Divers have recovered an altar that was used for on-board sacrifices from a 2,200-year-old shipwreck off the Aeolian Island of Panarea just north of Sicily. Such altars have been found before on land and one was discovered in the shallow Adriatic waters around the Croatian island of Hvar, but this is the first one to …
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The Vatican debuted a cutting edge new LED lighting system in the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday. Designed and installed by the German company Osram, the new system features more than 7,000 light-emitting diodes mounted behind a cornice high up on the walls. It’s energy efficient, requiring up to 90% less electricity than the 1980s halogen …
Read the full post →“Sistine Chapel gets new LED lighting, climate control systems”
When last we saw the tunnel underneath the Temple of the Feathered Serpent in Teotihuacan, the remote vehicle Tláloc II-TC had forged 65 feet ahead of the point where humans could tread and identified the presence of three chambers with its infrared camera and laser scanner. Wednesday Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) …
Read the full post →“50,000 artifacts found in tunnel under Teotihuacan temple”
In a post earlier this month about the Teschen Table, I waxed lyrical about the gorgeous handwriting of Carl Gottfried Nestler, the Dresden engraver who Johann-Christian Neuber commissioned to write the booklet that identified every mineral inlaid in the table top. “Someone needs to make a Nestler font,” said I, “because that handwriting deserves to …
Read the full post →“Brian Willson: Preserving History through Fonts”
For the past decade, the Frazier History Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, has had the unique distinction of being the only place outside of the UK to have a permanent exhibition of weapons and armour from Britain’s Royal Armouries. In fact, it was the first time any British national museum entered into a long-term collaboration with …
Read the full post →“Last chance to see Royal Armoury arms in America”
The wreck of La Belle, one of explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier Sieur de La Salle’s supply ships, is on view to the public now, 328 years after it sank in Matagorda Bay and 17 years after it was recovered from the sea floor. When the 54-1/2-foot frigate went down in a storm in the Gulf of …
Read the full post →“<em>La Belle</em> exhibit opens at Austin’s Bullock Museum”
Archaeologists exploring a stretch of the Inca trail network of Qhapaq Ñan that passes through the archaeological site of Incahuasi have discovered a stone cut with 13 angles. The trail is vast, covering 30,000 kilometers and crossing six countries. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site this June, which has drawn new attention to …
Read the full post →“13-angled stone found in Inca hydraulic system”
The only known surviving opus sectile mosaic of Medusa is finally being restored five years after its discovery in the ancient Odeon theater of Kibyra, in southwest Turkey’s Burdur Province. The 1,800-year-old masterpiece of the mosaic arts was unearthed during an archaeological excavation in 2009, but on the advice of Culture and Tourism Ministry experts …
Read the full post →“Restoration on unique Medusa mosaic almost finished”
In late 2012, the Vasa Museum in Stockholm, home of the beautiful but unstable flagship of the Swedish fleet that sank a mile from the shore on its maiden voyage in 1628, put together a team to recreate one of the ship’s 24-pounder bronze cannons. Although Vasa went down in ignominy before it had a …
Read the full post →“Replica of <em>Vasa</em> bronze cannon shot”
A late 16th portrait of King Henry III of France that has been missing from the Louvre since World War II was discovered about to go up for auction in Paris. A small work at eight by five inches, the painting was valued by the Ader-Nordmann auction house at only €400-€600 ($505-$758). One week before …
Read the full post →“Lost Louvre portrait of Henry III found at auction”
