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Peru (AFP) — The Inca citadel of Machu Picchu, Peru’s tourist jewel, reopened to visitors on Wednesday, 25 days after it closed due to demonstrations that have shaken the country since last December. The first groups of tourists could be seen entering the archaeological park early in the morning, taking advantage of an unusually sunny day as they toured the different sites and sacred temples that make up the “llaqta” (“citadel” in Quechua). Some 700 […]
Tel Lachish, Israel (AFP) — A rare inscription that sheds new light on the use of Canaanite language some 3,700 years ago has been discovered on an ivory comb in southern Israel, archaeologists said Wednesday. The comb was found at the Tel Lachish site in 2017, but the letters were not noticed until earlier this year following further examination, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem said in a statement. The artefact provides “direct evidence” of the […]
LIMA, Peru (AFP) – Peruvian workers laying gas pipes found the remains of eight people buried in a common tomb with food and musical instruments some 800 years ago, an archaeologist said Wednesday. The bodies of adults and children had been wrapped in plant material, with corn, dishes, and a variety of wind instruments, including flutes, placed around them, Cecilia Camargo, an archaeologist hired by the Calidda gas company whose workers made the discovery, told […]
by Ben Simon Agence France Presse JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israel on Tuesday unveiled fragments of a biblical scroll dating back some 2,000 years, in what experts described as the most significant such find since the Dead Sea Scrolls. The artifacts were unearthed during excavations by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) in the Judean desert, which spans parts of southern Israel and the occupied West Bank. In a site known as the “Cave of Horrors,” archaeologists […]
by Carlos MANDUJANO Agence France-Presse CARAL, Peru (AFP) — Having survived for 5,000 years, the oldest archeological site in the Americas is under threat from squatters claiming the coronavirus pandemic has left them with no other option but to occupy the sacred city. The situation has become so bad that archeologist Ruth Shady, who discovered the Caral site in Peru, has been threatened with death if she doesn’t abandon investigating its treasures. Archeologists told an […]
GOLAN HEIGHTS (AFP) — Archaeologists on Wednesday unveiled a fortified structure from the time of the King David on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that sheds light on the borders of a Biblical Israeli ally. The 3,000-year-old fort, found near the Jewish settlement of Hispin ahead of works to build a new neighbourhood, is believed to have belonged to the Geshurites, King David’s allies. Locally quarried basalt boulders form the metre-and-a-half (five-foot) thick walls of the […]
KHARTOUM, Sudan (AFP) — Rising Nile floodwaters are threatening to swamp an ancient archaeological site in Sudan, after some of the highest ever recorded river levels, archaeologists said Monday. Teams have set up sandbag walls and are pumping out water to prevent damage at the ruins of Al-Bajrawiya, once a royal city of the two-millenia-old Meroitic empire, said Marc Maillot, head of the French Archaeological Unit in the Sudan Antiquities Service. “The floods had never […]
by Sammy Ketz Agence France-Presse JABAL MARAGHA, Sudan (AFP) — When a team of archaeologists deep in the deserts of Sudan arrived at the ancient site of Jabal Maragha last month, they thought they were lost. The site had vanished. But they hadn’t made a mistake. In fact, gold-hunters with giant diggers had destroyed almost all sign of the two millenia-old site. “They had only one goal in digging here — to find gold,” said shocked […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Archaeologists have for the first time found Aboriginal artefacts on the seabed off Australia, opening a door to the discovery of ancient settlements flooded since the last ice age, they reported Thursday. Hundreds of ancient stone tools made by Australia’s Indigenous people at least 7,000 years ago were discovered two metres underwater off the remote Western Australia coast, the research published in the PLOS ONE journal said. A second site nearby […]
LIMA, Peru (AFP) — The ancient Inca citadel of Machu Picchu, a jewel of Peruvian tourism, will not reopen in July as originally scheduled due to concerns over the coronavirus, local media reported Sunday. The Machu Picchu management group, UGM, made the decision based on reports from authorities in the Cusco region, where the citadel is located. “It has been decided that it will not be opened on July 1,” Machu Picchu district mayor Darwin […]
JERUSALEM, Undefined (AFP) — The northern segment of the Great Wall of China was built not to block invading armies but rather to monitor civilian movement, an Israeli archaeologist said Tuesday. When researchers fully mapped the Great Wall’s 740-kilometre (460-mile) Northern Line for the first time, their findings challenged previous assumptions. “Prior to our research, most people thought the wall’s purpose was to stop Genghis Khan’s army,” said Gideon Shelach-Lavi from Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, who led […]
JERUSALEM, Undefined (AFP) — DNA research on the Dead Sea Scrolls has revealed that not all of the ancient manuscripts came from the desert landscape where they were discovered, according to a study published Tuesday. Numbering around 900, the manuscripts were found between 1947 — first by Bedouin shepherds — and 1956 in the Qumran caves above the Dead Sea that are today located in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The parchment and papyrus scrolls contain Hebrew, […]
