According TornosNews In a session devoted to the ancient mass grave containing some 80 shackled skeletons, found at Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre (SNFCC) in the coastal Athens suburb of Paleo Faliro, Greece’s Central Archaeological Council on Tuesday agreed on the specifications of an underground “shell” that will permanently protect and display the archaeological discovery, as well as approving a study on protecting the remains from the rise of brackish water, ANA reports.
The ultimate goal is that this sensational and extremely important archaeological find, discovered in 2016 during works to build the SNFCC, should become a visitable site.
The idea is that, once conditions are right, the three groups of graves will be covered by the construction of a simple and plain underground shell that will blend tastefully with the surrounding landscape of the SNFCC Esplanade and provide the right microclimate, in accordance with environmental requirements.
The project will be extremely architecturally simple and plain and will seek to instill a sense that visitors are descending downward into a resting place for the dead, not entering another “tourist attraction”.
The mass burial of the 80 skeletons, some of which are in chains and bear signs of a violent death, is a rare and extraordinary find that was hailed as one of the 10 most significant archaeological discoveries of 2016 by the U.S. periodical “Archaeology”. The skeletons date back to the turbulent 7th century B.C. – a time of revolutions, uprisings and violence between supporters of the aristocracy and those seeking to overthrow them – while they may be connected with the Cylonian affair.
Photo Source: Greek Ministry of Culture

At least 100 artifacts from Yemen have been successfully sold at auction for an estimated
$1 million in the U.S., Europe and the United Arab Emirates since 2011, according to a Live Science investigation into the country’s so-called “blood antiquities.”

The artifacts include ancient inscriptions, statues, coins and manuscripts from the Middle
Ages, Live Science found after analyzing auction records.

Yemen has a rich history with numerous archaeological remains dating back many
millennia. Museums and some archaeological sites have been looted during the ongoing
civil war. A Live Science investigation recently revealed the trade in Yemen's artifacts.
https://www.livescience.com/

A journey down into the underground depths of the Greek island of Corfu that lasted 15 days and explored 25 caves was completed a few days ago by Dutch speleologist Rene
van Vliet and a team of both local and notable European speleologists and spelunkers.

“ Corfu has more caves than one would expect. Up until now I have collected information on 186 caves and chasms but there are many more on land and in the sea.” Rene van Vliet said to the ANA, noting that another 78 caves remained to be explored.

The team included speleologist Gertjan van Pelt as well as Corfu speleologists and
forestry experts Yiannis Gasteratos and Theodoros Skalitis. Among the caves they visited were those of Platesgourna, Grava, Gravolithia, Pitiri’s Grava, Charos’ Grava,
Bouzavieri’s Grava and Pelaus’ Hole at Ai Mathias.

Filled with stalactites and stalagmites, which reflect the individual ‘history’ of each cave
as they build up over the years, these caves all have their own myths that are associated
with them, van Vliet noted.
TornosNews.gr

The closest that Travis Rupp came to getting fired from Avery Brewing Co. in Boulder, Colo., he says, was the time he tried to make chicha. The recipe for the Peruvian corn-based beer, cobbled together from bits of pre-Incan archaeological evidence, called for chewed corn partially fermented in spit. So, Rupp’s first task had been to persuade his colleagues to gather round a bucket and offer up their chompers for the cause.

Once he got to brewing, the corn-quinoa-spit mixture gelatinized in a stainless steel tank,
creating a dense blob equivalent in volume and texture to about seven bathtubs of
polenta. Oops. In another go, Rupp managed to avoid the brew’s gelatinous fate, but encountered a new problem when it came time to drain the tank. “It literally turned into cement in the pipes because the corn was so finely ground," says Rupp. “People were a little cranky.”

These are the kinds of sticky situations that come with trying to bring ancient flavors into
modern times. A self-proclaimed beer archaeologist, Rupp has traveled the world in search of clues as to how ancient civilizations made and consumed beer. With Avery Brewing Co., he has concocted eight of them in a series called “Ales of Antiquity.” The brews are served in Avery’s restaurant and tasting room.
https://www.npr.org

According Egypt Independent A church dating back to the fourth century has been unearthed near Alexandria by polish archeologists who claim that it might be oldest church discovered in Egypt, The First News reported .
The discovery is based on research conducted by a team from the University of Warsaw’s Center of Mediterranean Archaeology since 2000, alongside intensive fieldwork.
The mission’s discoveries in Alexandria also include a burial chapel and the largest collection of ceramics excavated in Egypt yet, according to The First News.
The polish team had been excavating a Basilica, which they believed had operated from the fifth century well until the eighth century, when they uncovered the ancient church buried beneath it.
“At the end of the last research season, under the floor of the basilica, we encountered a
wall’s remains, which turned out to be the outer walls of an even older church,” Krzysztof Babraj, who headed research work on the basilica told The First News. Babraj explained that there are no other church remains have been found in the area so far, making this a significant discovery.
Thousands of fragments of the old church have been excavated underneath the discovered Basilica. The church had been devastated by an earthquake, leaving behind nothing but scattered glass, ceramic and limestone wall ruins, according to The First News.
Babraj said that they will resume their research, with the discovery of this church as a just
the beginning.
Photo Credit: Archebooks

This article contains some synopsis and excerpts from the two articles published in March and April 2019 in Nature Magazine and National Geographic. The links to the two articles are at the end of this article.

In April 2019, the cases of eight conservation scientists and researchers in Iran entered a critical
phase, while prominent wildlife scientists and NGOs around the world continue to rally in support of the scientists. The conservationists, from the Tehran-based Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation (PWHF), have been accused of using camera traps to spy—a claim which is completely false as given evidence by the scientists and being rebuffed on technical grounds by camera trap experts. The international conservationists who know the Iranian detained researchers describe them as dedicated team of environmentalists, researchers, and scientists whose work to conserve critically endangered Asiatic (Persian) cheetahs as critical and extremely important.
In mid-January 2018, PWHF founder Morad Tahbaz was arrested. On January 24 and 25, eight others associated with the organization were also arrested: Managing Director Kavous Seyed-Emami, Niloufar Bayani, Houman Jowkar, Taher Ghadirian, Sepideh Kashani, Amir Hossein Khaleghi, Abdolreza Kouhpayeh, and Sam Radjabi. Amnesty International documented a broader crackdown on environmental activists, citing 63 arrests in 2018, based on media reports.
Their jailing has been met with international condemnation by many organizations including the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Wildlife Conservation Society, World Wildlife Fund, 132 leading conservationists, and the European Parliament speaking out.

Founded in 2008, PWHF operates with the permission of the Iranian government and in close cooperation with the Department of Environment and used to have a long-running relationships with UN agencies, international NGOs, and grassroots conservation groups. However, their website is no longer active today. The organization is primarily funded by in-country donors but receives technical assistance from international groups—standard procedure in the world of conservation.

The case has prompted an outcry from the international community. Reports that some
“detainees may not have adequate access to legal counsel and representation is deeply
troubling”, the United Nations Environment Programme said in a statement on 5 March. “We urge the Iranian authorities to ensure that [the researchers] are guaranteed a fair, transparent and independent trial,” it says.

Human-rights group Amnesty International released a similar statement on the same day. And a February letter to Iran’s president, 26 members of the European Parliament voiced concerns that the proceedings fall seriously short of fair-trial standards. Open letters signed by hundreds of conservationists were published shortly after the arrests last year.

One of conservationists arrested in January 2018, Dr. Kavous Seyed-Emami, a Canadian-Iranian scientist and academic, died under suspicious circumstances in Evin prison two weeks after his arrest. The authorities claimed that he had committed suicide and refused to release his body unless his family agreed to an immediate burial without an independent autopsy. Amnesty International has previously called on the Iranian authorities to conduct an impartial investigation into his death.

In March 2019, WCHV honored Dr. Emami posthumously for his life of dedication and hard work on behalf of Iran’s natural heritage and his tireless efforts devoted to conservation andpreservation in Iran. Professor Seyed-Emami was selected as the recipient of 2019 “Nowruz Award for Personality of the Year in the Field of Environment and Natural Heritage”. Conservation groups urge fair trial for jailed Iranian researchers
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01001-3
Jailed researchers trying to protect threatened cheetahs in Iran await verdict
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/03/iran-wildlife-conservationists-jailed/

Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered the ruins of an ancient fortress which is believed to be dating back to the 26th Dynasty, the last dynasty in which native Egyptians ruled before the Persians conquered the country in 525 B.C. Researchers from the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities have uncovered parts of the mud-brick stronghold including the northeastern and southeastern towers at the Tell El-Kedwa site in North Sinai.

Archaeologists had originally excavated the site in 2008, but as the fortress is very large, it has taken them until this year to uncover more of its remains. The researchers believe
that since the location was ideal militarily, another military outpost was built on top of
the original remains of the first fortress. According to the Egyptian Supreme Council of
Antiquities the original fortress is believed to be one of the oldest fortresses discovered.

Archaeologists report that the walls of the older fortress are exceptionally thick, measuring nearly 23 feet (7 meters) in width. The excavation also uncovered an almost 280-foot-long (85 m) wall on the fortress’s southern side and the remains of houses within the western part of the fortress. One of these houses had an amulet with the name of King Psamtik I, who fought the Assyrians and reunited the country when he founded the 26th Dynasty. He died in 610 B.C.

In addition, the archaeologists revealed the presence of an ancient entrance to the fortress, in the form of a side gate on the northeastern side of the wall, and to the right of this entrance are the remains of the room that may have been occupied by guards who monitored the gate.