A banana republic police HQ maybe, but not a home for the Elgin marbles

Wow. Simon Jenkins really does not like the new Acropolis Museum: “It is the most costly poison-pen letter in the history of cultural exchange.”

Roman Venice Discovered

“Thousands of planes leave Venice’s Marco Polo Airport every year, flying north over corn and soybean fields before turning out over the Adriatic Sea. But until a University of Padua geology team combined aerial photographs, satellite images, and a digital terrain model of the area seven miles from the airport, no one had seen Altinum, an ancient Roman city that lies only five feet below the surface. Altinum is one of very few Roman cities in Europe, and the only one in northern Italy that was not built over after it was abandoned in the seventh century A.D.”

Body Part Mummified With Egyptian Recipe

“Swiss researchers have succeeded in mummifying a body part using the salty recipe of the ancient Egyptians.

“

The experiment, which has been running for more than four months, takes inspiration from a 1994 study by Ronald Wade, director of Maryland’s State Anatomical Board, and Bob Brier, one of the leading experts on mummies and Egyptology.

During that study, Brier and Wade replicated for the first time Egyptian mummification using the tools and procedures of the ancient embalmers.

“We are trying to improve on that important experiment using the most up-to-date methods, such as radiological technology, magnetic resonance imaging and computer tomography. It’s a unique project, the first of its kind,” Swiss anatomist and paleopathologist Frank Ruhli told Discovery News.

While Brier and Wade used a complete male body, Ruhli, head of the Swiss Mummy Project at the University of Zurich, used two legs which were severed from a female donor body.”

Lots more detail at the link.

James Robertson - Hadrian’s Library Athens, 1884

via superfluidity:crashinglybeautiful

Ancient Artisans’ Footprints Discovered Beneath Lod Mosaic

“The ancient footprints of the artisans who built a stunning 1,700-year-old mosaic floor in Lod were discovered recently, when conservators from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) were in the process of detaching the huge work of art from the ground.

“As the conservation experts worked on the plaster bedding to be done before detaching the mosaic, they were surprised to notice there were ancient foot and sandal prints beneath it. Clearly, the builders that had worked on the floor sometimes wore their sandals, and sometimes worked in their bare feet.”

Returned Artifacts Displayed in Kabul

“The National Museum was celebrating the return of about 2,000 artifacts that had been smuggled into Britain over the years of war in Afghanistan. British authorities confiscated the smuggled items and, after several years spent figuring out where the artifacts had come from, sent them back to Afghanistan in February.

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“A fghanistan founded the museum in the 1920s, shortly after the country gained full control over its affairs from Britain. Situated at the crossroads of four great civilizations — Chinese, Central Asian, Indian and Persian — Afghanistan is a treasure trove for archaeologists.

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“The items from Britain are not the first to be returned. About 13,000 artifacts have come back to Afghanistan from Norway, Denmark, Switzerland and the United States since the Taliban fell in 2001, according to [museum director] Masoudi.”

Riace Bronzes to Rome

“Two jealously guarded ancient Greek statues are to be allowed out of their Calabrian home for a one-off ‘check-up’ in Rome.

“The priceless 2,500-year-old Riace Bronzes will leave the Museo Nazionale di Reggio Calabria ahead of a museum revamp for the 150th anniversary of Italian unification in 2011, officials said Thursday.

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“They have only left Calabria once since they were discovered in the sea off Reggio almost 40 years ago - a round-Italy trip in 1981 that sold out venues in Rome, Florence and Milan. Calabrian Archeological Superintendent Simonetta Bonomi said their stay in Rome, for a ‘conservative’ clean-up at the National Restoration Institute, would be ‘as short as possible’.”