I read an excellent book a while back (mentioned in this entry) which looked at the fall of Rome from a consumer standpoint, as the “the loss of comfort” when the global Roman economy crumbled. One of the goods he followed was mass-produced, low cost, high quality pottery. Pottery was a major consumer need for …
Read the full post →“Roman mass-market consumer goods found”
Allegedly, at least. The former director of the Iraq Museum, Donny George, is absolutely convinced the 3,000 year old Neo-Assyrian gold earrings came from the excavation of Nimrud which he personally witnessed. The treasures of Nimrud, considered one of the most spectacular finds of the 20th century and compared with the treasures of King Tut’s …
Read the full post →“Christie’s tries to sell stolen Nimrud earrings”
Back in February, I posted this ugly story of cupidity and disrespect about a US pilot who stole ancient artifacts from the Ma’adi Museum when he was deployed to Egypt in 2002. He was arrested in February for selling stolen goods, but not with the theft itself, so in the end he pled to possession …
Read the full post →“Update: Artifacts stolen by US pilot returned to Egypt”
The engraved mammoth bones and Venus-style figures are not the first Stone Age artifacts found in the area, but they are the first ones found on the Zaraysk site. The new artefacts, discovered by Hizri Amirkhanov and Sergey Lev of the Russian Academy of Sciences, include a mammoth rib inscribed with what appear to be …
Read the full post →“Stone Age figurines uncovered in Russia”
Researchers have found just short of 2 pounds of kind bud in a tomb in China’s Xinjiang province. The cannabis has been carbon dated and is 2,700 years old. The 789 grams of dried cannabis was buried alongside a light-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian man, likely a shaman of the Gushi culture, near Turpan in northwestern China. …
