Recently, Chief Justice Sadegh Jafari Chegni of Shush in Khuzestan Province, stated that his office was submitting an inhumane tradition called “Khoon Bas” to the Iranian Heritage Office for registration of the practice as an “intangible cultural heritage” of Iran.
“Khoon Bas” is a medieval custom for some tribes in different countries, including medieval Iran. This custom was performed after a clash between two tribes involved in war and bloodshed.
Tribal elders would then give one or more daughters from the victim’s tribe (from infancy) to the tribe that won the war, in order to stop the process of bloodshed and to put an end to any future conflict or revenge. However, the pardoned girl or girls who were married to the men of the slain tribe no longer had any rights, and were in fact sexually, physically, and mentally abused as slaves.
This awful and inhumane custom gradually disappeared and became illegal during the Pahlavi era. Unfortunately, after the Islamic Revolution, it was re-enacted because it was supported by Iranian government officials, similar to issues such as female circumcision, concubines, or religious prostitution, and other cruel and anti-woman rituals.
The officials of the Islamic government intend to register these kinds of customs as “Iranian cultural heritage” and intend to send them to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to be placed on the world’s list of intangible cultural heritage.
Fortunately, recent protests by men and women who love Iranian culture and are against the registration of such horrific rituals have led to UNESCO formally asking the Cultural Heritage Organization of the Islamic Republic to stop the registration of such inhumane and anti-woman practices.
Yesterday however, the Chief Justice of Shush continued to stand by his previous statements and called UNESCO’s reaction “narrow-minded.”

NORFOLK, ENGLAND— The Guardian reports that artifacts dating back to the Tudor
period were discovered during roof repairs at eastern England’s Oxburgh Hall, which was built in the late fifteenth century by the devout Catholic Bedingfeld family. In 1559, Sir Henry Bedingfeld refused to sign the Act of Uniformity, which outlawed the Catholic
Mass. As a result, the Bedingfelds were persecuted and ostracized by the Tudor court. A complete personal prayer book with a gilded leather binding, found in an attic void by a builder, may have been concealed by the family. Among debris in a rat’s nest found
under floorboards in the northwest corner of the attic, archaeologist Matt Champion
recovered more than 200 well-preserved pieces of textiles such as silks, satin, leather,
velvet, wool, and embroidery dating to the late Tudor, Elizabethan, and early Georgian
periods, and scraps of handwritten music dated to the sixteenth century. Fragments of
pages from the hidden book were also found in the nest. Under the floorboards near the
attic’s south-facing windows, Champion found document fragments, evidence of wax
seals, and hundreds of pins, indicating that the well-lit area was used for sewing and
writing in the eighteenth century."

The Times of Israel reports that a 1,200-year-old soap factory has been unearthed in the Negev Desert by a team of Israel Antiquities Authority researchers, with the assistance of local high school students. Archaeologist Elena Kogen-Zehavi said the large, pillared structure where the olive oil–based soap was made dates to the Islamic Abbasid period, after the Arab conquest of the region. Turning olive oil and the ashes of the saltwort plant into hard cakes of soap was a complicated process, she explained. First, the liquid mixture was cooked for about seven days, and was then transferred to a shallow pool, where the soap hardened for another ten days, until it could be cut into bars, which dried for another two months. So much soap could have been produced at the site, Kogen-Zehavi added, that it was probably exported to Egypt and other parts of the Arab world.
To read about how the ancient village of Ein Gedi endured from the seventh century B.C. to the Byzantine period, go to ” Letter from the Dead Sea: Life in a Busy Oasis .”

According to a statement released by the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History , an international team of researchers analyzed satellite imagery and conducted field surveys to document hundreds of massive rectangular stone structures in northwestern Saudi Arabia, and discover more than one hundred additional structures.
Known as “mustatils,” the rectangular monuments are thought to have been constructed
by pastoralists for ritual use. Most of them consist of two large platforms connected by
long, low, parallel walls, and some locations have multiple structures built right next to
each other. Few artifacts have been found at the mustatils. Bones of wild animals and
what may have been wild aurochs or early domesticated cattle were found inside one of
the platforms. Charcoal from this site has been dated to 7,000 years ago, when the region was covered with grasses, dotted with lakes, and vulnerable to drought. Researcher Huw Groucutt explained that the very act of building mustatils probably helped to bond pastoralists living in such a challenging environment

According to a report in The First News , archaeologists from Nicolaus Copernicus University and the Museum of the First Piast at Lednica used photogrammetry to map the bottom of west-central Poland’s Lake Lednica. Located between the city of Gniezno, site of the country’s first capital, and Poznań, the seat of the country’s first Christian bishop, the lake is remembered as the site of the Christian baptism of Duke Mieszko I, who ruled Poland from about 960 to 992. The study revealed the remains of wooden shore fortifications dated to the time of Mieszko I, and two medieval wooden bridges. Artifacts discovered under the remains of the bridges include an intact tenth-century sword and remains of its leather scabbard. X-rays revealed that the sword was decorated with a Christian symbol known as the Jerusalem cross. Two axes, a spearhead, arrowheads, crossbow bolts, a sickle, ceramics, and animal bones were also found. One of the axes, resembling a Scandinavian style, was inlaid with silver decorations.

BBC News reports that metal detectorist Mariusz Stepien discovered a hoard of Bronze
Age artifacts in southern Scotland. “I was over the moon, actually shaking with happiness,” Stepien said of the find. The archaeologists who excavated the site recovered an intact horse harness, complete with leather straps, rings, and buckles; a sword in its scabbard; chariot wheel axle caps; and a rattle pendant thought to have been hung from the harness for decoration. “There is still a lot of work to be done to assess the artifacts and understand why they were deposited,” Emily Freeman of the Crown Office’s Treasure Trove Unit commented
https://www.archaeology.org/news/8947-200811-scotland-intact-harness

By: Rebecca Anne Proctor
5th August 2020 08:08 BST
Two powerful explosions at the Port of Beirut on early Tuesday evening left more than 70 people dead and over 4,000 injured. Initially, Lebanese state-run National News
Agency reported that a fire broke out near the Beirut Port. According to Lebanon’s Prime Minister, an investigation is underway concerning an estimated 2,750 tons of the
explosive ammonium nitrate that has been stored at the site for six years.
The damage rocked an already fragile Beirut to its core and wreaked havoc on the city’s
renowned art scene. Major art galleries, including Marfa Gallery, located close to
Beirut’s Port, and Galerie Tanit were completely destroyed. Galerie Tanit had hosted a
vernissage on Monday evening for the Lebanese artist Abed Al Kadiri’s solo exhibition
Remains of the Last Red Rose scheduled to be on view until 25 September. Opera
Gallery’s sleek Beirut branch, located in the city’s downtown district overlooking the
seafront, has also been decimated.
The blasts sent ripples of destruction throughout the city. Galerie Sfeir-Semler, located in the desolate district of Karantina, and Galerie Janine Rubeiz in the Raouché area, have also been damaged. “One of my employees is in intensive care and the gallery has been damaged,” said gallery owner Saleh Barakat. “We barely had the time to close the open vitrines to protect the artworks and are now in the hospital to be with our colleague.”

https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/beirut-explosion

According to an ANSA report, a team of archaeologists from Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities conducting rescue excavations on private land south of Cairo have uncovered black and pink granite statues and carved blocks dating to the reign of Ramesses II (r. ca. 1279–1213 B.C.). The finds include statues of the god Ptah, the lion-headed goddess Sekhmet, and Hathor, the goddess of beauty and love who was also regarded by the ancient Egyptians as the symbolic mother of the pharaohs. Another sculpture depicts the pharaoh himself alongside two deities. Mostafa Waziri of the Supreme Council of Antiquities said that carved limestone blocks dating to the Coptic period indicate later reuse of the site. Excavations will continue until the area has been surveyed entirely.