LONDON, ENGLAND— The Guardian reports that archaeologists have recovered a variety of medieval artifacts from a 15-foot-deep cesspit under Somerset House, an eighteenth-century Neoclassical building in central London. The well-preserved objects, which include pottery vessels, an iron spur, a ring, a belt buckle, a bone-handled fork, a
pendant, a thick chain that might have been attached to a candlestick, and floor tiles usually found in palaces and monasteries, are thought to have come from medieval mansions that previously stood on the site. In the seventeenth century, the cesspit was partially filled and used as a cellar. All four walls of the chalk-lined cesspit remain intact.

A painting discovered by chance last month is a Gustav Klimt original that was stolen nearly 23 years ago, Italian authorities have confirmed. The painting, Portrait of a Lady, was taken from a gallery in the northern city of Piacenza in 1997. It was thought to have disappeared for good until gardeners clearing away ivy found it concealed in an external wall at the same gallery. The Klimt has an estimated value of at least €60m ($66m; £51m). Why the painting was left in the wall at the Ricci Oddi Gallery of Modern Art is still a mystery.
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51156682

GIFU, JAPAN— The Asahi Shimbun reports that a stone wall uncovered at Gifu Castle
may have been built by feudal lord Oda Nobunaga, who is remembered for attempting to unify Japan and ruling over much of the island of Honshu. The castle was first built atop central Japan’s Mount Kinkasan in the early thirteenth century A.D. Nobunga captured it in 1567, after a two-week siege, and renovated the structure with stone walls whose gaps were filled with smaller stones. The surviving section of wall measures about six feet long and two feet tall, and matches historic descriptions. It had been previously thought that Nobunaga’s structure was completely torn down during reconstruction work in 1910. To read about an important Shinto shrine where mariners made offerings as early as the
fourth century A.D.

According to a report in The Guardian , fluorescent X-ray chemical analysis conducted by scientists at the National Autonomous University of Mexico has revealed that a four-
pound gold bar, unearthed in downtown Mexico City during a 1981 construction project,
was cast between 1519 and 1520. At that time, historical records indicate that Spanish
conquistador Hernán Cortés melted down gold objects taken from the Aztec treasury and formed them into gold bars for transport to Europe. The conquistadors are thought to have dropped this gold bar in what had been a canal in the Aztec capital city of
Tenochtitlan while fleeing a battle that began after Moctezuma, the Aztec emperor, was
assassinated. A year later, in 1521, Cortés returned and laid siege to and captured
Tenochtitlan, whose residents had been weakened by smallpox

Live Science reports that William Keegan of the Florida Museum of Natural History and Ann Ross of North Carolina State University analyzed the structure of 103 skulls unearthed in the Caribbean, Florida, and Panama, and concluded that the Carib people may have traveled to the Bahamas from South America as early as A.D. 800. When Christopher Columbus arrived in the Bahamas in 1492, he recorded conflicts between the indigenous Arawak and Caribs, whom he described as marauding cannibals. But researchers lacked evidence showing that the Caribs had actually migrated so far north, and therefore doubted the accuracy of the explorer’s account. The new test results and archaeological evidence suggest that Carib settlers from the Yucatán Peninsula reached the Caribbean around 5000 B.C., and they then traveled to Cuba
and the northern Antilles, while Arawaks from Colombia and Venezuela arrived in Puerto Rico between 800 and 200 B.C. The study also indicates that Caribs from the northwest Amazon were the first to arrive in the Bahamas and the island of Hispaniola. Keegan said this migration pattern fits with the spread of a unique pottery type as well. He and Ross now think Columbus may have actually encountered the Caribs, but they said that there is still no real evidence that the Caribs practiced cannibalism..”

After decades of research, a new project with Jamestown Rediscovery is highlighting a little-known aspect of 17th century life. Cathrine Davis, a PhD student in anthropology at William & Mary and extern at Historic Jamestown, has undertaken a project to organize and classify hundreds of lead seals that have been found on the site.
The seals have been discovered on the site since Jamestown Rediscovery started in 1994, said Leah Stricker, associate curator at Historic Jamestown. They help understand and identify the shipping and creation of textiles in Jamestown.
“Lead seals are like clothing tags,” Davis said. “They’re attached to goods and give
information about their origins, merchants that sold them and dyers. They track the
movement of textiles throughout the production system.”
Stricker said each lead seal is different and unique, providing a look into different stamps from various locations and most times even having imprints of the material on them. Davis said there aren’t that many scholars researching the topic, making her one of the only specialists of lead seals in North America. She said she first became interested in lead seals as a student in Michigan where she was learning how goods were packaged in the fur trade. A professor told her about lead seals and she realized that no one was researching the topic. “It’s a very small world, so there’s little known about them,” she said. “That’s what makes them so rewarding, I’m doing all my own original research for the most part andit’s like a giant jigsaw puzzle. It’s a whole different world.” At Historic Jamestown, Davis started a project this semester to identify, organize and catalog the more than 300 lead seals in the collection.
Stricker said the project is important to the organization’s research because it makes it
easier for local and surrounding archaeologists to better access the information. Once
Davis is done, a researcher can come to Historic Jamestown and find, identify and match new lead seals with ones already in the collection. She said the goal is to have the collection accessible to researchers online as well. But more importantly, organizing and understanding the lead seals gives historians a greater insight to life in the Jamestown Colony.

“These help us look at bigger questions, like international trade and what was going on in the world,” Stricker said. “It seems like now our world is more globalized than ever, but even in 1607 there was a huge movement of trade.” Davis said it helps the interpreters at Historic Jamestown to better understand their clothing, which is an aspect of historical research that is missed because textiles don’t preserve well over time. “We know a lot about how people were living but not a lot about what they were
wearing,” she said. Davis expects to have the project completed by May, at which point archaeologists from all over can utilize her work. But until then, she is content to continue putting together the pieces of this historical puzzle.
https://wydaily.com/local-news/2019/12/26/a-new-kind-of-research-is-blossoming-at-
historic-jamestown/

By Sarah Cascone
Egyptologists have discovered the oldest copy of what is being called the world’s first illustrated book, a 4,000-year-old edition of the “Book of Two Ways,” an ancient Egyptian guide to the afterlife considered to be a forerunner to the “Book of the Dead.” The text predates previously known versions by some 40 years. The find was first published in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology in September by Harco Willems, a professor at the University of Leuven in Belgium. Unlike modern books, these historic writings weren’t inscribed on bound pages, but on the walls of sarcophagi. They were meant to aid the deceased through the perilous journey to the underworld, during which they might be beset by demons or raging fires. If one were to cast the correct spells, he or she might achieve immortality. Though the plank’s inscriptions reference a governor named Djehutynakht, Willems’s research has revealed that the coffin originally held the remains of a woman named Ankh, referred to throughout the text as “he.” That is in keeping with Egyptian mythology, where rebirth was the purview of male deities, and dead women adopted male pronouns to be more like Osiris, god of death.
Coffin fragments bearing the earliest known version of the “Book of Two Ways,” an
ancient Egyptian text considered the world’s first illustrated book. Photo courtesy of
Harco Willems. “To me, what’s funny is the idea that how you survive in the netherworld is expressed in male terms,” Willems told the New York Times .
The Egyptologist has overseen digs at the Coptic necropolis of Dayr al-Barshā, used as a cemetery during the Middle Kingdom period, from about 2055 to 1650 B.C, since 2001. He excavated the ancient coffin fragments about 20 feet down a burial shaft at the complex of an ancient Egyptian provincial governor, or nomarch, named Ahanakhtin, in 2012. The fragile state of the artifacts, repeatedly ransacked by looters long ago, prevented them from being studied until now.
The planks of wood bear carved ink inscriptions and painted illustrations meant to ensure successful passage through the netherworld to Rostau, the realm of Osiris. (The text is called the “Book of Two Ways” because it offers instructions on how to travel either by land or by water.)
The pigments, however, have faded with time, and the faint markings are visible largely
thanks to high resolution imagery processed with DStretch software. Based on inscriptions on other tomb artifacts referencing Pharaoh Mentuhotep II, who reigned until 2010 B.C., Willems believes this newly identified “Book of Two Ways” is at least four decades older than any of the two dozen previously known versions of the text.
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/ancient-egyptian-oldest-book-1744110

Targeting our cultural heritage is complicit with the ruling regime in Iran.

Dear President Trump,
You are the only U.S. president who has explicitly opposed the Iranian regime for the past 40 years. You have repeatedly stated your support for the people of Iran and the unique culture of Iran. You and your important government figures have repeatedly stated that the United States of America stands with the Iranian people in these difficult and critical times in which the Iranian regime has imposed upon the Iranian people.
Even the Iranian-Americans living in the U.S, who did not vote for you three years ago, appreciate the U.S. support for the Iranian people who have suffered so much under this oppressive Iranian regime.
Unfortunately, however, your recent remarks about “targeting 52 sites in Iran which also include Iranian cultural heritage sites” is shocking to all Iranians who care deeply about that country yet oppose the regime.
Mr. President, Iranians have been witnessing the destruction of their unique and great cultural and historical heritage for 40 years by the Islamic Republic’s oppressive culture and regime. For over 40 years, we—the lovers of Iran’s cultural and historical heritage—have reported and asked for the assistance of all the cultural centers of different countries, including the United States, the United Nations, and UNESCO, for assistance in stopping the destruction of beautiful historical and cultural sites and monuments by the ruling Iranian regime. These heritage sites not only belong to the people of Iran but also belong to humanity and the global community. Now, would you want to destroy these invaluable, priceless historical and cultural heritage sites to retaliate for the actions of the ruling regime in Iran?
President Trump, while your recent remarks have been of great concern for all the lovers of world cultural heritage, they have unfortunately made the heads of the Iranian regime very happy. They have tried their best to destroy Iran’s cultural, environmental, and historical heritage over the last 40 years and any destruction of these sites by anyone, for any reason, will be of complete complicity with the ruling regime in Iran.
Sincerely yours
Shokooh Mirzadegi
Executive Officer of Pasargad Heritage Foundation
January 5, 2020

It has been reported by the Chinese news outlets, three tourists were sentenced to prison and have been fined 6 million yuan (about 859,900 U.S. dollars) in total for causing damage to a world heritage site in east. China’s Jiangxi Province.
The three tourists from neighboring Zhejiang Province drilled 26 holes in a 128-meter-tall rock on Sanqing Mountain, a world natural heritage site, and used ropes to climb to the top of the rock on April 15, 2017, according to the site’s administration committee and the local authorities.
The rock, known as the “Giant Python of the Mountain,” is of scientific and aesthetic significance which archeologists believe has evolved over the last 300 million years. The rock however has been reported to have poor stability and is only seven meters in diameter at the thinnest part.
Geological experts said the rock had sustained damage from the tourists’ drilling.
One tourist surnamed Zhang was sentenced to one year and a tourist surnamed Mao was sentenced to six months. The total fine will be used to protect and restore ecological environment.
The Sanqingshan UNESCO Global Geopark in Jiangxi Province was added to the World Heritage List in April 2019, and is famous for the juxtaposition of granite stones and vegetation.