The 3,000-year-old tomb of a female singer has been discovered intact in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings.

Contractors uncovered what could be the remains of victims of Ireland’s Great Famine in north Galway. The people probably lived at a nearby workhouse that had been built in the late 1840s.

Culturally unidentifiable human remains  that have been held in the collections of American universities and other institutions may soon be handed over to American Indian tribes, in response to a rule that was finalized by the Department of the Interior in 2010. The bones of an estimated 160,000 people would be eligible for transfer to tribes whose current or ancestral lands once contained the burials.

The remains of more than two dozen freed slaves and their children have been removed from a dried-up lake bed in Texas and reburied at another cemetery. “I’ve done a lot of research, and I have a good idea of who could be buried there, but I don’t know for sure,” said Bruce McManus of the Navarro County Historical Commission.

A second-century Roman villa built around a cobbled courtyard has been unearthed in eastern England. “It became clear that this was a very grand villa and every day we were finding more,” said Rebecca Casa Hatton, Peterborough’s city council archaeologist.

Archaeologists and treasures hunters are battling over possible changes to Alabama’s Cultural Resources Act. “If an object is removed from its context with no understanding of its intrinsic informational value, there is a substantial loss to the archaeological record – and the heritage of Alabama,” said Teresa Paglione, president of the Alabama Archaeological Society.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Monday, January 16, 2012. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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