New Poems of Greek Poetess Sappho Recovered

Today, only few poems by the ancient Greek poetess Sappho have survived, but thanks to new findings, two new works have been recovered, giving experts hope to find even more.  These previously unknown poems by the great poetess of the 7th century B.C. came to light when the owner of an ancient papyrus consulted Oxford classicist world-renowned papyrologist Dr. Dirk Obbink about the Greek writings on the tattered scrap.  Despite Sappho’s fame in antiquity and huge literary output, only one complete poem survives until today, along with substantial portions of four others. One of those four was only recovered in 2004, also from a scrap of papyrus.
Read more.

The contribution of avocational collectors and students of the past in preserving its remains is rarely credited, but here is a clear example of the benefits of archeologists working with collectors instead of trying to ban them. Bravo!

Today in 1784

Today in 1784: Continental Congress ratifies Treaty of Paris, ending War of Independence (Smithsonian).

US diggers identify tomb of Pharaoh Sobekhotep I

US diggers identify tomb of Pharaoh Sobekhotep I

A US team in Egypt has identified the tomb of pharaoh Sobekhotep I, believed to be the founder of the 13th dynasty 3,800 years ago:

The team from the University of Pennsylvania had discovered the quartzite sarcophagus of Sobekhotep I, which weighed about 60 tonnes, a year ago, but was unable to identify who it belonged to until last week. Its identity was established after the team found fragments of a slab inscribed with the pharaoh’s name and showed him sitting on a throne  Read more.

Meanwhile reports keep coming out of Egypt that they are destroying their own heritage at an unprecedented pace.

"Lost" New England Revealed by High-Tech Archeology

"Lost" New England Revealed by High-Tech Archeology

 New England’s woody hills and dales hide a secret—they weren’t always forested. Instead, many were once covered with colonial roads and farmsteads. This “lost” New England of the colonial era has started to emerge, thanks to archeologists piercing the forests with the latest in high-tech scanners, called light detection and ranging (LiDAR). In the images above, LiDAR reveals farm walls, roads and homesteads hidden within Connecticut’s Pachaug State Forest. Dating to the 18th Century, the farmsteads were abandoned in the 1950’s. The airborne technology bounces laser light pulses off the ground to generate precise pictures of surface features. A quiet revolution in archeology has resulted from LiDAR’s advent, with scholars making new discoveries by using the technology to look at Maya cities, Stonehenge’s plains, and Renaissance palaces, among other places. Read more.

"Lost" New England Revealed by High-Tech Archeology

Roman Ancestor Masks Recreated

Uncannily Lifelike Roman Masks Recreated in Wax

Some 2,000 years ago, elite Roman families stuffed their closets with wax masks made in the likeness of their male ancestors so that during funeral processions actors could fill in for the missing links of the genealogical line. Scholars know about the strange practice from ancient sources, such as the Greek historian Polybius, though none of the masks themselves survive. Recently, however, a team of researchers at Cornell University made life-cast molds of their own faces to recreate these imagines maiorum, and they found that the wax masks were indeed uncannily lifelike. Read more.

3,000 year-old brewer's tomb found in Egypt

tomb of an ancient beer brewer in Luxor

Japanese archaeologists have unearthed the tomb of an ancient beer brewer in the city of Luxor that is more than 3,000 years old, Egypt's minister of antiquities said. Mohammed Ibrahim said on Friday that the tomb dated back to the Ramesside period and belonged to the chief "maker of beer for gods of the dead", who was also the head of a warehouse. He added that the walls of the tomb's chambers contain "fabulous designs and colours, reflecting details of daily life … along with their religious rituals". The head of the Japanese team, Jiro Kondo, says the tomb was discovered during work near another tomb belonging to a statesman under Amenhotep III

John Foyston, '3,000 year-old brewer's tomb found in Egypt' The Oregonian January 05, 2014

Wayne Sayles on Cultural Property Nationalists

Wayne G. Sayles of Gainesville, Mo., is the executive director of the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild (accg.us).

Cultural Property Nationalists reject the concept of legitimate markets for cultural property, and are especially active in their efforts to repatriate cultural property to its point of origin. Under the subterfuge of recovering "stolen property," they indiscriminately attack collectors and institutions as being complicit with "looters." To these nationalists, even a collector of common coins and postage stamps from the past is anathema. They launch vicious attacks in the national media against the collector community, referring to ordinary citizens who happen to collect what UNESCO calls "cultural property" as greedy and unscrupulous supporters of terrorism and looting. That the charges are blatant propaganda and disinformation seems not to matter.
By anyone's definition of the word, these are zealous radicals. We should simply ignore their aberrant view — except that they are typically very highly educated, articulate, well-endowed financially, and persistent. They can and do hold seminars and conventions at will, and employ all of the substantial resources of academia in their efforts. They preach a tale of massive destruction of the past, and they assure decision makers in Congress and the State Department that the only solution is to place control and stewardship in their hands. It is a persuasive argument on the surface, and many times a busy legislator or executive department decision maker does not have time to evaluate all of the nuances and details. Collectors, lacking the string of credentials, the institutional backing or the time to mount an effective defense are left without a voice in the decision making process. The one weapon that collectors do have in this cultural property war is the will of the people. In a democracy, the common man has a powerful voice when raised in unison. That reality has hit home with more than one politician in the not too distant past. If you are a collector of anything on the list above, you owe it to yourself to learn more about the movement to restrict collecting of "cultural property." If something seems awry, speak out. If you are not a collector, but you believe in personal property rights and individual freedoms, you might be concerned about the direction this sort of mentality is taking us. 

Wayne Sayles, 'Cultural Property': At Odds with Globalism Guest Commentary The Signal newspaper (Santa Clarita, Calif.)  Sunday, January 14, 2007