A radical Islamic faction has gained control of three towns in northern Mali, including Timbuktu, where they have used axes and shovels to destroy historic mausoleums that they claim do not comply with Islamic law. Timbuktu was a center of Islam in Africa in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. “It is a tragedy for Africa because this heritage enables Africa to write its history. We understand African culture with Timbuktu treasures. There is no word for such action,” said Lazare Eloundou Assomo, head of the Africa unit of UNESCO’s World Heritage Center.

A sundial, a tunnel, and a D-shaped reception room have been uncovered at a Wari site in the Peruvian Andes. The Wari lived between 600 and 1100 A.D. Niches painted in white on the walls of the room may have held ancestral mummies. The room was also surrounded by platforms.

A research vessel is leaving Honolulu today to begin a search for the wreckage of Amelia Earhart’s plane on the western end of the island of Nikumaroro. Using a photograph taken in 1937 as a guide, members of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery will use robots and multi-beam sonar to search for her Lockheed Electra aircraft in 5,000 feet of water. “When we plotted the location, we realized it was in the same place where, in 1999, a former resident of Nikumaroro (a colony was established on the island in December 1938 and lasted until 1963), told us of seeing debris in 1940. Her father, the island carpenter, told her it was the wreckage of an airplane,” said Ric Gillespie, executive director of TIGHAR.

Pakistan’s 4,500-year-old city of Mohenjo Daro is in danger of crumbling, due to salt in the ground water that is eating away the bricks. “It is definitely a complicated site to protect, given the problems of salinity, humidity and rainfall. But most of the attempts at conservation by the authorities have been so bad and so amateur they have only accelerated the damage,” said archaeologist Asma Ibrahim. The museum at the site has been looted.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Tuesday, July 3, 2012. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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