Mining for metal in the southernmost Indian state of Tamil Nadu has sliced into a burial ground for 3,500-year-old urns. The unmarked urns, which were covered by only one or two feet of soil, held human remains and ritual pottery. Similar burial grounds have been found in the region, some with stone circle markers on the surface, or with the urns deposited in granite-lined chambers.

Parts of small Buddhist figurines made of soapstone were uncovered in India’s southwestern state of Karnataka. A damaged Buddha head has been stylistically dated to the seventh century A.D. A fragment of a Bodisatva face retains portions of an ear, eyes, nose, and lips, and probably dates to the second century A.D. Other figurine fragments included parts of bulls and human body parts.

The destruction of the Eagle & Phenix Dam on the Chattahoochee River in Columbus, Georgia, drained its pool and revealed clues to the city’s nineteenth-century industrial history, including wooden and stone dams, buckets, and a pipe wrench, in addition to plenty of modern trash. Other structures found in the riverbed may have supported a guideline for a raft or ferry system to haul workers and materials to the mills and factories.

The iconic 3,400-year-old bust of ancient Egypt’s Queen Nefertiti  was discovered by a German excavation team digging at Amarna in the workshop of Tuthmosis, a court sculptor, in December 1912. The bust was taken to Germany, where it first went on display in Berlin in 1924. Egypt has been requesting its return ever since, claiming that under the Egyptian antiquities law of the time, unique artifacts must remain in Egypt, and that permission had never been granted for the famed bust of Nefertiti to leave the country. This article in Al-Ahram Weeklyoffers a history of the negotiations between Germany and Egypt concerning the unfinished sculpture.

J. David Hacker of Binghamton University has completed a new statistical study of U.S. census records from 1850 to 1880. He suggests that 750,000 soldiers died in the Civil War, an estimated 20 percent higher than previous counts, which had been based upon battlefield reports, pension filings made by widows and orphans, and other faulty records. Many documents created by the Confederacy were destroyed when the Union Army captured Richmond, Virginia.

Over the weekend, several costumed gladiators reportedly climbed the walls of the Colosseum in Rome to protest the crackdown on their business—posing for pictures with tourists. The Italian culture ministry says that the gladiators have become too aggressive with tourists and behave inappropriately.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Monday, April 9, 2012. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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