Ancient Thessaloniki emerges, thanks to digging for metro

Tunnels will go deeper to spare antiquities


One outstanding find was the headless marble figure of a man found during work at Aghios Athanasios in Thessaloniki.


By Iota Myrtsioti - Kathimerini


Preliminary work on the metro is slowly bringing to light the story of Thessaloniki. The first architectural remains and portable finds discovered in the city’s historic center are just a sample of what the metro tunneling machine will turn up once it starts digging deeper.

Though the exploratory digs at 350 points along the 9.6-kilometer metro line that were begun last August have so far uncovered only a handful of portable finds, a museum has already been found to house them. It is the Alkazar (formerly Hamza Bey mosque). Refurbishment is under way, which will allow the monument to receive visitors by the end of the year, Culture Ministry General Secretary Christos Zahopoulos announced on Thursday, presenting the finds.

Part of the eastern cemetery of Thessaloniki with 35 graves was one of the expected finds. It was discovered by archeologists from the 16th Ephorate of Classical Antiquities in the Sintrivaniou district.

Of various types, set in close rows, the graves date from the Early Hellenistic to the Late Roman period (third century BC to third century AD). Eleven of them contained grave goods, including coins, figurines, bone clasps, clay and glass vases, gold and bronze jewelry, and a funerary stele bearing the name of the occupant, Epitherses Filonos Methemnaios.

Interment was the most common form of burial, noted ephorate chief Lilian Aheilara. The body was usually supine. Four burial sites showed signs of incineration.

In contrast, the Roman-era architectural remnants discovered at points along the projected metro line were a complete surprise.

Preliminary excavations unearthed various items including potsherds, plinths, slate paving, plaster, bones and stones at 42 other sites.

At Dimokratias Square, Venizelou and Aghias Sofias metro station sites, the 9th Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities unearthed parts of walls, pipes and floors. One outstanding find was a headless marble figurine discovered in front of Aghios Athanasios.

The Attiko Metro construction company has already altered its plans in response to the successive finds, managing director Giorgos Yiannis announced. The tunnels will now go down to a depth of 31 meters, instead of 7-9 meters as stipulated in the original plan.

Digger blunder at site of Roman fort

I could never understand why on earth British archaeologists use bulldozers in their digs... :-(

Source: EDP24

SHAUN LOWTHORPE

It was built to repel invaders from Roman Britain and for centuries withstood the vagaries of time.

But some of the buried artefacts at Caister, near Yarmouth, have met their match after archaeologists mistakenly used a mechanical digger to uncover the fort's secrets. Norfolk Archaeology Unit (NAU) was commissioned to carry out a dig last year ahead of plans to build houses on a garden bordering the north-east corner of the fort at Uplands Avenue.

A nationally important site, the fort was one of 12 built by the Romans stetching to the south coast, with the others in Norfolk being at Burgh Castle and Brancaster.

The area in question was covered by a thin layer of tarmac, yet beneath that it was straight down into undisturbed Roman deposits allowing a fresh picture to be built up of an area stretching from the fort's outer defences.

But when David Gurney, principal archaeologist at Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service, went out to check on the progress of the work, he was horrified to see a 15m long by 1m trench dug out by a digger instead of being excavated by hand.

“On a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of damage to Norfolk's archaeology, this is a 10,” he said. “This was the first chance to dig a trench across the defences at Caister fort since the 1960s. It was a huge opportunity.

“The archaeology in that area has been destroyed,” he added. “We lost the opportunity to go through the different layers very carefully and recover the pottery and objects that would have helped us review the dating of the fort defences.

“There's a lot of archaeological work taking place all the time so there's bound to be the odd lapse. It's very unfortunate that it took place on such an important site.

“They made quite a serious mistake. There have been long discussions with the contractor and they are fully aware of the mistake they have made. Measures have been put in place to make sure it doesn't happen again.”

The incident happened last June, but the mistake has only now been unearthed after lying deep inside a council report due for discussion on Monday.

Jayne Bown, archaeology unit manager at NPS property consultants, which took over the running of the unit in 2005, said an approved plan had been produced and followed but there was a misunderstanding about how the dig was to be carried out.

“Once work was under way it became clear that there was a divergence of professional opinion on the scope and detail of the fieldwork required,” she said. “A wide-ranging discussion ensued and procedures have since been thoroughly reviewed.”

“NAU Archaeology is a successful organisation with clients across the country and we pride ourselves on working to high professional standards. The misunder-standing in this case was a very rare occurrence and we have acted promptly to reduce the likelihood of it ever recurring in the future.”

Archaeology bridges gap between modern people, past cultures

Source: The Columbus Dispatch

BRADLEY T. LEPPER

What is the value of archaeology? Why should anyone care about the broken bits and pieces of past lives scattered across the landscape?

Paul Minnis, an archaeologist at the University of Oklahoma, asked several colleagues this question. Their answers were published in the Society for American Archaeology's November newsletter.

One of the best answers was provided by Barbara Little, who edited a recent book on the public benefits of archaeology. She wrote: "Our history is an anchor, a vantage point and a library. Archaeology is the tool for expanding that history."

William Faulkner once said, "The past isn't dead. It isn't even past." This speaks to the enduring power of the past for informing and enriching our lives.

Yet, as Little also observed, the power of the past can be abused as a weapon.

In Afghanistan, for example, the Taliban destroyed ancient Buddhist statues and other relics in acts of archaeological terrorism. In a story broadcast last month on National Public Radio, Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson reported that Afghanistan's National Museum in Kabul was hit by rockets and pillaged by looters. Much of what was left was smashed by the Taliban.

Now, however, museum staff members are working hard to rebuild this national treasure. They cut an inscription into a marble post in front of the building to express their faith in the sustaining power of their past: "A nation stays alive when its culture stays alive."

Rory Stewart, who directs a nonprofit group working with the museum, told Sarhaddi Nelson that the key to success was getting ordinary Afghans to reconnect with their heritage.

In Ohio, during the 18 th and early 19 th centuries, European-American settlers destroyed many of the monuments erected by ancient American Indian cultures. The farmers and town-builders of that era simply didn?t acknowledge the earthen mounds and enclosures as part of a heritage they had any obligation to preserve or understand.

Since then, several decades of archaeological investigation have added the achievements of indigenous cultures to our expanded view of Ohio's history. Archaeological parks preserve many important sites, and museums display the artifacts made and used by hundreds of generations of Ohioans.

These special places allow us to reconnect with our heritage, which did not begin in 1803, 1776 or even 1492. It began with the original discovery of Ohio by the first Americans more than 14,000 years ago.

Bradley T. Lepper is curator of archaeology at the Ohio Historical Society.

blepper@ohiohistory.org

Heracleion and Canopus back to light

Source: Deutsche Welle

"It's a Bit Like Modern Surgery"

DW-WORLD.DE spoke to French marine archeologist Franck Goddio, who brought lost parts of the legendary port of Alexandria and the ancient cities of Heracleion and Canopus back to light.

"Egypt's Sunken Treasures," an exhibition of artifacts unearthed during Goddio's excavations, went on show in Bonn on Thursday.

DW-WORLD.DE: After thousands of excursions to sunken cities and shipwrecks around the world, your living room must look like an adventurous place.

Franck Goddio: Well, it's not an adventure. I would say it's a job, and we are doing this job very professionally. We plan each mission carefully and train our staff for that, and before starting, there is a lot of paperwork that has to be done.

Before you started to search for sunken treasures, you studied mathematics and worked as a financial consultant. How does that fit with archaeology?

Goddio devoted himself to marine archeology in the 1980sBildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Goddio devoted himself to marine archeology in the 1980s

As a matter of fact, it does help. After 10 years in finance, I decided to take a one-year break. I looked at what at the time has been done in underwater archaeology, and I realized that there was a need for a privately funded independent institute that could work for governments and other institutions.

You opened such an institute for underwater archaeology in Paris in 1985. Were you always sure that it would become a success story?

Maybe I was a little naive at the beginning. When I started to search for the sunken parts of Alexandria in 1984 the geophysical instruments that you need for missions like that didn't exist.

But you did find ancient Alexandria in the end.

But for Alexandria, it took years and years because we had to perform a four-year geophysical survey before we even had a detailed map that showed that there was something under the sediment. It's a bit like modern surgery. You use the scanner, and then afterwards, when you know where to search, you do the operation at the right place.

Are you still thrilled by your work?

It's very hard work because for months and months you only sail along straight lines in the harbor, towing instruments and registering data in order to create an electronic map. When you start to see the map, you get this feeling that there is something down there. And only then does it become thrilling.

It seems that your work has little in common with an Indiana Jones adventure.

Not at all, on the contrary I would say. My job is to prevent adventure.

When you take artifacts from the ancient port of Alexandria, you put them in different colored baskets. Does the color mean something?

The color is in fact no criteria, but you need these baskets in order to desalinate the artifacts. When you raise it from the sea, where the object has been for some 2,000 years, you have to remove the salt. For a small artifact, this can take a few days. For a very big artefact, like the statue of Hapi (editor's note: a more than five-meter or 16-feet high statue), we needed 18 months to remove the salt.

What happens if you don't do that?

The stone will disintegrate. Chemical reactions will make the stone weaker, until it finally disintegrates.

The exhibition in Bonn is showing 500 artifacts, most of them from Alexandria. What kind of feeling should the exhibition evoke in visitors?

We found all the artifacts right next to each other. They were on the same place for thousands of years and supplemented each other, they were literally living together. In the exhibition you can see that they speak to each other.

Who owns the artifacts?

They belong to Egypt of course. All artifacts that you see in the exhibit in Bonn will one day end up in a museum which will be built for them -- in Alexandria.

"Egypt's Sunken Treasures" runs until Jan. 27, 2008 at the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn.
Richard Fuchs interviewed Franck Goddio (ncy)

Back in business!

After a long hiatus due to lots of research and teaching, we're back online!

Graves of warriors open to the public

Source: IOL

Athens - Ancient Greek graves holding the remains of warriors slain in the Peloponnesian War, one of antiquity's deadliest conflicts, will soon be accessible to visitors in Athens, an archaeologist said on Wednesday.

"We have the remains of Athenian warriors of the Peloponnesian War carried there from battlefield funeral pyres," supervising archaeologist Haris Stoupa told reporters.

"We're not sure of the exact battle as we were not fortunate enough to find engravings," she added.

Discovered in the Athens district of Kerameikos in 1997, the site is part of a one-kilometre-wide cemetery dedicated to Athenian warriors and prominent citizens that still lies mostly buried under modern buildings.

The cemetery was created shortly after the Battle of Marathon against the Persians in 480 BC and remained in use until the Roman Wars against Carthage, Stoupa said.

According to 2nd-century Greek chronicler Pausanias, among heroes buried there is Pericles, leader of Athens during the city-state's golden era that saw the building of the Parthenon.

Archaeologists will place a protective canopy over the site to enable visitors to see into the graves, Stoupa said.

The project will be completed in 2008.

Pitting two superpowers of the era - democratic Athens and oligarchic Sparta - against one another, the Peloponnesian War raged on and off for nearly 30 years (431-404 BC) across Greece,
with related conflicts in Asia Minor and Sicily.

It was a disaster for Athens, and established Sparta as the dominant power in ancient Greece. - Sapa-AFP

Greek archaeologists discover theater

Source: AP via Yahoo! News

By NICHOLAS PAPHITIS, Associated Press Writer Thu Feb 15, 8:27 PM ET

ATHENS, Greece - Sections of an ancient Greek theater were discovered on Thursday during construction work in an Athens suburb, archaeologists said.

Until now, only two such buildings were known in the ancient city where western theater originated more than 2,500 years ago.

Fifteen rows of concentric stone seats have been located so far in the northwestern suburb of Menidi, according to Vivi Vassilopoulou, Greece's general director of antiquities.

"Another section appears to lie under a nearby road," she told The Associated Press.

"(The remains) were discovered during excavation work, supervised by archaeologists, for a new building," Vassilopoulou said. "But it is still very early to offer any conclusions."

The structure has not yet been dated, and further details are expected to emerge following a full excavation.

Menidi is thought to be built over the ancient village of Acharnae, the largest of a string of rural settlements outside ancient Athens. Ancient writers mention a theater at Acharnae, but no traces of it had been found until now.

The village was linked with Dionysos, the ancient god of theater and wine, as the Athenians believed that ivy — his sacred plant — first grew there.

Built in semicircular tiers on hillsides, ancient theaters were monumental, open-air structures that could seat thousands of spectators.

Theater first emerged as an art form in late 6th century B.C. Athens, where ancient playwrights competed for a prize during the annual festival of Dionysos — in whose cult the art originated.

The works of Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides and Aristophanes were performed in the theater of Dionysos under the Acropolis.

Originally a terrace where spectators sat on the bare earth above a circular stage, it was rebuilt in stone during the 4th century B.C. and could sit up to 14,000 people.

Another smaller theater has been discovered in southern Athens.

Getty Museum signs deal to return 2 ancient treasures to Greece

Source: International Herald Tribune

ATHENS, Greece: Greece and the J. Paul Getty Museum have signed an agreement for the return of two ancient treasures that Athens claims were illegally excavated and smuggled out of the country, officials said on Wednesday.

The artifacts are among the most important ever reclaimed by antiquities-rich Greece: a fourth century B.C. gold wreath and a sixth century B.C. marble statue of a young woman. They are the last of four antiquities successfully reclaimed by Greece from the Getty.

They will be handed over to Greek officials by the end of next month. The deal was signed in Athens late Monday by Greek Culture Ministry Secretary-General Christos Zachopoulos and Michael Brand, director of the private Los Angeles museum.

"This signing confirms the climate of trust and mutual understanding (between Greece and the Getty), and creates new prospects in their relations," the Culture Ministry and the museum said in a joint statement.

The antiquities will be returned to Greece by the end of March, the statement said.

Culture Minister George Voulgarakis read the statement at a news conference attended by Brand. Neither made any further comment on the agreement.

Voulgarakis has said there will be no trade-off with the Getty in exchange for the works, which Athens has claimed for more than a decade. But he did not rule out the possibility of Greece lending artifacts to the museum or organizing exhibitions there in the future.

Wednesday's signing came after an informal agreement in December for the works' return.

In September, the museum returned two stone sculptures dating to the sixth and the fourth centuries B.C. following pressure from Athens, which has launched an aggressive campaign for the return of looted Greek antiquities held in museums and private collections abroad.

These are on display at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.

The two works to be returned next month are among thousands of ancient artifacts lost to smugglers in recent decades.

The fourth century B.C. wreath is decorated with sprays of gold leaves and flowers inlaid with colored glass paste and — according to Greek authorities — was illegally excavated in the province of Macedonia. Designed as a burial gift, it was probably made shortly after the death of the Macedonian warrior-king Alexander the Great.

The marble statue, which lacks its head, lower arms and legs, is of a young woman and is a type widespread in southern Greece and the Aegean Sea islands from the mid-seventh to the late sixth centuries B.C.

Under Greek law all antiquities found in the country are state property.

A Greek prosecutor has brought criminal charges against a former Getty curator, Marion True, over the sale of the gold wreath, which the museum bought for US$1.15 million (€900,000) in 1993.

Another four people were charged with illegally excavating, exporting and selling the artifact.

True, who denies any wrongdoing, was the Getty antiquities curator from 1986 to 2005, when she was asked to retire. She was responsible for recommending what objects the museum should buy from private dealers and at public auctions.

Last year, police raided a Greek island villa belonging to True and seized several unregistered antiquities.

True is on trial in Rome for allegedly having knowingly purchased stolen artifacts for the museum from Italy.

Prehistoric Romeo and Juliet discovered

Source: AP via Yahoo! News

By ARIEL DAVID, Associated Press Writer

ROME - They died young and, by the looks of it, in love. Two 5,000-year-old skeletons found locked in an embrace near the city where Shakespeare set the star-crossed tale "Romeo and Juliet" have sparked theories the remains of a far more ancient love story have been found.

Archaeologists unearthed the skeletons dating back to the late Neolithic period outside Mantua, 25 miles south of Verona, the city of Shakespeare's story of doomed love.

Buried between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago, the prehistoric pair are believed to have been a man and a woman and are thought to have died young, because their teeth were found intact, said Elena Menotti, the archaeologist who led the dig.

"As far as we know, it's unique," Menotti told The Associated Press by telephone from Milan. "Double burials from the Neolithic are unheard of, and these are even hugging."

Archaeologists digging in the region have found some 30 burial sites, all single, as well as the remains of prosperous villages filled with artifacts made of flint, pottery and animal horns.

Although the Mantua pair strike an unusual and touching pose, archaeologists have found other prehistoric burials in which the dead hold hands or have other contact, said Luca Bondioli, an anthropologist at Rome's National Prehistoric and Ethnographic Museum.

Bondioli, who was not involved in the Mantua dig, said the find has "more of an emotional than a scientific value." But it does highlight how the relationship people have with each other and with death has not changed much from the period in which humanity first settled in villages, learning to farm the land and tame animals, he said.

"The Neolithic is a very formative period for our society," he said. "It was when the roots of our religious sentiment were formed."

Menotti said the burial was "a ritual, but we have to find out what it means."

Experts might never determine the exact nature of the pair's relationship, but Menotti said she had little doubt it was born of a deep sentiment.

"It was a very emotional discovery," she said. "From thousands of years ago we feel the strength of this love. Yes, we must call it love."

The couple's burial site was located Monday during construction work for a factory in the outskirts of Mantua. Alongside the couple, archaeologists found flint tools, including arrowheads and a knife, Menotti said.

Experts will now study the artifacts and the skeletons to determine the burial site's age and how old the two were when they died, she said. The finds will then go on display at Mantua's Archaeological Museum.

Establishing the cause of death could prove almost impossible, unless they were killed by a debilitating disease, a knife or something else that might have left marks on the bones, Menotti said.

The two bodies, which cuddle closely while facing each other on their sides, were probably buried at the same time, an indication of a possible sudden and tragic death, Bondioli said.

He said DNA testing could determine whether the two were related, "but that still leaves other hypotheses; the Romeo and Juliet possibility is just one of many."

Trojan War puppetry

This is really cool!

Trojan War Photography

Thanks to John Younger for pointing this out at Aegeanet.

‘Scrap metal’ piece is rare Roman coin

Source: Gazette & Herald

By Gordon Simpson

A ROMAN coin buried in the depths of Malmesbury's Athelstan Museum has been unearthed.

Volunteers auditing the museum's collection discovered the small, corroded piece of metal last week.

Unsure of what it was, they sent it to Wiltshire County Council's conservation department, where it was identified as a Roman Denarius coin.

Friends of Athelstan Museum chairman Roger Griffin said it was further evidence of the Roman presence in the town.

"The coin was one that we found while doing an audit of the collection," he said.

"It had been taken in by the former curator, when the museum was run by North Wiltshire District Council, but nothing was done with it.
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"It looked a rather unprepossessing piece of scrap metal.

"The person who turned it up came to me and asked what we should do with it.

"It was almost a case of throwing it away, it was that unpromising.

"But we sent it to the county council's conservation department and they worked on it and found it's a Roman Denarius.

"It's quite an uncommon one, because they were unable to say which particular emperor was on it.

"They have taken photos of it, which will be sent to the British Museum, to get it positively identified.

"It's quite small, not much bigger than a five pence piece.

"We are very excited about it, because it was another treasure sitting there that nobody appreciated."

Mr Griffin's group took over the museum from the district council, which still owns the collection, in April last year.

Over 7,000 visitors have passed through the museum's doors since then.

It is the second time in a matter of months that a coin discovered in the town has caused excitement.

In November, an eighth century Saxon sceatta was found during the excavation of a new cable trench in Abbey Row.

Archaeologist Steve George, who was keeping a watching brief on the work in the Gloucester Street and Abbey Row area, found the silver coin.

Alexander's Afghan gold

Source: Al-Ahram Weekly

After establishing the Egyptian port city of Alexandria in 331 BC, Alexander the Great founded Greek garrison cities across Asia, including Afghanistan. His legacy is on show in a new Paris exhibition, writes David Tresilian

While not drawing quite the crowds making their way to the Grand Palais for Tr?sors engloutis d'Egypte, an exhibition of mostly Ptolemaic artefacts -- "submerged treasures" -- discovered off the coast of Alexandria and reviewed in Al-Ahram Weekly on 14 December, Afghanistan, les tr?sors retrouv?s across Paris at the Mus?e Guimet should nevertheless be on the itinerary of every visitor to the French capital.

This exhibition features discoveries of international importance made by French archaeological missions in Afghanistan over the course of the last century, most of which have never been seen before outside the country. In what is being seen as quite a coup both for the Mus?e Guimet, an institution specialising in south and south-east Asian art, and for the French capital, the exhibition allows visitors to gain their first glimpses of material that not only has never been lent before by the Afghan National Museum in Kabul, but that was also considered lost during the decade of civil war that wracked Afghanistan following the withdrawal of Soviet forces in 1989, destroying much of the country as it did so.

The material includes the famous "Bactrian gold" discovered by joint French and Afghan archaeologists in northern Afghanistan shortly before Soviet forces moved into the country in 1979. This material, long thought lost, survived the later civil war locked in the vaults of the National Bank in Kabul, where it was "rediscovered" following the US-led invasion in October 2001. It also includes Hellenistic objects from excavations carried out at the site of the ancient city of Ai Khanoum north of Kabul and Hellenistic and Indian materials found at Begram (Bagram).

Taken as a whole, Afghanistan, les tr?sors retrouv?s is one of the most important archaeological exhibitions to have visited the French capital for years, and it is the only opportunity European and international visitors will have to view this material before it moves onto the US leg of its world tour in April 2007. It is a fine successor to Afghanistan, une histoire mill?naire (Afghanistan: A Timeless History), an exhibition of mostly Graeco-Buddhist Afghan materials brought together in the wake of the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas by the Taliban, also at the Mus?e Guimet and reviewed in the Weekly in March 2002.

The exhibition is divided into three parts, the first of which displays materials discovered at Ai Khanoum by successive French archaeological missions, providing insights into the functioning of this Hellenistic garrison city founded following Alexander the Great's conquest of the area in the late fourth century BC. Alexander's epic journeys took him from his native Macedonia in northern Greece to the plains of the western Punjab in what is now Pakistan, destroying the Persian Empire as he did so, as well as through Anatolia, the Levant and to Egypt, where he founded the port city of Alexandria and consulted the oracle of Amun at Siwa.

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Earliest Semitic Text Revealed In Egyptian Pyramid Inscription

Source: Science Daily

The first public revelation of the earliest continuous Semitic text ever deciphered has taken place at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The presentation was made by Prof. Richard Steiner, professor of Semitic languages and literature at Yeshiva University in New York, in a lecture entitled "Proto-Canaanite Spells in the Pyramid Texts: a First Look at the History of Hebrew in the Third Millennium B.C.E." The lecture was sponsored by the Academy of the Hebrew Language in cooperation with the Hebrew University and the World Union of Jewish Studies.

Prof. Steiner, a past fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University and a member of the Academy of the Hebrew Language, has deciphered a number of Semitic texts in various Egyptian scripts over the past 25 years. In his Hebrew University lecture, he provided the interpretation for Semitic passages in Egyptian texts that were discovered more than a century ago, inscribed on the subterranean walls of the pyramid of King Unas at Saqqara in Egypt. The pyramid dates from the 24th century B.C.E., but Egyptologists agree that the texts are older. The dates proposed for them range from the 25th to the 30th centuries B.C.E. No continuous Semitic texts from this period have ever been deciphered before.

The passages, serpent spells written in hieroglyphic characters, had puzzled scholars who tried to read them as if they were ordinary Egyptian texts. In August, 2002, Prof. Steiner received an email message from Robert Ritner, professor of Egyptology at the University of Chicago, asking whether any of them could be Semitic. "I immediately

recognized the Semitic words for 'mother snake,'" said Steiner. "Later it became clear that the surrounding spells, composed in Egyptian rather than Semitic, also speak of the mother snake, and that the Egyptian and Semitic texts elucidate each other."

Although written in Egyptian characters, the texts turned out to be composed in the Semitic language spoken by the Canaanites in the third millennium B.C.E., a very archaic form of the languages later known as Phoenician and Hebrew. The Canaanite priests of the ancient city of Byblos, in present-day Lebanon, provided these texts to the kings of Egypt.

The port city of Byblos was of vital importance for the ancient Egyptians. It was from there that they imported timber for construction and resin for mummification. The new discovery shows that they also imported magical spells to protect royal mummies against poisonous snakes that were thought to understand Canaanite. Although the

Egyptians viewed their culture as far superior to that of their neighbors, their morbid fear of snakes made them open to the borrowing of Semitic magic.

"This finding should be of great interest to cultural historians," said Prof. Steiner. "Linguists, too, will be interested in these texts. They show that Proto-Canaanite, the common ancestor of Phoenician, Moabite, Ammonite and Hebrew, existed already in the third millennium B.C.E as a language distinct from Aramaic, Ugaritic and the other Semitic languages. And they provide the first direct evidence for the pronunciation of Egyptian in this early period." The texts will also be important to biblical scholars, since they shed light on several rare words in the Bible, he said.

"This is a sensational discovery," said Moshe Bar-Asher, Bialik Professor of Hebrew Language at the Hebrew University and president of the Academy of the Hebrew Language. "It is the earliest attestation of a Semitic language, in general, and Proto-Canaanite, in particular."

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Nero's Golden Palace to partly reopen

Source: AP via Yahoo! News

By MARTA FALCONI, Associated Press Writer Wed Jan 31, 7:39 PM ET

ROME - Nero's Golden Palace will partly reopen to visitors next week, offering rare insight into archaeologists' efforts to preserve the first-century imperial residence from decay and humidity.

Visitors will have access to half of the palace, wandering through a maze of underground passageways, officials said Wednesday. They can also climb a 43-foot scaffolding and take a close look at the building's frescoed vaulted ceilings, as restorers and archaeologists work to clean the paint.

"People will have the chance to get to know the monument itself and the efforts to maintain and preserve it," said archaeologist Irene Pignatelli, leading a press tour of the palace. "The aim of this type of visit is to show how the residence can be assaulted (by weather), how to intervene and what happens after the restoration."

Guided tours or no more than 20 people start on Feb. 6. Visitors are required to wear helmets as they walk through the largely underground complex.

The sumptuous residence — also known by its Latin name, Domus Aurea — rose over the ruins of a fire that destroyed much of Rome in A.D. 64 and was completed in A.D. 68, the year the unpopular Nero committed suicide amid a revolt.

After an 18-year restoration, the palace reopened in June 1999. Two years later, it was briefly closed to the public after part of the ceiling collapsed. The Domus Aurea closed again in 2005 after days of heavy rains threatened to cause the collapse of parts of the building.

The palace has been plagued by structural problems, including humidity. In the winter, humidity in the palace ranges from 82 percent to 98 percent, Pignatelli said. "You can almost swim in the Domus Aurea."

High humidity causes the walls to break and creates crusting. Algae and fungus are also appearing on the frescoes, she said.

Restorers work to remove some humidity — but not all.

"The frescos would suffer even more if all of a sudden the environment became completely dry again," said Angelo Bottini, the state's top official for archaeology in Rome. Bottini added that further restoration is being planned, especially on the external structures of the palace, to remove earth and tree roots.

The vaulted ceilings were once encrusted with pearls and covered with ivory — luxuries that were funded by heavy taxation that Nero levied on Rome's population, said Pignatelli. Marble and other precious materials were imported from Greece, Egypt and other parts of Asia, while inhabitants of the area were expropriated to build the 198 acres residence.

"We have to imagine this place as full of light, luxurious, with precious colorful materials and golden leaves," Pignatelli said. "Today, we only see what time and decay have given back to us."

Pax Minoica in Aegean

Source: ekathimerini


Karpathos excavations reveal settlements safe from piracy

New and interesting information on the proliferation of Pax Minoica (the Minoan Peace) has come to light from a Thrace University mission to the Aegean which examined a number of newly found settlements of Minoan character, built and destroyed by earthquakes during the so-called Palace period (circa 1800-1500 BC).

Some of these settlements are located near the sea and may have served as ports, while the others are located 400-800 meters from the coast but maintained complete visual contact with the sea. “This illustrates – beyond the maritime activities (fishing and commercial) and the contact with Crete – the security the Minoans felt, probably because of King Minos’s legendary victory over piracy,” said Associate Professor Manolis Melas, who headed the excavations.

The research, which began a year ago, is part of a program run by the University of Thrace and is estimated to last for four more years. The focus is on the systematic examination of the ground surface in Afiarti, a lush plain in southern Karpathos. “Other than archaeology, the program also focuses on geology, geomorphology, ecology and ethnography,” explained Melas. “It is looking to examine a particular type of island environment where we can map changes over time in a number of areas, such as the natural environment, history and the material aspects of a civilization.

“The central aim of the investigation is to study the relationship between the natural and human environment, especially during the Minoan period.” This is necessary, says the professor, in order to understand why the settlements were built as they were and where they were, in relation to the use they made of the natural resources at their disposal, the strategic positions of the settlements and their sociopolitical organization.

The Afiarti Plain, says Melas, can be separated into three ecological zones, all more or less parallel to the coast and facing east. Evidence suggests that the area was constantly cultivated for farming, to a greater or lesser degree, depending on what crop was being grown and the availability of water.

“Fertile land was a very valuable asset and this is why its use for anything other than farming was avoided,” said Melas.

Land use, according to the archaeologist, was always worked out in advance and human habitation on it was almost always limited – especially during the Minoan period – to rocky, arid areas of the land that were normally located on a rise (low hills or on amphitheatrical ridges), so that they would have solid foundations and a wide view that would ensure control over the area and safety. Evidence of this has been discovered in two zones in Minoan, Roman and earlier settlements.

What does Melas think the future holds? He says he expects several more similar settlements to come to light, which will “establish in a more solid way the mythical, historical tradition of the Minoan civilization’s domination of the sea and the peace it brought to the Aegean.”

Gothic version of Thermopylae

A different take on the legendary story of the 300 Spartans will premiere in two months



The film, starring Scottish actor Gerard Butler as Leonidas, is a frame-by-frame screen adaptation of the comic book of ‘300,’ which circulated in five issues in 1998.


By Panayiotis Panagopoulos - Kathimerini

In another two months, Greeks are sure to witness another clash between the big movie industry and local critics. Following Oliver Stone’s “Alexander,” Ang Lee’s “Brokeback Mountain” and Wolfgang Petersen’s “Troy,” there are plenty of people here who feel they know what should and shouldn’t be allowed to be shown on the silver screen.

This time round the debate will revolve around a number: 300. But, this is not just any number: It refers to the 300 Spartan warriors led by Leonidas in the 480 BC battle of Thermopylae, told in a Gothic heavy-metal version of the tale, directed by Zack Snyder (“Dawn of the Dead”) and designed by Miller, the man behind great comics such as “Sin City.”

How many Greeks are prepared to see a Xerxes who is black, bald and covered in body and face piercings, Ephialtes as a hunchback and rhinos running across Thermopylae to the music of Nine-Inch Nails? The film may not be 100 percent true to history but it is 100 percent true to Miller’s style. He says that despite the liberties he has taken, he is quite familiar with the story of Leonidas and has tremendous respect for it. “There is a scene where the Persian emissary asks for a gift of land and water. A Spartan leads him to a well and throws him in. This scene, like most others in the book, is exactly the same as it is told,” says Miller. “The Spartans behaved this way to tyrants.” Why did he choose to tell this chapter of Greek history? “Because it’s the best story I have ever laid my hands on.”

The comic book of “300” circulated in five issues in 1998. Five years later, it was slated to become a film, with Snyder in the director’s chair and Miller acting as consultant and coproducer. The film is a frame-by-frame screen adaptation of the comic books. This accounts for the fact that the trailer, which has already gone into circulation (on www.300themovie.warnerbros.com), has such a strong sense of being drawn, with effects that resemble video games. The film “300,” starring Scottish actor Gerard Butler, is not aimed at telling a historically accurate story. It is a spectacle, and an impressive one at that, that uses every new technology at its disposal and simply bases itself on the story of Leonidas.

The film’s budget reached an impressive $60 million and it was shot exclusively with the actors performing against digital screens on which the effects were added later. The digitally created image of the film has also been made into a video game titled “300: March to Glory,” which is to be launched on the same date as the film, while stores will soon have action figures of the characters as well.

There is little doubt that “300” will have Greek purists screaming for blood as soon as it hits movie theaters, but whether they like this style of film or not, the genre is here to stay. “Sin City 2,” the sequel to the noir thriller directed by Miller and Robert Rodriguez – with the help of Quentin Tarantino as special guest director – made Miller a household name.

In the world of comics, however, Miller, now aged 49, has nothing to prove; his status is already legendary. World literature and Japanese cinema, especially the masterpieces of Akira Kurosawa, have deeply influenced the American artist’s work and this is reflected in his dark, personalized style of drawing and his references to the art of the manga Japanese comics.

Born in Maryland and raised in Vermont, Miller was like so many other teenagers of his time, growing up on the stories of superheroes such as Batman and Superman. However, even though he loved these comic books, he was annoyed by the heroes’ one-dimensional characters. For several years, he put down comics and began watching movies and reading books instead. Miller’s earliest foray into the world of television was in 1978 for “The Twilight Zone.” His first hit came when he wrote and penciled several series of Marvel Comic’s “Daredevil,” the film version of which, starring Ben Affleck, was a box-office flop. Even though Miller had not created Daredevil himself, he nurtured and developed him further.

Miller’s first independent work was the hit miniseries “Ronin” in the mid-1980s, while in 1986 he relaunched Batman and a series of stories about how the Caped Crusader survives the death of Robin. Ever since, Miller has continued to develop this character, updating him constantly and involving him in contemporary stories.

However, Miller’s success is not just seen in the work he has signed himself, but in the work of others who are inspired by him as well. The new-era Batman, as presented and directed by Christopher Nolan in the 2005 “Batman Begins,” was clearly drawn from Miller’s Gothic atmosphere, in contrast to previous Batman films that were glossier and glitzier.

Last year’s “V for Vendetta,” directed by James McTeigue and based on the comic book by David Lloyd, gives the impression that it would not have reached such a big, wide audience had it not been preceded by “Sin City” by just a year.

Even the clean-cut Spider-Man, whose latest film is coming out in the spring, will this time be a bit darker and moodier, in step with the public demand for a darker atmosphere.

Meteorites from under the pyramids

Source: Science and Scholarship in Poland

Samples of rock and fragments of pyramid walls brought from Egypt are being examined at the AGH University of Science and Technology. It is very likely that meteorites had dropped near the pyramids. The material was collected during the December expedition of geologists. Another aim of the expedition was to study some geoglyphics, i.e. gigantic pictures drawn on the ground.

According to "Dziennik Polski", the scientists were intrigued by some unusual structures, which resembled craters formed after meteorites hit the ground. They noticed them when analysing satellite pictures of areas north of the great pyramids in Giza.

“We found very solid metallic fragments in this area. These are probably meteorite fragments” – says Prof. Maciej Pawlikowski from the Mineralogy, Petrography and Geochemistry department at AGH University, who was the supervisor and main organiser of the geological expedition. “We hope that further tests on the patina covering the rocks, which formed during the meteorites’ fall, will help us to establish the exact time of the event” – the scientists said.

The aim of the expedition was also to study the geoglyphics, i.e. gigantic pictures on the ground. Located east of Cairo, they form two several-kilometre-long curved lines, which almost meet in one point. On satellite pictures, they look like a huge drawing of a scarab.

The origins of these mysterious structures remain unknown. “It is not known, whether they are made by man or a natural land formation. Up to now, there have been no publications on the subject” – said Prof. Pawlikowski.

The results of the Krakow geologists’ expedition do not confirm the research of American scientists, who claimed that the pyramids were built from prefabricates.

Society bought the sites it intended to excavate

Source: ekathimerini

“One of the most important moments in the history of the Greek state was the founding of the Archaeological Society in Athens in January 1837,” said its current general secretary, Vassilios Petrakos, a member of the Athens Academy.

“Inspired by the romantic classicism of an overseas Greek, Constantine Bellios, a group of scholars headed by Alexandros Rizos Rangavis and Kyriakos Pittakis founded a society for ancient artifacts, the country and science,” Petrakos added.

Their main purpose was to discover ancient ruins in Athens and to preserve them as well as possible.

During the first half of the 19th century, only low-rise buildings went up in Athens and so the society wasn’t concerned about overbuilding.

Because it did not have state powers, the society had to buy the sites it excavated.

Their work was visible for all to see. At the Acropolis for example, medieval buildings and others dating from the Turkish occupation were demolished.

Heinrich Schliemann paid for the Frankish tower at the Propylaea to be demolished. Excavations on the southern side of the Acropolis reached from the Asclepeio to the Herod Atticus Theater.

At Kerameikos, the gravestone of Hipparete, the granddaughter of Alcibiades, was found.

In Elefsina, houses and football fields were bought to save the Temple of Demeter, and the famous excavation of the five royal tombs at Mycenae was begun at Schliemann’s own expense.

The Archaeological Society, apart from the battles it fought, often bought shares; they did so notably in Tanagra, where antiquities smugglers rented properties so they could dig undisturbed – and legally.

The society bought the antiquities in order to save them. In other words, it was often forced to make many such purchases in order to ensure valuable artifacts at risk of being spirited out of the country stayed in Greece.

A typical example was the marble statue of Poseidon from the island of Milos.

Bringing ancient civilization to light

The Greek Archaeological Society marks its 170th anniversary of excavations by featuring a series of vibrant exhibitions over the next two years

By Iota Sykka - Kathimerini

Without the excavations it has carried out in Athens and elsewhere in Greece, our perception of the country’s archaeological map would be quite different. Many monuments would have been destroyed and information on others would have been limited.

Athens still has remnants of ancient civilization – including the Acropolis, Philopappou Hill, the Roman Forum and Hadrian’s Library, the Pnyx, Observatory Hill, Kerameikos and Lycabettus – thanks to the Greek Archaeological Society, which has also excavated at Mycenae, Sesklo and Epidaurus.

The society has every good reason to celebrate this year, its 170th anniversary. It’s an opportunity to look back at some of its work, which is recorded in its archives and library and is continually being updated. These rich files are considered comparable to that of the great old foreign archaeological schools here, including the French, British and American schools.

Four interesting archaeological exhibitions will be taking place over the next two years, beginning this month with a show on the Cycladic civilization in the basement of the society’s headquarters at 22 Panepistimiou Street. For the first time, drawings by the archaeologist Anastassios Orlandos will be shown, along with impressive watercolors of ancient sites. There will also be an exhibit with images of excavations at Akrotiri on the island of Santorini, marking the 40th anniversary of the work begun by Spyros Marinatos.

Worshippers of Zeus demand access to temple for ceremony

Source: ekathimerini

Plan to defy ban by Culture Ministry on entering Athens archaeological site

After all these centuries, Zeus may have a few thunderbolts left. A tiny group of worshippers plans a rare ceremony tomorrow to honor the ancient Greek gods, at the 1,800-year-old temple of Olympian Zeus.

Greece’s Culture Ministry has declared the central Athens site off-limits, but worshippers say they’ll defy the decision.

“These are our temples and they should be used by followers of our religion,” said Doreta Peppa, head of the Athens-based Ellinais, a group campaigning to revive ancient religion.

“Of course we will go ahead with the event... we will enter the site legally. We will issue a call for (world) peace, who can be opposed to that?” Peppa said the ceremony will be held in honor of Zeus, king of the ancient gods, but did not give other details.

The daily Ethnos newspaper, citing the group’s application to the Culture Ministry to use the site, said the 90-minute event would include hymns, dancers, torchbearers, and worshippers in ancient costume.

Greece’s ancient religion is believed to have several hundred official followers, mainly middle-aged and elderly academics, lawyers and other professionals, typically with a keen interest in ancient history and a dislike for the Greek Orthodox Church.

Ancient rituals are re-enacted every two years at Olympia, in southern Greece, where the flame-lighting ceremony is held for the Summer and Winter Olympic Games – but the event is not regarded as being religious and actresses are used to pose as high priestesses. Last year, the Culture Ministry, fearing damage to monuments, blocked an initiative to hold an international track meet at Olympia. A panel of ministry experts ruled against tomorrow’s ancient ceremony in Athens on similar grounds.

“Ancient sites are not available for this kind of event... the (panel) ruled unanimously against the proposal,” ministry official Eliza Kyrtsoglou said. It was not clear whether the government had plans to block the worshippers.

Revivalists of the ancient Greek religion are split into rival organizations which trade insults over the Internet.

Peppa’s group is at odds with ultra-nationalists who view a revival as a way to protect Greek identity from foreign influences.

The worshippers also face another obstacle: Greece’s powerful Orthodox Church.

About 97 percent of native-born Greeks are baptized Orthodox Christian, and the Church regards ancient religious practices as pagan. Representatives of the Church in the past have not attended flame ceremonies at Olympia because reference is made to Apollo, the ancient god of music and light.

Christianity took hold in Greece in the 4th century after Roman Emperor Constantine’s conversion. Emperor Theodosius wiped out the last vestige of the Olympian gods when he abolished the Olympic Games in AD 394. The modern revival of the Olympiad maintains a slender link to ancient ceremonies.

“Christianity did not prevail without bloodshed,” said Peppa, a novelist and historical writer. “After 16 centuries of negativity toward us, we’ve gotten something in our favor.” Peppa’s group, dedicated to reviving worship of the 12 ancient gods, was founded last year and won a court battle for official state recognition of the ancient Greek religion.

Ellinais is demanding government approval for its downtown offices to be registered as a place of worship and is threatening further court action unless that permission is granted. “The court decision is clear but the (government) has done nothing to put it into effect,” Peppa said. “There should be respect for people who want to express their religious feelings in a different way, not the typical Orthodox or Christian way. We should not be stopped or denied our rights.” (AP)

Temple Aqueduct and Ritual Bath Excavated Opposite Temple Mount

Source: Arutz Sheva

By Ezra HaLevi

Excavations being conducted opposite the Western Wall Plaza have uncovered an aqueduct that brought water to the Holy Temple, as well as a ritual bath from that period.


The never-before-excavated area is situated behind the Western Wall police station, adjacent to the plaza where millions of worshipers and tourists come each year to visit the Western Wall and Temple Mount.

The new archaeological find uncovers a missing link in the ancient water system, known as the "Lower Aqueduct." This system channeled water from Solomon’s Pools near Bethlehem (located several miles south of Jerusalem) directly to the national focal point of Jewish worship - the Temple Mount.

Solomon’s pools, situated just north of the modern Jewish town of Efrat, cover an area of about 7 acres and can hold three million gallons of water. A lengthy aqueduct conveyed the water from the lowest pool through Bethlehem, across the Gihon valley, along the western slope of the Tyropoeon valley, and into the cisterns underneath the Temple Mount. Today, the water from the pools reaches only Bethlehem due to the destruction of the aqueducts.

Current plans for the partition wall will leave Solomon’s Pools outside the area of Jewish sovereignty.

The plastered hewn-stone mikva (ritual bath) unearthed at the excavation is from the Second Temple period. It was originally situated in the foundation level of a private home during the time of the Second Temple. The ritual bath was damaged at a later date when the bedrock cliff opposite it was hewn into a vertical wall that rose up to a maximum height of about thirty feet.

The most extensive remains of the period are those of a Roman-Byzantine colonnaded street – the Eastern Cardo. Included in that area is a covered stoa, a row of shops and several artifacts.

The street appears on a 6th century map known as the Medaba Map and is known as the Eastern Cardo or the Valley Cardo. The lavish colonnaded street began at the Damascus Gate in the north and led south, running the length of the channel in the Tyropoeon Valley. Sections of this street were revealed in the past in the northern part of the Old City, at a depth of about four meters (12 feet) below the pavement. The full eleven-meter (33 foot) width of the original road was exposed in the present excavation for the first time.

“The street was paved with large flagstones that were set in place diagonally, in the customary method of the Roman world, which was probably meant to prevent wagons from slipping,” Shlomit Wexler-Bdolah, the director of the excavations, explained. She added that a drainage system was installed below the flagstones.

To the west of the street was a covered stoa that was six meters wide, and beyond it was a row of shops set inside cells whose walls were hewn out of the bedrock cliff. A large base of a magnificent corner column has just been exposed in the eastern side of the street and may be part of a building that stood there, or an intersection with an entrance to the road that runs to the east.

The Antiquities Authority is carrying out the excavations of the 80 by 200 foot area west of the Western Wall at the request of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation. The area will soon be the site of the Western Wall Heritage Center.

Indiana Jones to Start Production in 2007!!!!

It's finally official!!!

Source: IndianaJones.com

In a long-awaited announcement, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg revealed today that the fourth installment of Indiana Jones will begin production in June 2007. Harrison Ford returns in his role as the daring Dr. Jones for the new adventure. The film will be produced by Lucasfilm Ltd., directed by Steven Spielberg and released by Paramount Pictures throughout the world in May 2008.

The screenplay has been written by David Koepp.

Spielberg states "George, Harrison and I are all very excited. We feel that the script was well worth the wait. We hope it delivers everything you'd expect from our history with Indiana Jones."

The film will be produced by Frank Marshall with George Lucas and Kathy Kennedy as executive producers. "Working with Steven, Frank, Kathy and the Indy crew is like working with family," states Lucas. "These films are such great fun to make. I'm looking forward to reuniting with the team and starting this new journey."

The film has plenty of action in store for the rogue archeologist. Harrison Ford comments "I'm delighted to be back in business with my old friends. I don't know if the pants still fit but I know the hat will. "

It will be shot on undisclosed locations around the world as well as in the United States.

For more than 25 years, audiences have been enraptured by the exploits of Indiana Jones. The film trilogy -- Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade -- garnered 14 Academy Award nominations, won 7 Oscars, and grossed over $1,182,000,000 at the box office. The films are among the most popular films ever made and have become a legendary part of film history.

It was about time! :-)

Dynasty revealed

Source: Al-Ahram Weekly

A quartz stela unearthed in the Avenue of Ram-headed Sphinxes in Luxor has changed what we know of the 20th dynasty, writes Nevine El-Aref

For more than three centuries, since historians and Egyptologists began to write the first history in modern times of the 20th dynasty of Ancient Egypt, compiled from hieroglyphic texts drawn on papyri or engraved on tombs and temple walls, the history of the dynasty has remained virtually unchanged. However, this is archaeology, and in archaeology nothing can be said to be fixed. A newly-unearthed stela in the avenue lined with ram-headed sphinxes that once connected the temples of Luxor and Karnak, along which official and religious processions passed for centuries, has thrown further light on this ancient era.

The new information not only illustrates the growing power of the priesthood during the New Kingdom, but also changes some concepts of the 20th dynasty, especially the facts and figures relating to its founder, the Pharaoh Setnakhte.

The stela is a quartzite religious relief engraved in two parts; the upper one featuring Setnakhte wearing the blue crown and kneeling before the god Amun- Re, who holds the key of life in his right hand and the waset symbol in his left hand. The pharaoh is offering the god the feather of justice, while the goddess Mut, standing in the background, raises her left hand as a symbol of protection and holds the key of life in her right. The lower part bears 17 lines of hieroglyphic text followed by a scene showing Bakenkhunsu, the High Priest of Amun-Re, wearing his religious robes and praying.

Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), described the discovery as one of the most important finds of 2006. "It adjusts the history of the 20th dynasty and reveals more about the life of Bakenkhunsu," Hawass says.

Ever since the discovery several years ago of his four limestone statues, now exhibited at the Egyptian Museum, nothing was known about Bakenkhunsu except for his title as the High Priest of Amun-Re. Now, Hawass says, after deciphering the hieroglyphic text, the priest's family members and relatives have been identified. The priest's construction achievements at Karnak Temple's Great Hall can also be recognised. The text mentions that Bakenkhunsu carried out and oversaw several construction projects at the Great Hall.

Luxor monuments director Mansour Borayek told Al-Ahram Weekly that early studies on the stela revealed that it was a very well-preserved Ancient Egyptian object carved for Bakenkhunsu during the fourth year of Setnakhte's reign. It was made to be installed in the Temple of Amun-Re at Karnak. This date contradicts with the accepted record, which says Setnakhte ruled Egypt for only three years. According to the new information provided by the stela, Setnakhte's reign certainly lasted for four years, and may have continued for longer. Hence, early constructions at the Temple of Amun-Re in Karnak could be attributed to Setnakhte and completed by his son and successor Ramesses III, who also built a mortuary temple at Medinet Habu on Luxor's west bank.

Ramesses III was arguably the last of the great pharaohs to sit on the throne of Egypt. His reign was a time of considerable turmoil throughout the Mediterranean that also saw the Trojan wars, the fall of Mycenae and a great movement of displaced people from all over the region that was to wreak havoc; even toppling empires.

The stela is now being subjected to comprehensive studies in an attempt to reveal more of the 20th dynasty's secrets and, according to what may be discovered, to rewrite its history.

The stela was found accidentally by an Egyptian excavation team working on a project to reconstruct the ram-headed sphinx avenue in Luxor.

Although the 20th dynasty was founded by Setnakhte, its most important member was Ramesses III, who modelled his career after the great pharaoh of the previous dynasty, Ramesses II. The 20th is considered to be the last dynasty of the New Kingdom of Egypt, and was followed by the Third Intermediate Period.

The era of these rulers is notable for the beginning of the systematic robbing of royal tombs. Many surviving administrative documents from this period are records of investigations and punishment for these crimes, especially in the reigns of Ramesses IX and Ramesses XI.

Unfortunately the bickering between the royal heirs that had been a feature the 19th dynasty continued in the 20th, with the winner being the strongest. This group of heirs was described by Diodorus Siculus as "confirmed sluggards devoted only to indulgence and luxury," without "any deed worthy of historical note". However, at this time Egypt was increasingly beset by a series of droughts, below- normal flood levels of the Nile, famine, civil unrest and official corruption -- all of which would limit the managerial abilities of any king. The power of the last pharaoh, Ramesses XI, grew so weak that in the south the High Priests of Amun at Thebes became the de facto rulers of Upper Egypt, while Smendes controlled Lower Egypt even before Ramesses XI's death. Smendes went on to found the 21st dynasty at Tanis.

'Priceless' Roman find in farmer's field

Source: Manchester Eveing News

Gary Skentelbery

A RARE solid silver Roman bracelet unearthed in a farmer's field has been declared treasure trove.

The snake-shaped ornament could be the only one of its kind in the world, making it priceless, it was revealed at a Stockport coroner's hearing.

Archaeologist James Balme didn't even need his metal detector to make the discovery, gleaming in the soil in the field at Lymm near Warrington.

The ancient jewellery will now be valued by a panel of experts at the British Museum in London.

Warrington Museum has already expressed an interest in displaying the item and James will consider selling it - if the price is right.

He will share the proceeds with farmer Tony Cookson, who owns the land on which James made his important find. James, who says it is impossible to put a value on the find, has previously discovered an unknown Roman fort and numerous prehistoric sites in the area, where he has recovered large quantities of prehistoric flint tools and weapons.

All his finds have been recorded by the portable antiquities scheme, the official body working in conjunction with the British Museum.

His discovery has provided new, exciting information about the wealth and social standing of the Roman citizens who lived and farmed in the area almost 2,000 years ago. READ FULL STORY

Clues found for early Europeans

Source: BBC News
An archaeological find in Russia has shed light on the migration of modern humans into Europe.

Artefacts uncovered at the Kostenki site, south of Moscow, suggest modern humans were at this spot about 45,000 years ago.

The first moderns may have entered Europe through a different route than was previously thought, the international team reports.

The research is published in the journal Science.

"Until now, it appeared as though the earliest presence of modern humans in Europe was in south central Europe, in places like Bulgaria and Greece," explained John Hoffecker, author on the paper and a research scientist at the University of Colorado at Boulder, US.

"This reflects an entry from the Levant (eastern shores of the Mediterranean) just before 44,000 years ago." READ FULL STORY

Why covet ancient chariots...

Source: The Times

Richard Owen

ITALY Conservationists are campaigning for the return of a unique Etruscan “golden chariot” which is due to form the centrepiece of a new exhibition this Spring at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

The chariot, found in 1902 by a farmer at Monteleone near Spoleto in Umbria, and sold to the Met the next year, dates back to the 6th century BC. It is the star attraction in a collection of antiquities to go on show at the $155 million (£80million) Leon Levy and Shelby White Court at the museum.

Villagers in Monteleone (population 651), say that it was exported illegally. The campaign comes as Italy is stepping up its battle to regain a number of allegedly looted antiquities from institutions including the Met and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

The farmer who found the chariot sold it — for two cows, according to some accounts — to dealers who allegedly smuggled it to New York.

Tito Mazzetta, a lawyer in Atlanta, Georgia, whose family came from Monteleone and who has taken up the case, said the Metropolitan Museum had so far refused to return the chariot, although it “has not produced any documentation to prove its legal provenance”.

Marion True, a former curator of antiquities at the Getty Museum, is currently on trial in Rome for allegedly acquiring stolen artefacts.

Archaeologist finds traces of "humanity's first war" in Syria

Source: Yahoo! News

BERLIN (AFP) - A German archaeologist says he has found relics of "humanity's first war" in the northeast of Syria in the form of clay balls used as ammunition almost 6,000 years ago, Die Zeit weekly said in its edition due for publication on Thursday.

"We have there the oldest example of an offensive war," said Clemens Reichel, who is leading an archaeological dig in the ancient city of Hamoukar, on the border with
Iraq, for the University of Chicago.

Reichel said that the city, whose fortifications were three metres (10 feet) thick, was besieged and reduced to ashes probably by attackers from southern Mesopotamia.

"It was not a little skirmish which took place here," said Reichel, who has been leading the dig since 2003. He spoke of a real "combat zone", to which the some 2,300 balls of clay discovered at the main part of the site bear witness.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Discovered Stone Slab Proved to be Gate of Cambyses' Tomb

Source: Payvand's Iran News

By Maryam Tabeshian

A huge stone slab discovered accidentally last year was proved to have once been the entrance gate to the mausoleum of Cambyses II, son and successor of Cyrus the Great.

Tehran, 13 December 2006 (CHN) -- Agricultural activities by local farmers near the world heritage site of Pasargadae last year resulted in the accidental discovery of a big stone slab bearing some carvings typical of Pasargadae monuments. The discovered slab was recently proved by archeologists to have been the entrance gate to the mausoleum of Cambyses II, son and successor of Cyrus the Great, founder of the Achameneid Empire (550-330 BC).

"A huge stone slab measuring 1.60 meters in height comprised of 5 broken pieces was discovered last March by farmers at a distance of 100 meters from Tall-e Takht and was immediately transferred to Parse-Pasargadae Research Center to be studied by archeologists," said Afshin Yazdani, archeologist of Parse-Pasargadae Research Center.

Tall-e Takht or 'throne hill' is a citadel located at the heart of Pasargadae historical complex, the first dynastic capital of the Achaemenid Empire, founded by Cyrus the Great, in Fars province. Remains of an unfinished tomb denoted to Achaemenid King Cambyses II can be seen close to Tall-e Takht, from which only a wall has survived the ravage of time.

Based on studies by British archeologist David Stronach, the Tomb, also known as Zendan-e Soleiman/Eskandar (Solomon/Alexander Prison), originally consisted of an almost square, 4-meter-high tower in which a solitary, raised room was approached by a projecting monumental stone staircase. It resembles the Achaemenid era monument of Zoroaster's Kaba in Naqsh-e Rostam historical site

According to Yazdani, the stones used in the gate of Cambyses' tomb are very similar to a stone slab discovered 50 years ago by archeologists. At the time, Stronach proposed a theory that the stone belonged to the mausoleum of Cambyses and drew a sketch of the original gate which he believed to have had two leaves, each comprising of 6 rectangular frames. He also drew 3 flowers each having 12 petals on the top and bottom of each frame.

"As Stronach himself was uncertain about his own drawing of the gate, recent discovery of the gate proves his theory wrong. Based on the new studies, it became known that the entrance gate of what is called Tomb of Cambyses was made of two stone leaves each having a 35 by 59 cm frame with three 12-petaled flowers on the top and bottom," explained Yazdani, adding that the height of each door leaf was found to be 1.75 meters - that is 8 centimeters shorter than the height of the wall. Archeologists believe that the gate was made shorter on purpose to allow circulation of air in and out of the mausoleum.

According to the inscriptions of Bisotun historic site, the mausoleum of Cambyses was destroyed by the Mongol invader Geomat who disguised himself as Bardia, King Cambyses' brother and came to power shortly after Cambyses' assassination and razed down Achaemenid temples. Achaemenid King Darius the Great clearly accounts in Bisotun inscription that he restored the Achaemenid temples after murdering Geomat. "Evidence left on the stone gate very well confirms that it was restored during the early days of Darius the Great's reign," added Yazdani.

According to Yazdani, the new findings together with the fact that a similar structure to the mausoleum of Cambyses, Zoroaster's Kaba, was built also by Darius the Great at Naqsh-e Rostam, proved that it was a temple whereas it had previously been variously regarded as either a tomb, or a fire temple, or a depository.

Cambyses was the son and successor of Cyrus the Great who ruled the Persian Empire from the death of his father in 530 BC to his own death in Ecbatane (Syria) eight years later.

During his reign, Cambyses continued the politic of expansion started by his father. First, he took part with his father to the conquest of Babylonia and was named King of Babylon after he captured the city in 539. After rising to the throne, he invaded Egypt in 525 BC, putting an end to the 26th Dynasty of the Pharaohs and beginning a period of Persian rule that covered much of the next two centuries.

Cambyses later personally led a force up the Nile to conquer Ethiopia, but after annexing the north of the country, he ran short of supplies and had to return.

While on his way back from Egypt with his army in 522 BC, Cambyses was assassinated upon order of one of his brothers, Smerdis, which he himself tried to have assassinated. At his death, after a short period during which Smerdis assumed the leadership, more palace struggles led to the rise to the throne of Darius the Great, whose task was to organize such a vast empire.

The mausoleum of the son and successor of Cyrus the Great, Persian King Cambyses II, was also registered with other ancient monuments of Pasargadae historic complex in UNESCO's list or World Heritage List in 1979.

Pope asked to return Greek artifact

Source: IOL

Vatican City - Greece's top religious leader asked Pope Benedict on Thursday to return a piece of the Parthenon in the Vatican Museums, Greek officials said.

Christodoulos, Orthodox archbishop of Athens and of all Greece, made the request during a visit when he and the Pope signed a joint declaration on issues of common concern, such as the defence of life.

According to spokespersons for Christodoulos, the Pope was a bit perplexed by the request, perhaps not knowing that the vast museums he technically owns as sovereign of Vatican City have a fragment of the 5th century BC structure.

He said he would consider the request, they said.

Greece has been campaigning for decades to get back all pieces of the Parthenon held in museums and private collections around the world. The
2 500-year-old Acropolis monument is seen as the epitome of the Golden Age of Athens.

Much of a procession frieze from the Parthenon is in the British Museum as part of a collection known as the Elgin Marbles, after the British ambassador who took them from the Acropolis and transported them to Britain in 1802.

The British Museum has repeatedly turned down requests to return them, saying the marbles are in better care in London, safe from the Athens pollution that damaged those left behind.

Greece hopes a museum being built at the foot of the Acropolis, especially to house the marbles, will be ready in 2007.

Getty Museum to return another two artifacts

Source: ekathimerini


A golden funerary wreath from Macedonia, dating to the 4th century BC, is one of two artifacts that the Los Angeles Getty Museum yesterday agreed to return to Greece. The date of their return was not specified.

The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles has agreed to give back two ancient artifacts whose return Greece has sought for more than a decade, Culture Minister Giorgos Voulgarakis said yesterday.

The pieces – a gold wreath dating to the 4th century BC and a marble statue of a young woman dating to the 6th century BC – are the final two in a list of four objects owned by the Getty which, Greece has long claimed, had been smuggled out of the country before the museum acquired them.

“We have agreed in principle on the return of two ancient objects from the Getty Museum’s collection... that the Greek Culture Ministry has been seeking,” said a joint declaration from the ministry and the LA museum.

The official agreement, to be signed soon, will give details about the date of the handover and include plans for future cooperation between the ministry and the museum, the statement said.

The announcement added that a “collaborative, analytical approach” had also led to the return of two other antiquities from the Getty over the summer and was “the appropriate way to resolve complex ownership claims involving ancient works of art.”

The other two pieces sought by Greece – a 4th-century-BC funeral stele and a 5th-century-BC engraved sculpture – were returned by the Getty in August.

“The way we got the objects back from the Getty is a very good example of how we can reclaim such artifacts,” Culture Minister Giorgos Voulgarakis told a press conference yesterday.

“Athens will now seek to cooperate with the museum in the form of long-term leases of artifacts or joint exhibitions,” Voulgarakis said. “We are not interested in raiding museums but do not want to have antiquities leaving Greece illegally,” he said.

Turkish mayor demands cancellation of Ilisu dam project

Source: AP via International Herald Tribune

VIENNA, Austria: A Turkish official appealed Thursday for the cancellation of a dam project in his country, saying it would destroy cultural heritage and do little to boost economic development.

"Of course we want economic and social development ... but development should not disregard people, nature and history," said Osman Baydemir, president of the Union of South Eastern Anatolia Municipalities and mayor of Diyarbakir.

The Ilisu dam, on the Tigris River 47 kilometers (30 miles) north of the Syrian border, will be one of the largest dams in Turkey and is scheduled to be completed by 2013. A ground breaking ceremony took place in August.

Opponents of the project say it will flood dozens of towns and destroy archaeological treasures including the medieval fortress city of Hasankeyf, which overlooks the Tigris.

"The cultural and historic heritage of Hasankeyf is indescribable. It is not comparable with other places and we have a large responsibility," Baydemir, speaking through a translator, said at a news conference organized by WWF.

Baydemir was in Vienna to lobby against project participation by an Austrian company, Andritz Va Tech Hydro. The company, whose financial involvement totals some €240 million (US$319 million), still needs an export guarantee from the Republic of Austria.

Baydemir argued that funding for the roughly €1.2 billion project should be invested in the region's cities, the construction of an international airport, restoration of cultural heritage sites and tourism.

In prepared English remarks provided later, Baydemir added that 40,000 hectares (98,840 acres) will be affected and that people would be evacuated "without a proper and effective resettlement plan".

Those in favor of the dam say it will create jobs and improve thousands of lives.

Some 40,000 people would benefit from it directly, said Yunus Bayraktar, Turkish project coordinator at a separate news conference at the Turkish Embassy.

Nihat Eri, a Turkish parliamentarian, said Turkey has no choice but to exploit its water resources.

"We have no oil, we have no gas ... the only thing we have is water," Eri said, noting that hydroelectric power was "clean energy".

Fact or Fiction?: Archimedes Coined the Term "Eureka!" in the Bath

Source: Scientific American

The famed mathematician made many important scientific contributions. Was this exclamation really one of them?

By David Biello

Let's begin with the story: the local tyrant contracts the ancient Greek polymath Archimedes to detect fraud in the manufacture of a golden crown. Said tyrant, name of Hiero, suspects his goldsmith of leaving out some measure of gold and replacing it with silver in a wreath dedicated to the gods. Archimedes accepts the challenge and, during a subsequent trip to the public baths, realizes that the more his body sinks into the water, the more water is displaced--making the displaced water an exact measure of his volume. Because gold weighs more than silver, he reasons that a crown mixed with silver would have to be bulkier to reach the same weight as one composed only of gold; therefore it would displace more water than its pure gold counterpart. Realizing he has hit upon a solution, the young Greek math whiz leaps out of the bath and rushes home naked crying "Eureka! Eureka!" Or, translated: "I've found it! I've found it!"

Several millennia later, the scientific world is replete with the exclamation, and many people have received inspiration in the shower. The mathematical conjectures of Henri Poincarι, Einstein's theory of relativity, Newton getting dinged on the head with an apple and discovering gravity--all have been described as eureka moments. Edgar Allan Poe wrote a prose poem to science by that title and the prospectors of California's gold rush were so fond of the phrase that it crept into that state's motto. Even the American Association for the Advancement of Science calls its breaking scientific news site EurekAlert.

Too bad, then, that Archimedes probably never uttered the phrase in that way.

First and foremost, Archimedes himself never wrote about this episode, although he spent plenty of time detailing the laws of buoyancy and the lever (prompting him to reputedly pronounce: "Give me a place to stand and I will move the earth"), calculating the ratio of circles we know as pi, and starting along the path to the integral calculus that would not be invented for another 2,000 years, among other mathematical, engineering and physical feats.

The oldest authority for the naked-Archimedes eureka story is Vitruvius, a Roman writer, who included the tale in his introduction to his ninth book of architecture some time in the first century B.C. Because this was nearly 200 years after the event is presumed to have taken place, the story may have been improved in the telling. "Vitruvius may have gotten it wrong," says Chris Rorres, a mathematician at the University of Pennsylvania and a self-described Archimedes "groupie." "The volumetric method works in theory so it sounds right but when you actually try it you find that the real world gets in the way."

In fact, Rorres is one of a long line of scientists, including Galileo, who have read the account and thought "That can't be right." As Galileo showed in his tract La Bilancetta, or "The Little Balance," a scientist of Archimedes' stature could have achieved a far more precise result using his own law of buoyancy and an accurate scale, something far more common in the ancient world than a very precise pycnometer, which is used to measure displacement. (The surface tension of water can render the volume of a light object like a wreath unmeasurable.) "There may be some truth to it," Rorres adds. "Archimedes did measure the volume of things but the eureka moment was maybe due to his original discovery [concerning buoyance], not to sitting in the bathtub and then running through the streets of Syracuse naked."

Much like Newton's apple, the exclamation persists because of the enduring power of the story: a golden crown, a life in the balance, a naked mathematician. Archimedes was a font of both mathematical insight and smart quotes as well as the hero of some really great stories. (One credits him with the invention of the death ray--actually an array of mirrors to focus sunlight--to set fire to an invading Roman fleet.) The suspect foundations of the eureka moment take nothing away from the word's ability to uniquely and concisely convey the flash of inspiration.

A new picture of ancient ethnic diversity

Source: The State.com

By Tom Avril

The Philadelphia Inquirer

(MCT)

PHILADELPHIA - Scholars have long believed that ancient Egypt was a genetic stew of ethnicity, as the fabled kingdom was both a center of international trade and often the victim of foreign invasions.

Now, new evidence suggests that may have been true even in the upper echelons of society, according to researchers who have used a blend of art and science to re-create what the ancients looked like in real life.

They have used CAT scans to model the skulls of seven mummies from various museums, including one unveiled last month at Philadelphia's Academy of Natural Sciences, revealing physical features that range from Mediterranean to African.

All seven were buried with the trappings of a high status in society, including two clearly connected to the priesthood, said project leader Jonathan Elias, director of the Harrisburg, Pa.-based Akhmim Mummy Research Consortium.

He cautioned against drawing firm conclusions from such a small sample, and he stressed that ethnic traits were a small part of his research. But he said the findings suggested a society where race had little to do with class.

"They all identified themselves as Egyptians," Elias said. "These are people. You can't slice them up like they're chocolate cake or vanilla cake."

Philadelphia sculptor Frank Bender has created plaster busts from five of the seven skull models, including one of the anonymous young woman - dubbed Annie - whose 2,200-year-old remains are on display at the Philadelphia academy.

Bender sculpted her with a nose and cheekbones that Elias described as "northern Mediterranean" - the location of modern-day Greece and Turkey. Another one of the five has what Elias called "Sudanese" features: full lips and a "prognathous" profile - meaning the jaw protrudes farther than the nose. The others have a blend of ethnic facial characteristics.

Anthropologists who have heard Elias speak about the work have been impressed.

"In the past, Egyptology has been very much based on architecture and artifacts and text," said Robert Yohe, an anthropologist at California State University, Bakersfield. "You got reconstructions of culture based on things and people's impressions of things." READ FULL STORY

Egypt finds 4,000-year-old doctor's mummy

Source: Reuters via Yahoo! News

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian archaeologists have discovered the funerary remains of a doctor who lived more than 4,000 years ago, including his mummy, sarcophagus and bronze surgical instruments.

The upper part of the tomb was discovered in 2000 at Saqqara, 20 km (12 miles) south of Cairo, and the sarcophagus came to light in the burial pit during cleaning work, state news agency MENA said on Tuesday, quoting Egyptian government antiquities chief Zahi Hawass.

The doctor, whose name was Qar, lived under the 6th dynasty and built his tomb near Egypt's first pyramid. The 6th dynasty ruled from about 2350 to 2180 BC.

Hawass said the lid of the wooden sarcophagus had excellent and well-preserved decoration and the mummy itself was in ideal condition. "The linen wrappings and the funerary drawings on the mummy are still as they were," he said.

"The mask which covers the face of the mummy is in an amazing state of preservation in spite of slight damage in the area of the mouth."

The tomb also had earthenware containers bearing the doctor's name, a round limestone offering table and 22 bronze statues of gods.

Emperor Maxentius Insignia Found in Rome

Source: AP via Yahoo! Asia News

Archaeologists have unearthed what they say are the only existing imperial insignia belonging to Emperor Maxentius _ precious objects that were buried to preserve them and keep them from enemies when he was defeated by his rival Constantine.

Excavation under Rome's Palatine Hill near the Colosseum turned up items including three lances and four javelins that experts said are striking for their completeness _ digs usually turn up only fragments _ and the fact that they are the only known artifacts of their kind.

Clementina Panella, the archaeologist who made the discovery, said the insignia were likely hidden by Maxentius' people in an attempt to preserve the emperor's memory after he was defeated by Constantine I in the 321 A.D. battle of the Milvian Bridge _ a turning point for the history of the Roman empire which saw Constantine become the unchallenged ruler of the West.

"Once he's lost, his objects could not continue to exist and, at the same time, could not fall in the hands of the enemy," she said Friday.

Some of the objects, which accompanied the emperor during his public appearances, are believed to be the base for the emperor's standards _ rectangular or triangular flags, officials said.

An imperial scepter with a carved flower and a globe, and a number of glass spheres, believed to be a symbolic representation of the earth, also were discovered.

The discovery was announced Wednesday by Italy's Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli during a visit to New York.

The items, inside wooden boxes and wrapped in linen and silk, were found buried at a sanctuary last year and have since been restored and analyzed. The depth of the burial allows experts to date them to the early 4th century A.D., ministry officials said.

"These artifacts clearly belonged to the emperor, especially the scepter, which is very elaborated, it's not an item you would let someone else have," Panella said.

"As far as we know, there are no similar findings," said Angelo Bottini, the state's top official for archaeology in Rome. "Similar representations are only on coins and paintings, but we never saw them for real," he said. Bottini added that the artifacts will be shown to the public in February.

Darius A. Arya, an archaeologist and professor at the American Institute for Roman Culture, said the discovery was highly unusual.

"Here's something precious that represents the greatness of Maxentius, buried by his loyal people to save something that belonged to him," said Arya, who was not involved in the excavation. "All together, they represented the power of this particular emperor and you wouldn't want the enemy or the usurper to get a hold of it."

Excavations on the Palatine in recent decades have turned up wonders such as the house of Rome's first emperor, Augustus. Experts said that much has yet to be uncovered, hidden in underground passageways.

Robot to penetrate deep inside Cheops pyramid

Source: Yahoo! News

CAIRO (AFP) - A robot archaeologist is to be sent deep inside Egypt's largest pyramid in a bid to solve secrets revealed by a first foray more than four years ago, antiquities supremo Zahi Hawass said.

"The new robot will be sent down very narrow passages in the so-called Queen's Chamber, where the first robot was sent in 2002," said Hawass, who heads Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.

Teams from Egypt and Singapore and a joint group from Britain and Hong Kong plan to insert the robot in February inside the Pyramid of Cheops at Giza, near to Cairo.

Equipped with tiny cameras, the robot will be sent down the chamber's north and south passages in the hope of discovering what lies behind two inner walls -- or doors -- revealed during the first robotic expedition in September 2002.

At the time, the robot was sent into a northern shaft leading from the Queen's Chamber, only to be blocked about 65 metres (yards) from the chamber by "a stone wall or door" with copper handles.

It also revealed the existence of a similar obstruction the same distance down the south passage.

The robot drilled a tiny hole through this blockage that was large enough to insert a micro camera which showed a cavity filled with stones -- itself closed on the far side by another wall or door.

Archaeologists have always hoped to find clues that might lead them to discover the tomb of Cheops himself. The pharaoh reigned more than 2,500 years before Christ, and it he was he who had the largest pyramid in Egypt built.

Artifacts found in Luxor (Bani-mesu's sarcophagus)

Source: Egypt State Information Service

An Egyptian-Polish archaeological mission discovered a large collection of pottery fragments, pieces of car tonnage and parts of the priest Bani-mesu's sarcophagus while excavating at Queen Hatshepsut's temple at Deir el-Bahari on Luxor's west bank.

Numerous pieces of ostraca, pottery, ushabti figurines, papyri written in Coptic and fragments of a nemes headdress of king Thutmose III have also been unearthed.

The te?m also continued its programme of restoring, documenting, and drawing of the New Kingdom shrines on the third terrace of Deir el-Bahari, including those of Thutmose III, Queen Hatshepsut, and the northern and southern shrines of Amun-Re.