Archaeology in the News! 3-15-13

Some great photographs of Roman ruins in Libya from the air by Jason Hawkes.

A newly deciphered Egyptian text, dating back almost 1,200 years, tells part of the crucifixion story of Jesus with apocryphal plot twists, including a shape-shifting Jesus.

A new neolithic village has been found in Israel as part of salvage excavations. It contains some of the earliest evidence of growing legumes and cultic sexual symbols.

Thanks to delays in construction of the massive mine and a hefty influx of cash from the World Bank, the 1.5-square-mile Mes Aynak complex is an archaeological triumph – though bittersweet. Archaeologists now have more time to excavate before destruction begins for the copper mine.

New research hints that life in Amarna was a combination of grinding toil and want—at least for the ordinary people who would have hauled the city’s water. A study of remains from the city’s cemetery show “the most stressed and disease-ridden of the ancient skeletons of Egypt that have been reported to date.”

A look at the meaning of the rock art of indigenous northern Scandinavians, the Sami, and the presence of symbolic representations of the Earth Mother figure whose existence and agency underlie much of the pre-Christian world-view of the Sami people.

Archaeologists in southern Israel say they’ve uncovered a young donkey sacrifice, carefully laid to rest on its side more than 3,500 years ago, complete with a copper bridle bit in its mouth and saddle bags on its back.

Egyptian and European excavators unearthed a collection of six-foot tall, black granite statues depicting the ancient Egyptian lioness Goddess Sekhmet during their excavation at King Amenhotep III funerary temple on the west bank of Luxor.

A new study suggests that an inability to shift from hunting large mammals to wild rabbits and other small game may have contributed to the downfall of European Neanderthals during the Middle Paleolithic period, about 30,000 years ago.

The discovery of a 2,500-year-old dagger in Hubei province might prove that the states of Sui and Zeng were actually the same. The dagger was inscribed with the name of Sui while other objects in the tomb carried the name of Zeng.

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