Earlier this month a team of archaeologists from the Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies (IANES) at the University of Tübingen announced that they have uncovered a large Bronze Age city not far from the town of Dohuk in northern Iraq.

The team reported that the excavation work has shown that the settlement, which is now home to the small Kurdish village of Bassetki in the Autonomous Region of Kurdistan, was established in about 3000 BC and was able to flourish for more than 1200 years. The archaeologists have also discovered that the settlement layers dating back from the Akkadian Empire period (2340-2200 BC). The Akkadian empire is regarded as the first world empire in human history.

The 30 member team of archeologists are headed by Professor Peter Pfälzner from the University of Tübingen and Dr. Hasan Qasim from the Directorate of Antiquities in Dohuk. The team conducted the excavation work in Bassetki between August and October 2016 and was able to preempt the construction work on a highway on this land as reported by CNN and Past Horizons website.

The former significance of the settlement can be seen from the finds discovered during the excavation work. The archeologists can tell that the city already had a wall running around the upper part of the town from approx. 2700 BC onwards in order to protect its residents from invaders. Large stone structures were erected there in about 1800 BC. The researchers also found fragments of Assyrian cuneiform tablets dating from about 1300 BC, which suggested the existence of a temple dedicated to the Mesopotamian weather god Adad on this site. There was a lower town about one kilometre long outside the city centre. Using geomagnetic resistance measurements, the archaeologists discovered indications of an extensive road network, various residential districts, grand houses and a kind of palatial building dating from the Bronze Age. The residents buried their dead at a cemetery outside the city.

The settlement was connected to the neighbouring regions of Mesopotamia and Anatolia via an overland roadway dating from about 1800 BC.

Bassetki was only known to the general public in the past because of the “Bassetki statue,” which was discovered there by chance in 1975. This is a fragment of a bronze figure of the Akkadian god-king Naram-Sin (about 2250 BC). The discovery was stolen from the National Museum in Baghdad during the Iraq War in 2003, but was later rediscovered by US soldiers. The archaeologists have now been able to substantiate their assumption that an important outpost of Akkadian culture may have been located there.

The team reports that although the excavation site is only 45 kilometres from territory controlled by the IS, it was possible to conduct the archeological work without any disturbances due to the fact that there is a great deal of security and stability in the Kurdish autonomous areas of Iraq.

It has been a very difficult year for Italy as the country experienced several earthquakes and after-shocks since this past August.  In late October and again in early November, central Italy was hot again by more earth quakes.  On November 3^rd, a magnitude 5.0 earthquake struck central Italy in the early hours of the morning in the same region hit by strong quakes in late October. This one was centered 32 miles (51.5 km) southeast of Perugia. In the hours after the quake, loss of life and security of people living in the region are of utmost important. 

However, as it became more obvious, the looters and thieves had other ideas in mind.  In the village of Nottoria, near Norcia, a small church was looted and a famous painting was stolen. The painting titled The Forgiveness of Assisi, was taken from a damaged church and was painted in 1631 by a French artist, Jean Lhomme, who also produced works for the then pope, Urban VIII. The theft of the painting was not the first case as more looting had been done after the previous earthquakes.  In fact, the Italian government is reporting that many of the churches, chapels and other monuments affected by the earthquake are in isolated areas and there are fears that more works of art could be targeted by looters and thieves.

After the several reports of thefts and looting, the Italian government has now deployed Italian soldiers to the mountainous region hit by the earthquake to guard against looters.  In fact, it has been reported by the news agencies that the patrols of the area are to increase, with soldiers joining forces with police and the paramilitary Carabinieri. Around 500 soldiers were deployed to the quake-hit zone, as reported the Italian defense ministry said.  Police are also searching churches, monasteries and convents damaged in the quake in order to recover precious artifacts.  The paintings, statues, crucifixes and reliquaries are being stored in a warehouse rented by the cultural heritage ministry.  In addition, fire fighters have erected large tarpaulins over the remains of the 14th century Basilica of St Benedict in Norcia, the most notable of the monuments damaged in the mountain town. It has been reported that the fire service used cranes to lift monumental oil paintings from inside damaged churches. 

The local people, who have already been traumatized by a number of earth-quakes, have seen destruction and loss of over 300 lives.  Early November’s quake was the biggest to strike Italy in the last 36 years, but caused no deaths. 

As reported by a number of news agencies, Iraqi government forces have now recaptured Nimrud, the site of an ancient Assyrian city which was taken over by Islamic Terrorists (IS) two years ago.

In March 2015, officials and historians condemned IS for the destruction of the archaeological site, which reportedly dates back to the 13th Century BC.  In fact, UNESCO has described the act as a war crime. IS terrorists say shrines and statues are “false idols” that have to be destroyed.

Nimrud is an ancient Assyrian city on the River Tigris which lies about 30km (20 miles) south-east of the major city of Mosul, and the site of the ongoing military actions by the Iraqi government forces who are attempting to recapture Mosul and the areas around it.

According to BBC, troops from the Ninth Armored Division liberated Nimrud town completely and raised the Iraqi flag above its buildings after inflicting loss of life and equipment on the so-called Islamic State.

Nimrud is believed to have been the capital city of Assyria for about 150 years.  The first excavations in modern times were undertaken by Europeans archeologists starting in the 1840s. It has been reported that the treasures and archeological artifacts discovered included sections of royal palaces, individual statues and smaller artifacts.  The excavations stopped for decades because of the two world wars but in 1949 Sir Max Mallowan (husband of writer Agatha Christie) began fresh excavations according to BBC.

On November 3 and 4 , fifty years after the 1966 Venice flood and the International Safeguarding Campaign launched by UNESCO, the Director-General, Irina Bokova, undertook a visit to Venice, Italy.
This visit was an opportunity to mark the longstanding cooperation with Italy and to express UNESCO’s support to its government and people after the country was struck by a series of powerful earthquakes – causing human casualties and considerable damage to heritage, notably in Amatrice and Norcia.
In Venice, the Director-General opened an international conference at the Fondazione Cini on the future of the lagoon city and the sustainable management of its heritage, entitled “Sustainability of local commons with a global value: the case of Venice and its lagoon”.
The Director-General reiterated UNESCO’s determination to support the Italian authorities in the safeguarding of the World Heritage site of Venice today, in response to the rise of sea level and tourist pressure, which is expected to grow dramatically

On August, 2016 the registration process of preserved artifacts of National museum of Afghanistan in the central bank vaults of Presidential palace started.

A Team of professional members of National museum with the cooperation of Oriental Institute of Chicago University has been appointed to register and repack, some of the artifacts of National museum, which are preserved in the central bank vaults of presidential palace.

According to the Acting Director of National museum of Afghanistan Muhammad Fahim Rahimi, the main purpose of this registration is to document artifacts of national museum of Afghanistan based on recognized professional standards and better preservation of these artifacts as they will be conserved and repack with accepted packing materials.

As reported by BBC, Police in England has teamed up with heritage experts to crack down on gangs stealing valuable metal from churches and historic buildings.  The Local Government Association estimates metal thefts – of materials including electricity cables, railway lines, war memorials, road signs, children’s playground equipment and church roofs – cost the country as much as £770m a year.  In the case of historic buildings and churches, the thieves are stealing years of history and destroying English cultural heritage. 

Officers are working with Historic England to inspect scrap yards where thieves might try to sell lucrative metals such as lead and copper as reported by BBC. The police say that some dealerships are failing to carry out checks when they are offered metal for sale.  In the partnership between the police and experts, officers from Operation Crucible are taking members of Historic England along when they investigate scrapyards to help them understand how thieves operate.

The Scrap Metal Dealers Act 2013 requires all scrap dealers and motor salvage operators in England and Wales to apply for a license from their local authority and keep records on whom they buy from.  The council also has the power to assess whether each license applicant is a “suitable person” – including examining criminal convictions – and increased powers to carry out inspections.

Last month (September 2016),  the Italian anti-mob Police recovered paintings from a house in stronghold of Camorra crime syndicate near Naples.  Two Vincent van Gogh paintings that were stolen 14 years ago from a museum in Amsterdam more have been recovered by Italian authorities in Naples following a sting operation that targeted organized crime.

The paintings, View of the Sea at Scheveningen, painted in 1882, and Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen, painted in 1884, were the two paintings recently discovered after allegedly being hidden away in one of the houses of an international drug trafficker based in Castellammare di Stabia, near Naples.

The authenticity of the paintings has already been confirmed by an expert from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, from where they were stolen in 2002.  The experts from the museum have stated that they are not sure when the paintings were supposed to be returned to the museum and that one of the paintings has a small patch of damage in the bottom corner. Otherwise the paintings appeared to be in good condition.

The theft was considered one of the most infamous heists to rock the art world in recent times. The thieves entered the Van Gogh museum from the roof of the building, which allowed them to get past security and cameras undetected, even though their entry did trigger alarms. They had used a ladder to climb up to a window and then smashed through it using a cloth to protect their hands.

As reported by a number of news outlets, the two men, Octave Durham, an art thief who earned the nickname The Monkey for his ability to evade police, and his accomplice Henk Bieslijn, were eventually convicted of the theft in 2004 after police discovered their DNA at the scene of the crime. They were handed four year sentences, but authorities were never able to track down the stolen works.

View of the Sea at Scheveningen is one of Van Gogh’s early paintings and depicts the beach resort close to The Hague. It was the only work in the museum’s collection from Van Gogh’s two years in The Hague and one of just two Dutch seascapes the artist made.

Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen is a smaller work that Van Gogh painted for his mother in 1884, and depicts a church in Brabant where his father Theodorus was a preacher. After his father’s death in 1885 Van Gogh revised the painting, adding figures of women wearing black shawls used in mourning.