohamed Ibrahim.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Friday, July 6, 2012. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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