By natchez.democrat

Until recently only three mounds were known to exist at the Grand Village of the Natchez Indians historic site.

Recent archaeological studies of the land reveal new secrets to the ceremonial site of mound-building Native Americans in Southwest Mississippi.

The face of the Grand Village has changed over centuries of erosion, plowing and other work done on the site, Grand Village director Lance Harris said, adding ongoing archaeological studies may change the Grand Village once again — this time restoring some of what was lost.

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Thursday evening, Vin Steponaitis, a professor of archaeology and anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, presented maps from the early 1700s that show a cluster of at least five mounds on the Grand Village site where only three mounds are still visible today.

“There are two missing mounds here that there’s bound to be evidence of, somewhere,” Steponaitis said.

Steponaitis said some maps and early writings reference structures sitting on top of Mounds B and C, including a house for the Natchez chief and a Natchez temple, while mound A is believed to have been abandoned before the Natchez Indians ever arrived.

In 1730, the French Colonial militia laid siege to the Natchez village and took refuge in forts on St. Catherine’s Creek, Steponaitis said.

The French may have repurposed the temple mound as a military headquarters and used an adjacent mound where an “old temple” stood as a field hospital for the wounded, Steponaitis said.

The National Park Service recently awarded an American Battlefield Protection Program grant for the University of Mississippi Center for Archaeological Research in collaboration with the Grand Village to do an extensive study on the site.

Tony Boudreaux, the director of the Center for Archaeological Research and associate professor of anthropology and the University of Mississippi, said he and a team of archaeologists used radar sensors that send signals into the ground to locate anomalies in the soil.

During this study, Boudreaux said he was able to pinpoint where one of the mounds might be, and after some digging found marble-like patterns in the dirt that resemble areas where natives may have dislocated earth from one area and dumped it in a new location — which they would have done to construct a mound.

“We think we have found the northernmost missing mound,” Boudreaux said.

Harris said The Grand Village is fundraising to expand its facility to better accommodate visitors and tell the story of the original Natchezians as some of the information that the center currently displays has changed.

“We plan to use this information,” Harris said. “It’s not just something we’re going to take and stick on a shelf somewhere, talk about it every now and again and then forget about it. That is not the case at all. We have some exciting plans for the Grand Village of the Natchez Indians.”

Harris said the Grand Village is working on an approximately $6 million development plan that would increase the visitor capacity for the museum and auditorium, revamp welcome signs leading into the Grand Village and perhaps re-create structures that once stood on top of the mounds.

After further studies at the Grand Village, Harris said ghost mounds, or markers, could be used to depict where the missing mounds were located.

A new virtual reality exhibit could open later this year, Harris said, which would also depict missing features on the site.

“There are powerful, powerful stories here,” Harris said. “The story of colonization and the story of conflicts with the French colonists sits right here at the Grand Village of the Natchez Indians. It’s an exciting story that I’m looking forward to telling in the future.”

https://www.magnoliastatelive.com/2019/07/23/archaeologists-reveal-evidence-of-lost-indian-mound-at-historic-mississippi-site/

By K. Dana
A large storehouse caught fire in Tehran’s historic square of Hassanabad on Wednesday, July 17. Firefighters managed to extinguish the fire after it had spread to historic parts of Tehran’s Hassanabad Square.
Hassanabad resides in a Qajar Dynasty area in Tehran. Hassanabad is one of the designed urban spaces in old Tehran, located on the intersection of two main streets, Hafez and Sepah, and erected during the first Pahlavi reign (1930-1940).
According to cultural heritage experts, hundreds of historical documents have been burned over the last hundred years, in addition to the buildings.

According Tornos News Many unique and rare ancient artefacts shown to the public for the first time. An extensive and extremely interesting series of exhibitions have been organised on the Cyclades islands this year by the Cyclades Ephorate of Antiquities, according to ANA. The exhibitions will feature many unique and rare ancient artifacts, many of which are shown to the public for the first time, as well as new creations that form a link with the past, promising to make the time of holiday-makers on the islands even more memorable.
Among these are the exhibitions “From the world of Homer. Tinos and the Cyclades in the Mycenaean era” that runs between July 13 and October 14, which is being held in
cooperation with the Piraeus Group Cultural Foundation (PIOP) at its Museum of Marble
Craft in the village of Pyrgos, Tinos. A second exhibition, entitled “Look Opposite) is to
be inaugurated on July 14 at Archaeological Collection of Koufonisia and will run until
September 30, 2019.
“Both exhibitions are extremely important,” noted Dimitris Athanasoulis, Director of the
Cyclades Ephorate of Antiquities, to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA). “On
the occasion of the founding of the tomb of Agia Thekla in Tinos, we have the first
exhibition for an unknown period of the Cyclades, the Mycenaean period, presenting
great and unknown material,” he added. However, the exhibition on Ano Koufonissi is
also very important, he added, as “unique discoveries from Keros and Daskalio are
revealed for the first time.”

By MICHELLE STARR
Not one, but two incredibly rare boat burials have been excavated in Uppsala, Sweden. One of these was still intact, with remains inside of not just a human, but also a dog and even a horse, all in good condition. According to archaeologists, it is a
remarkable find, and indicates the burial of a high-status male. This is a unique excavation,” said archaeologist Anton Seiler of Swedish archaeology firm The Archaeologists . “The last excavation of this grave type in Old Uppsala was almost 50 years ago.”
Ship burials are found all across Europe, particularly in Scandinavian countries, but that
doesn’t mean they were common. They seemed to have been reserved for the upper
echelons of society, those of the very highest status. These elite individuals were interred
inside a ship, or a smaller boat, often loaded with rich grave goods. The addition of horses, dogs, and hunting birds was also not uncommon. “It is a small group of people who were buried in this way,” Seiler explained . “You can suspect that they were distinguished people in the society of the time since burial ships in general are very rare.”These graves usually date back to the Iron Age, around 550 CE, and up to around the end of the Viking Age, in 1050 CE. But the ravages of time are not kind – sometimes all that remains for us to find is the ghostly imprint of where a now-rotted ship once lay.
In all of Sweden, only around 10 boat burials of this kind had been previously
discovered, and those not always in the best condition, so two newly discovered ones are
a big deal – especially when one of those is still intact. The two were found at a site in Old Uppsala, or Gamla Uppsala, by accident. The team had been working on the site of a new vicarage under construction; they had excavated a medieval well and cellar when someone spotted one of the boat graves poking out from beneath a more recent structure.
It took a month to excavate them both.One had been significantly damaged, probably when the 16th century cellar had been
built on top of it. The other contained the skeleton of an adult man in the stern, and the skeletons of a horse and dog in the bow. In addition, the grave contained arms – sword, shield and spear – as well as an ornate comb, and wood and nails from the boat itself.
Because it’s been so long since a grave of this kind has been discovered, the team will be
able to apply scientific techniques never before used on one. We don’t know much about
the graves yet – when they were interred, how old the man was when he died, whether he
was ill or injured.
“It is extremely exciting for us since boat burials are so rarely excavated,” Seiler said .
“We can now use modern science and methods that will generate new results, hypotheses and answers. We will also put the boat burials in relation to the very special area that is Old Uppsala and the excavations done here before.” We’ll be waiting to see what they find.
Meanwhile, parts of the discovery will be on display at the Gamla Uppsala Museum and
Swedish History Museum in Stockholm.
https://www.sciencealert.com/a-man-a-horse-and-a-dog-were-found-in-a-rare-intact-boat-
burial-unearthed-in-sweden

Over the last few days, the decision of San Francisco School Board to destroy the mural at the George Washington High school on one hand, and objection of a group of university professors, artists and writers on the other, have reminded me of stories from my motherland, Iran. For the last forty years, a fanatical and oppressive government has been on a campaign of destroying art, history and culture which is not Islamic and/or is from pre-Islamic time in Iran. The Islamic regime while celebrating their brand of Islam, has attempted to destroy anything that is not religious and/or belongs to a different religion in different ways; destroying some while deliberately abandoning others and allowing them to be destroyed by nature, many times in a state of disrepair and exposed to wind and rain resulting in their destruction over time.
As advocates of preservation of cultural heritage, historical sites and art, my colleagues and I regularly make declarations and protest, and send letters to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) asking them not to let history of Iran to be destroyed. Through a not-for-profit organization, World Cultural Heritage Voices, I founded, we work on maintaining a cultural heritage record and focus on preservation of world heritage sites especially in the areas of the world suffering from
war, poverty and conflict and especially in the hands of negligent governments.
I am an Iranian-American, who strongly believe in non-discrimination based on race, religion, and cultural background, I strongly object to the upcoming destruction of George Washington mural by San Francisco Education Board. According to the basic text of 1972 World Heritage Convention, “Considering that deterioration or disappearance of any item of the cultural or natural heritage constitutes a harmful impoverishment of the heritage of all the nations of the world”, therefore, cultural heritage of anywhere (any location) in the world is considered a universal heritage of all humans living on Earth, and destruction of any one heritage site or item would have universal adverse impact.
While I understand and recognize the suffering and anguish that African slaves (and ancestors of many today’s African Americans) and Native Americans experienced in our common history, I have to also acknowledge that history is not just full of positive and good experiences. We cannot just focus on preservation of “good” cultural heritage. If that was the case, then we should destroy half of our museums and many historical monuments of the world. Over the last few decades we have seen how the
so-called Islamic State destroyed “un-Islamic” monuments and world heritage sites in Syria and Iraq. We saw how Taliban destroyed the world heritage designated Buddha carved on the side of mountain in Afghanistan. We have seen how the Islamic government in Iran has even destroyed the cemeteries of people from other religions in addition to several thousands of Zoroastrian temples. While the founding fathers of our nation including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson lived during times that many
land owners were also slave owners, we should not forget the sacrifices they made in order to create and build our country. Let’s remember history and learn from it.
Even if we were so naïve to think that our 21 st century children are so gullible and impressionable that seeing a mural on the wall could have a long lasting impact on their lives, would it not be better if these murals could be used as a way of teaching them about history, our country and the world? And suppose that instead of destroying the mural, we could add a large panel with the following text inscribed on it:  “We Americans are proud that in the last two centuries we have made major progress towards equality that today, people of any color and background has equal rights under our constitution. And we will keep these paintings to be reminded every day of the courage and sacrifice that many have had to make so that we could live as free citizens of this country.”

Shokooh Mirzadegi
​Writer, Journalist and Cultural Heritage Activist
Email: sh.mirzadegi@gmail.com
http://worldculturalheritagevoices.org

Hal Foster , David Harvey , Frederic Jameson , Joyce Kozloff , Rachel Kushner , Fred
Lonidier , and Barry Schwabsky are among the four hundred academics, writers, and
artists that have signed an open letter condemning the San Francisco Board of Education’s unanimous vote to destroy a series of Great Depression–era murals at George Washington High School.
The thirteen-panel mural cycle at the center of the controversy depicts George
Washington as a slave owner and includes images of a deceased Native American and the president’s slaves working on his Mount Vernon estate. The Life of George Washington was commissioned by the Federal Art Project (later the Works Progress Administration’s Art Program, created under Franklin D. Roosevelt ’s New Deal) and designed and painted by Victor Arnautoff , a Russian-born artist, communist, and Stanford University instructor, in 1936. 
When Arnautoff created the murals, Washington’s history as a slave owner was a truth
that was not commonly acknowledged, and the work was praised for shedding light on
the United States violent colonialism. By the late 1960s, some were angered by the
murals, including Amy Anderson , a member of the Ahkhaamaymowin band of Métis,
who has been a leader in the campaign to remove them. She argued that they only
represent “American history from the colonizers’ perspective,” reports the New York
Times .
Stevon Cook , president of the San Francisco Board of Education, also advocated for
covering or removing the artwork. He told the New York Times that while he supports
teaching in the classroom, he opposes “violent images that are offensive to certain
communities” and are on view for all to see.
According to the open letter, those protesting the murals are more concerned about
whether viewers are uncomfortable than the work’s representation of history. The letter
states that The Life of George Washington “exposes and denounces in pictorial form the
US history of racism and colonialism.”
It continues: “The only viewers who should feel unsafe before this mural are racists. The
reasons [activists seeking the destruction of the work] give are various, but they all
depend on rejecting the objective analysis of historical exploitation and colonial violence
the mural offers and replacing it with activists’ valorization of their experiences of
discomfort with the imagery and the authorship of the murals. . . . To repeat: they voted
to destroy a significant monument of anti-racism. This is a gross violation of logic and
sense.”The George Washington High School Alumni Association has also opposed the
destruction of the murals and released a statement reading: “The Arnautoff murals should be preserved for their artistic, historical, and educational value. Whitewashing them will simply result in another ‘whitewash’ of the full truth about American history.”
Filmmaker Lope Yap Jr., the association’s vice president, had previously told the New
York Times that they would file a lawsuit if the school board voted to remove the work.
“Every day—in contrast to opponents—teachers, librarians use it as a teaching point,” he said. “No matter where I go, no matter who I meet, 85 percent of people are in favor of retaining the murals.”