Italian archaeologists from Salento-Litchi University discovered a pair of seated lion statues  at the entrance of the Soknopaios Temple in the ancient town of Dimeh Al-Siba in Egypt’s Fayoum. Carved from limestone, the statues suggest that the small-town temple, which was dedicated to the crocodile god, resembled worship spaces in larger cities. “It is also the first time that the gigantic lion-shaped statues can be unearthed in a small Greco-Roman settlement in Fayoum,” said Mohamed Ibrahim, Egypt’s Antiquities Minister. The town also boasted houses, a bakery, and a market.

Last week, another section of wall collapsed in Pompeii after heavy rains—this time it was part of a 2,000-year-old house on the Vicolo del Modesto, an area first excavated in the nineteenth century. This section of the ancient city had already been closed off to visitors because of safety concerns. “The new collapse at Pompeii today underscores the need to monitor the situation continually and draw up an immediate management plan that guarantees the protection of a world-renowned archaeological site and recognizes its value,” said Manuela Ghizzoni, head of the culture commission in Italy’s lower house of Parliament.

A metal detector enthusiast discovered a helmet made of bronze  dating to the first century B.C. near Canterbury, England. It was found with some bone fragments, and had been used to hold a bag of cremated human remains. A brooch that fastened the bag closed was also found. “No other cremation has ever been found accompanied by a helmet [in late Iron Age Kent],” said Julia Farley of the British Museum. One other similar burial has been unearthed in Belgium.

Scientists from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History have entered a 1,500-year-old Maya tomb that was discovered at Palenque in 1999. The walls of the burial chamber are painted with murals in shades of red, which symbolized blood and was often used by the Maya to decorate their royal burials. Pottery vessels and pieces of jade were also found. The tomb’s occupant has not yet been identified.

Timothy Darvill of England’s Bournemouth University suggests that the largest sandstone horseshoe-shaped structures at Stonehenge were built more than 4,600 years ago, and that the smaller, bluestone features came later. “The original idea that it starts small and gets bigger is wrong. It starts big and stays big. The new scheme puts the big stones at the center of the site as the first stage,” he explained. In this new timeline, the sandstone trilithons were built by Neolithic pig farmers. The sheep and cow herders known as the Beaker people then imported the bluestones from Wales and made the monument more complex.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Tuesday, December 4, 2012. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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