A Tintoretto by any other name . . .

The revelation that Tintoretto’s family name was Comin (the word means the spice “cumin” in the local dialect) is the result of research following publication of an article in a Spanish journal two years ago, written by Fernando Checa, a former director of the Prado. Checa mentioned an unpublished letter by a 17th-century Spanish aristocrat, the Marqués del Carpio, who quoted from a previously unknown genealogy of the Tintoretto family.

Prado curator Miguel Falomir (assisted by Roland Krischel) did further research, and has now established that the genealogy shows that the family’s surname was Comin and that they came from Brescia, 170km west of Venice (until now it was thought they came from Lucca). In his forthcoming exhibition catalogue, Mr Falomir confidently entitles his introductory essay “Jacopo Comin, alias Robusti, alias Tintoretto”. This discovery may make it possible to trace other archival references to the artist.

From the Art Newspaper, which also notes:

The Prado says its show will be the only major Tintoretto exhibition since 1937, in Venice. There are two reasons why no one has tackled the challenge of a retrospective in 70 years: many of the pictures are extremely large and most still hang in the buildings for which they were painted.

Nearly 90% of the artist’s paintings remain in Venice.

Indeed, I never appreciated Tintoretto until I spent an academic year in Venice; and since then, it is a rare to see a painting of his elsewhere that does not disappoint me as a pale shadow of the great works that drew me in, time and again, during that memorable year.

Exhuming Mona Lisa

Many articles on the discovery of a document recording the burial site of Lisa Gherardini, most of them full of inaccuracies. MSNBC seems to have one of the more sensible writeups:

An amateur historian said Friday that he has found the final resting place of a Renaissance woman who has been linked to Leonardo da Vinci's most renowned painting, the "Mona Lisa."

A death certificate shows that Lisa Gherardini — the woman some have identified as the model for the "Mona Lisa" — died on July 15, 1542, in Florence and is buried in a convent in central Florence, Giuseppe Pallanti said. . .

It's not certain that Gherardini, who was born in 1479 and married a rich silk merchant named Francesco del Giocondo, is the woman in the painting whose smile has inspired speculation for centuries.

Tradition links Gherardini to "La Gioconda," as the painting is known in Italian, because Giorgio Vasari, a 16th-century artist and biographer of Leonardo and other artists, wrote that da Vinci painted a portrait of del Giocondo's wife.

The article also notes the discrepancies between the portrait described by Vasari and the Mona Lisa. The Scotsman, by contrast, uncritically reports:

[Pallanti] added that his research had wiped away all doubt about the identity of La Gioconda . . .

Historians are certain that Lisa Gherardini was the model and records show that she married Francesco Del Giocondo in 1495 when she was 16 and he was 35.

Then there is this truly embarrassing quote:

The world's greatest Da Vinci expert, Professor Carlo Pedretti, said: "Now that the final resting place of Mona Lisa Gherardini has been found, it would be very worthwhile to locate her remains and obtain her DNA.

"With the medical techniques available today, we could rebuild her physique and recreate the famous pose. The discovery of her burial place is very significant and I congratulate Pallanti."

PS It's "Leonardo".

Napoleon's death, revisited

Putting to rest a 200-year-old mystery, scientists say Napoleon Bonaparte died from an advanced case of gastric cancer and not arsenic poisoning as some had speculated. . .

An autopsy at the time determined that stomach cancer was the cause of his death. But some arsenic found in 1961 in the ruler's hair sparked rumors of poisoning. . .

However, a new study--combining current medical knowledge, autopsy reports, Bonaparte's physician memoirs, eyewitness accounts, and family medical histories--found that gastrointestinal bleeding was the immediate cause of death.

Full article here.

Abolitionist church excavation

News from downtown New York:

The archaeologist hired by Donald Trump and his project partners Bayrock/Sapir to handle the human remains found at the site of their planned condo-hotel at Spring and Varick Sts. recently filed a report with the city. . .

According to the report, the human remains appear to be from burial vaults built between 1820 and 1835 under the former Spring Street Presbyterian Church, which was razed in 1963 after a fire. . .

The congregants of the church in the early 19th century who were interred in the vaults were not well off. The church admitted African-Americans to full communion as church members and had a multiracial Sunday school as early as 1822 — five years before New York abolished slavery — both of which are quite rare. According to the report, “The church’s fierce abolitionism was known almost from its inception.… Both the church’s reverend, Henry Ludlow, who was surrounded by rumors that he had conducted interracial marriage ceremonies, and former reverend, Samuel Cox, who had seceded from the church in 1825 to found the Laight Street Church, preached racial tolerance to their congregation, with Cox declaring that Jesus Christ was ‘probably of a dark Syrian hue.’ Both churches, as well as the private homes of both reverends, were then attacked by anti-abolitionist mobs.

End of the road for oldest clipper ship

IT is a vessel brimming with history but one which can no longer bear the weight of the past. After staying afloat against many small deaths, the world's oldest surviving clipper has been been dealt a final, dark fate.

After 143 years, the SV Carrick is to be broken up.

An international group of nautical enthusiasts, politicians and genealogists, who have battled for the beleaguered clipper's restoration, saw the last embers of their generation-long battle extinguished this week. North Ayrshire Council planning committee granted consent to allow the A-listed vessel to be dismantled.

The Scottish Maritime Museum at Irvine had intended to restore the Carrick as a passenger ship and tourist attraction but any overhaul, a feasibility study concluded, would have created little more than a £10m reproduction.

Everyone seems to have been in agreement that the ship was in wretched condition; one wonders what might have happened had funds been forthcoming in decades past. There may yet be something to be gained, however:

Now, Mr Kennison and his fellow trustees will pursue one of two methods of deconstruction. Originally known as City of Adelaide, she has lain on an Irvine slipway since sinking in Glasgow 15 years ago. Though no costs have been prepared, it is hoped a measured process can yield archeological information about the vessel's 1864 construction in Sunderland.

"Although we're going to lose the ship, we're not going to smash it into pieces. We intend to preserve as much as we can," Mr Kennison said. "No-one has ever scientifically deconstructed one of these ships before. We stand to learn a great deal". . .

The 176ft vessel survived 28 voyages carrying emigrants from Falmouth to Australia over two decades. Australian researchers estimate more than 60% of the population of the nation's southern states can trace their families' arrival in Australia to the ship.

Full article here.

ADDENDUM: Commentary, pictures, and further links at the ever-interesting Barista.

Beijing Olympics archeology

About 1,100 cultural relics were unearthed at Beijing Olympic venue construction sites last year, state media reported on Thursday.

Not just the odd potsherd, either:

The relics were discovered at 10 different venues and included about 700 tombs dating from the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Xinhua news agency said, citing Shu Xiaofeng, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics.

And I'm sure all have been carefully and thoroughly excavated and recorded. Sounds as if the finds in China have greatly outnumbered those resulting from the construction of the Athens Olympic sites. From Reuters.

What are they doing to the Uffizi?!

This is astonishing -- and to think there was such a flap over cleaning Michelangelo's David!

Giant cranes move into place tomorrow at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence to begin work on a €30 million (£20 million) plan to increase exhibition space at one of the world’s foremost treasure houses of art. . .

The roof is to be replaced by a glass superstructure, allowing daylight into overcrowded and badly lit exhibition rooms.

The project involves new lifts, stairs, cafeterias, visitor centres and lavatories. Conservationists say that the works will mean the demolition not only of “Dante’s church” but also of a vault by Giorgio Vasari, who designed the Uffizi for the Medici dynasty, as well as potentially risky excavations beneath the building. . .

Riccardo Francovich, Professor of Medieval Archeology at the University of Siena, a consultant to the project, said that concerns over “these sacrosanct stones” had been brushed aside. He said that the foundations of the Uffizi and the San Pier Scheraggio church formed the most important archeological site in Florence, containing precious evidence of the city’s origins in the fifth century. . .

Annamaria Petrioli Tofani, the former director, said that Florentines should “mobilise themselves and wake up to how a major monument is being altered”.

From the Times of London.

UPDATE: I can't find any other English-language articles on the New Uffizi project, and the Italian news sources don't seem to include much in the way of criticism. This article would seem to contradict the Times' claims about San Pier Scheraggio:

Ad assicurare la tutela delle strutture interessate dai lavori, la sovrintendenza archeologica della Toscana. Secondo Carlotta Cianferoni, funzionario archeologo della sovrintendenza, nessun pericolo per la Chiesa di san Scheraggio. ''Lo scavo che interessa San Scheraggio e' gia' stato intrapreso e ultimato - ha dichiarato la Gianferoni - la chiesa sara' inserita nel percorso archeologico nella nuova galleria degli Uffizi e la sovrintendenza si ritiene soddisfatta del lavoro svolto, anche se continuera' a vigilare affinche' i lavori, anche in superficie, procedano nel pieno rispetto delle strutture esistenti. Comunque - ha sottolineato il funzionario archeologo - il progetto e' gia' stato ampiamente discusso e tutto quello che riguarda il versante archeologico e' gia' stato fatto''.

Nessuno, insomma, tocchera' le pietre di San Scheraggio che saranno inserite nel percorso della nuova galleria degli Uffizi.

Speriamo di sì.

Stolen Goya back in Toledo

The painting that was stolen while being transported from Ohio to New York's Guggenheim Museum is now back at the Toledo Museum and soon to be back on display.

There still hasn't been much more detail about the recovery, beyond acknowledgment at the time that all the suggestions that it was an inside job and a deliberate targeting were completely off the mark:

Siegel said the thieves apparently did not know what was inside the truck when they broke into it. "It was a target of opportunity. They probably thought it was a truck full of PlayStations," he said.

We-told-you-so references here and here.

Who's on (trial) first?

Marion True is in the dock, but if the Getty thinks it can escape by cutting her loose, a rethink may be in order:

In a move that seemed to gratify prosecutors, lawyers for a former curator of antiquities at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles who is on trial here asked on Wednesday that the court admit as evidence a letter in which the curator railed against her former employer.

In the Dec. 18 letter to three Getty officials, the former curator, Marion True, accused the Getty’s trust of having left her to “carry the burden” of the institution’s collecting practices, even though her superiors at the museum and the trust had “approved all of the acquisitions made during my tenure”. . .

Ms. True wrote that her Getty superiors “were all fully aware of the risks involved in buying antiquities” and still had approved her decisions. . .

Francesco Isolabella, one of her lawyers . . . pointed out that several works that Italy wants the Getty to return were bought by Ms. True’s predecessor, Jiri Frel, who worked from 1973 to 1986 on amassing the museum’s collection of Greek and Roman treasures.

From today's NY Times. Other writeups, including this AP piece from the International Herald Tribune, focused more on the testimony of Pietro Casasanta (previously noted here):

Pietro Casasanta recalled half a century spent looting archaeological treasures across the country, benefiting from what he said was a free-for-all environment that allowed smugglers and merchants to make a fortune by selling antiquities in Italy and abroad.

Italian authorities say top European and U.S. museums took advantage of that atmosphere to acquire looted Roman, Greek and Etruscan artifacts. . .

The raider defended his actions, saying that the underground antiquities trade was tolerated for decades until authorities started the recent crackdown. He also claimed he had saved art that would have been otherwise destroyed in development projects.

Claiming to be a hero is a bit much, but it is true that enforcement of antiquities laws in Italy used to be so lax that the trade in illegally-excavated antiquities (if not the excavation itself) could fairly be described as "tolerated".

Guided by a self-styled code of honor, Casasanta said he concentrated mainly on the ruins of ancient Roman villas in the countryside around the Italian capital, refusing to loot the art-rich Etruscan tombs that are one of preferred targets of Italy's "tombaroli," or grave robbers.

"I didn't like to disturb the dead," he said. "It was my own ethical choice."

Oh, please. More likely he was either superstitious or was afraid that the tombaroli wouldn't take kindly to trespassers on "their" turf.

Resurrecting a killer

Scientists who recreated "Spanish flu" - the 1918 virus which killed up to 50m people - have witnessed its remarkable killing power first hand.

The lungs of infected monkeys were destroyed in just days as their immune systems went into overdrive after a Canadian laboratory rebuilt the virus. . .

However, it is not the virus that is directly causing the damage to the lungs - it is the body's own response to infection.

Immune system proteins that can damage infected tissue were found at much higher levels following H1N1 infection compared with other viral infections.

Analysis at the University of Wisconsin at Madison (UW) revealed that a key component of the immune system, a gene called RIG-1 appeared to be involved.

Levels of the protein produced by the gene were lower in tissue infected with the 1918 virus, suggesting it had a method of switching it off, causing immune defences to run wild.

This ability to alter the body's immune response is shared with the most recent candidate for mutation into a pandemic strain, the H5N1 avian flu.

From the BBC.

Fort Pitt park flap

In 1759, British forces successfully beat back French occupiers of a triangular point of land where the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers meet to form the Ohio river. The British built Fort Pitt and named the adjoining area Pittsburgh.

Today, next to office buildings and sitting underneath modern highways, part of Fort Pitt is surrounded by a chain-link fence. Inside, construction equipment scoops up dirt and broken chunks of concrete in preparation to cover a wall and moat that once surrounded the fort.

State officials say the renovation at Point State Park will create a flatter space that can be used better for community events. But critics say history is being buried because so little is known about what actually lies beneath the land.

Full article here.

Donny George, in Long Island

He's teaching this term at SUNY Stony Brook; there's a brief piece on him in New York Magazine.

More valuable than gold

Because of its otherworldly brilliance, the 16th-century Taíno Indians of Cuba called it turey, their word for the most luminous part of the sky.

They adored its sweet smell, its reddish hue, its exotic origins and its dazzling iridescence, qualities that elevated it to the category of sacred materials known as guanín. Local chieftains wore it in pendants and medallions to show their wealth, influence and connection to the supernatural realm. Elite women and children were buried with it.

What was this treasured stuff? Humble brass — specifically, the lace tags and fasteners from Spanish explorers’ shoes and clothes, for which the Taíno eagerly traded their local gold.

A great hook. The rest of the story is quite interesting itself, dealing with Caribbean archeology and the evidence offered by post-contact sites for an era poorly documented -- evidence that itself has been slow to be absorbed:

The finds at El Chorro also help to fill a hole in the study of the Caribbean past created by Cuba’s political isolation. Archaeology of the island has been little known outside of its borders since the 1959 revolution. Very few foreign archaeologists have dug there, and the few field reports published by Cuban archaeologists, mostly trained by Soviet scholars, are difficult to get outside the country.

From the NY Times.

Old tools, or old rocks?

A story to keep an eye on -- but don't rewrite any history books just yet:

What appear to be crude stone tools may provide evidence that people lived in Minnesota 13,000 to 15,000 years ago, which if confirmed would make them among the oldest human artifacts ever found in North America, [local] archaeologists said Friday. . .

"The finding is intriguing but it really needs to have its precise age nailed down and more needs to be known of the artifacts," said David Meltzer, an archaeologist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Much more research needs to be done to allow firm conclusions, Wells and her colleagues acknowledged. "It's bound to be controversial," said Matt Mattson, another archaeologist on the project.

I'm not sure why they went public with this claim before doing at least a bit more background work. From the article, it sounds as if it's not even certain that the "tools" are man-made artifacts. But perhaps beating the drum a bit is the only way to insure that the site ends up properly excavated and studied.

Enormous "cloud warrior" site discovered

A massive ruin offers fresh clues about the culture of Peru's vanished Chachapoya, the "cloud warriors" who battled the Inca Empire more than 500 years ago.

Best known for building mountainous cliff-side tombs and filling them with bundled mummies, the Chachapoya (cha-cha-POY-ah) were once rulers of the northern Andes. Aside from cliff tombs and stone houses, they have left archaeologists few large ruins to study.

Until now. . .

"I was shown to what seems likely the biggest free-standing Chachapoya structure in the world, and just about in the last place I would ever expect it," says Muscutt, an assistant dean at the University of California-Santa Cruz, who described the site last week at the Institute of Andean Studies meeting in Berkeley, Calif.

From USA Today.

Surveying an ancient university

Scientists from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) have been asked to help explore ruins in and around the ancient Nalanda University in Bihar.

P.K. Mishra, the superintending archaeologist of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Patna circle, said the radar mapping would help to explore the ruins for further excavation. . .

Hieun Tsang, the famous Chinese scholar who visited Nalanda in the 7th century, stated in his account that the university was spread over 16 kilometres. However, till now hardly 1.6 square kilometres of the ruins of more than 2,500-year-old university was excavated.

Full article here; Wikipedia entry on Nalanda here.

Ancient tomb finds in Iran

Archeologists at the historic cemetery of Lama in the Iranian southwestern province of Kohkiloye va Boyer-Ahmad discovered 8 new family tombs, raising the total number of the discovered tombs in this cemetery to 61. An earthenware dish engraved with the design of a human being, an earthen coffin, a bronze sword, and a golden tassel are among some of the recent findings in this historic graveyard. Excavations in Lama historic cemetery started in 1999 when vehicles of Iran’s Road Construction Company accidentally bumped into three ridged graves when they were removing the soil for road construction. . . Regarding the discovery of ancient tombs belonging to late second millennium to early first millennium BC, Hassan Rezvani, archeologist and head of the excavation team in Lama Cemetery, said: “The unearthed tombs are different in shape. Although most of them have a rectangular structure, their ceilings differ from one another.”

Full article here.

No more follow the leader on eBay

eBay is always tweaking its auctions, but recently it's made a major change: one can no longer search and find out what another bidder is currently bidding on. One can still run a search to find out what others have won, at least for bidders registered outside of countries with privacy laws that prohibit any such information to be divulged.

This probably isn't a big deal for the majority of casual eBay browsers, but it is for those who are active in specialized fields, where bidders have routinely followed each other around to find out what items they might have missed. Who wants to be someone else's truffle hound?

Botched hangings

It didn't go so smoothly at Nuremburg, either:

Although Smith discreetly omitted mentioning it, the experienced Army hangman, Master Sgt. John C. Woods, botched the executions. A number of the hanged Nazis died, not quickly from a broken neck as intended, but agonizingly from slow strangulation. Ribbentrop and Sauckel each took 14 minutes to choke to death, while Keitel, whose death was the most painful, struggled for 24 minutes at the end of the rope before expiring.

Though on the other hand, what does it say about a state that it has enough experience to get a hanging "right" every time?

Swastika ban debated

Hindus in Europe have joined forces against a German proposal to ban the display of the swastika across the European Union, a Hindu leader said.

Ramesh Kallidai of the Hindu Forum of Britain said the swastika had been a symbol of peace for thousands of years before the Nazis adopted it.

He said a ban on the symbol would discriminate against Hindus.

Germany, holder of the EU presidency, wants to make Holocaust denial and the display of Nazi symbols a crime. . .

The swastika is already banned in Germany. A previous attempt to ban it across the EU in early 2005 failed after objections from several governments, including the British.

From the BBC. The debate over the last ban attempt had also encompassed the proposal to include Communist symbols as well.

Marion True update

The trial in Rome has resumed. How long it will take is anyone's guess. Today's Telegraph has a summary of where things now stand. The following does seem to be a bit off, however:

On Monday, Miss True, the former head of antiquities at the Getty, was released from a Greek prison, after posting a £10,000 bail. However, she is not expected to appear in court in Italy. If she is convicted in either country, she faces up to 10 years in jail.

From what I've read, she was not in jail in Greece, though she was in court. The New York Times reported last week:

Appearing before an investigating magistrate and prosecutors, Marion True, the former antiquities curator of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, was ordered on Wednesday to post $19,500 in bail pending trial on charges that she conspired to buy an ancient funerary wreath that prosecutors say was illegally removed from Greek soil about 15 years ago.

The bail amount was set after a closed hourlong meeting at the magistrate’s office in which Ms. True submitted a 16-page defense and responded to prosecutors’ questions with the aid of her Greek lawyer. She has denied any wrongdoing. . .

Legal experts described the bail set for Ms. True on Wednesday as relatively modest, and the investigating magistrate, Apostolos Zavitsanos, said after the meeting that he did not consider her the greatest offender in the case.

“The wreath’s value of over a million dollars determined the nature of charges brought against Ms. True,” he said.

“The magna culprit of the case is not Ms. True,” he said, but “those facing the stiffest punishment for looting and selling the golden wreath.”

Although the question remains, where is the Greek government seeking to apply the most pressure?

She and her lawyers had been given about three weeks — a relatively short time in the Greek legal system — to prepare for the meeting, underlining the case’s importance for the Greek government and judiciary.

Parasites vs multiple sclerosis

Could parasitic infection be a relatively benign method of regulating an out-of-kilter immune system?

Having millions of parasites living in your gut may actually be a benefit if you also have multiple sclerosis, a study has found.

The methods used by the creatures to stop our immune systems wiping them out could be keeping the illness at bay.

Argentinian scientists looked at 24 MS patients - some with parasitic infections, and some without.

The Annals of Neurology study found the parasite-riddled group had far fewer MS 'relapses'.

From the BBC.

My mother had MS; she said that she never had a cold after her diagnosis, which would appear to have been a side effect of her overactive immune response. She was on Prednisone for years. I took the stuff once, when it turned out I was allergic to a certain antibiotic. The allergic response was bad enough, but the Prednisone was terrible -- and my course lasted only a week or so. Give me intestinal parasites instead, any day.

Eavesdropping on aliens

And no worries about injunctions filed by those pesky civil libertarians -- for a few decades, at least:

If aliens tens of light-years away have radar and FM radio, we may finally be able to hear them.

A proposal to piggyback detection software onto new radio telescopes designed primarily to observe the early universe could allow astronomers to eavesdrop on everyday sounds from distant, Earth-like civilizations.

From Discovery News.

Bitter battle in the Iraqi borderlands

This one was a while ago, though:

It was the ancient version of a last stand: Twelve clay bullets lined up and ready to be shot from slings in a desperate attempt to stop fierce invaders who soon would reduce much of the city to rubble.

The discovery was made in the ruins of Hamoukar, an ancient settlement in northeastern Syria located just miles from the border with Iraq.

Thought to be one of the world's earliest cities and located in northern Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, it is the site of joint excavations by the University of Chicago and the Syrian Department of Antiquities. . .

The site is so close to Iraq that Clemens Reichel, the American co-director of the expedition, has seen explosions on the other side of the border.

Read the rest at Discovery News.

Jerusalem archeology update

Some interesting discoveries, as well as some lively controversy:

An immense bedrock cliff uncovered opposite Jerusalem's Temple Mount may help explain why it took the Romans so long to capture what is now known as the Jewish Quarter almost two millenia ago, an Israeli archeologist said Sunday.

The cliff, uncovered during a year-long excavation at the western edge of the Western Wall Plaza, was one of several important finds that include the remains of a colonnaded street called the Eastern Cardo, dating from the Roman-Byzantine period; a section of the Lower Aqueduct that conveyed water from Solomon's Pools to the Temple Mount; and a damaged rock-hewn and plastered Jewish mikve (ritual bath) that dates back to the Second Temple period, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced at a press conference.

The dig, which was conducted in an area that had not been excavated before due to plans for construction, also served to clarify the height of an immense bedrock cliff that separated the Upper City from the Temple Mount area. It in itself is "the most impressive" find, said Shlomit Wexler-Bedolah, the excavation director.

Wexler-Bedolah said the cliff's topography could help explain the slow Roman conquest, noting that it took the Roman army an entire month from the time they destroyed the Temple Mount on the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av until they captured the ground of today's Jewish Quarter on the 10th day of the following month.

From the Jerusalem Post. An Israeli government press release about the excavations may be found here, while this article focuses more on the ancient watercourses:

The new archaeological find uncovers a missing link in the ancient water system, known as the "Lower Aqueduct." This system channeled water from Solomon’s Pools near Bethlehem (located several miles south of Jerusalem) directly to the national focal point of Jewish worship - the Temple Mount.

Solomon’s pools, situated just north of the modern Jewish town of Efrat, cover an area of about 7 acres and can hold three million gallons of water. A lengthy aqueduct conveyed the water from the lowest pool through Bethlehem, across the Gihon valley, along the western slope of the Tyropoeon valley, and into the cisterns underneath the Temple Mount. Today, the water from the pools reaches only Bethlehem due to the destruction of the aqueducts.

Meanwhile, not all of the Antiquities Authorities' doings are meeting with approval:

The planned construction of a new bridge leading through an archeological garden to the Mughrabi Gate near the Western Wall has incurred stinging criticism from dozens of senior archeologists in Israel, officials said Sunday.

The bridge, which is being built by the Israel Antiquities Authority, will replace the temporary walkway constructed more than a year ago at the women's section of the Wall after the original stone ramp to the Mughrabi Gate was removed, having been deemed unsafe by engineers.

The new bridge, which has received a green light from the city's planning committee and the blessing of the rabbi of the Western Wall, is slated to tower above the archeological garden next to the site and will be supported by as many as eight pylons anchored in that garden, Jerusalem district archeologist Yuval Baruch said Sunday. . .

The site, located outside the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount, has been deemed one of the world's most significant archeological parks.

The plan to construct the new bridge straight through the archeological garden has provoked fierce opposition by archeologists, who say that the bridge will inevitably damage antiquities.

Vintage Spam hunt

From the Nidderdale Herald:

LOCAL people have been digging deep into their kitchen cupboards to unearth a mass of old household products.
Tins of polish and cleaning substances along with jars, tins and packets of groceries and drink have been donated to The World of James Herriot for a brand new exhibition opening later this month.
The display will celebrate iconic domestic brands from the past to the present day.
But there is still one item desperately needed by the Thirsk centre - a tin of World War II Spam!

Homo sapiens/Neanderthal hybrid?

A 40,000-year-old skull found in a Romanian cave shows traits of both modern humans and Neanderthals and might prove the two interbred, researchers reported on Monday.

If the findings are confirmed, the skull would represent the oldest modern human remains yet found in Europe.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, will add to the debate over whether modern Homo sapiens simply killed off their Neanderthal cousins, or had some intimate interactions with them first.

That's putting it rather harshly, don't you think? From Reuters.

Viking finds in Norway

Archaeologists have made a major discovery in Western Norway, unearthing Glass beads covered with gold are among the items found in the Viking graves. . .

The archaeologists from the Archaeological Museum in Stavanger found traces from Viking times just a half-meter below the surface at their excavation site at Frøyland. They've found a woman's grave, a man's grave and a child's grave, which they haven't yet examined.

It's believed that two more graves are lying in the vicinity.

More than 50 items from the grave, found just after New Year, have been transported to the museum, including a large bronze buckle engraved with bear heads and ducks.

Both the male and female graves include Viking boats about seven meters long, and many of the vessels' nails have been recovered. Hemdorff said the graves are believed to belong to a family from the 800s.

Article, with some illustrations, here. A very belated tip of the hat to reader Glenn Bowen.

Stealing $4M, at knifepoint

Robbers in surgical masks pulled off a $4 million coin heist at knifepoint outside a coin dealers convention, getting away with gold, silver and a rare 1843 set of currency once owned by President Tyler, authorities said.

It was the second time in two years that the Florida United Numismatists' annual coin show had been hit, and this year's loss was much larger.

On Saturday, a Minnesota coin dealer's employee was unloading an SUV outside a luxury hotel when a robber in a surgical mask and a hooded sweater grabbed him from behind and held a knife to his throat, witnesses and the victim told authorities. Two other masked men grabbed a suitcase from the SUV, according to authorities.

Full article here. I'm surprised the dealers involved weren't more careful; as I've noted before, the norm among jewelry dealers is to have their wares picked up and delivered by an armored car service like Brink's -- even dealers with inventory worth much less than this loss. But perhaps coin dealers haven't been hit so hard as jewelry and watch dealers, at least until recently:

Last year, thieves stole about $450,000 worth of coins by breaking into cars, most of them while dealers ate in restaurants.

Now that's really sloppy, though all too familiar.

Medici poisoning

Catching up on the archeological news, at last:

Historians have long suspected that Francesco de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and his second wife Bianca Cappello did not die of malaria but were poisoned — probably by Francesco's brother, Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici, who was vying for the title.

Now, forensic and toxicology experts at the University of Florence report evidence of arsenic poisoning in a new study published in the British Medical Journal . . .

“There was always a suspicion (of murder), but there wasn't scientific proof,'' said Marcello Fantoni, who teaches Renaissance history at Kent State University.

Full article here.

Re-Reconquista update

SPAIN'S CATHOLIC bishops are mobilising against Muslim plans to recreate the Andalusian city of Cordoba as a huge pilgrimage site for Muslims throughout Europe.

Cordoba's Muslim community wants to build a half-size replica of the eighth-century mosque in the city that was once heart of the ancient Islamic kingdom of al-Andalus. Cordoba's Muslim Association is seeking funds for the project from the governments of the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, and Muslim organisations in Morocco and Egypt. The complex would include schools, conference centres, a hotel, library, sports fields, a swimming pool and shops, said the association's president, Abu-Muhammad Abdullah-Imram.

Another giant Saudi-funded mosque is planned near the ancient fortress palace of Medina Azahara, a heritage site just outside Cordoba. Similar mosques are planned for Seville and Granada.

There's the obvious temptation to draw comparisons with what the Zionists were doing in Palestine -- yet whereas the Temple Mount remains to this day under Muslim control, the Spanish Muslims are aiming straight at retaking or re-establishing their historical sanctuaries.

But bishops are alarmed at the prospect of huge, eye-catching mosques, fearing the Catholic Church's waning influence may be further eclipsed by resurgent Islam financed from abroad. One million Muslims, immigrants and converts, are estimated to live in Spain, with the largest community - around 250,000 - in Andalusia. Many are drawn by the area's Islamic heritage and a romantic nostalgia for the lost paradise of the kingdom of al-Andalus that ruled Spain for more than 500 years.

The campaigners certainly aren't shy, either:

The polemic was re-ignited when the pope, Benedict XVI, visited Turkey in November and prayed in Istanbul's Blue Mosque. "That was a tremendously positive sign to Muslims. It showed that mosques are open to Christian worshippers," said Escudero. "Why can't Muslims pray in Cordoba's mosque?"

As if any Christian other than the Pope would be granted such indulgence! Nor does it seem that the recent push is the result of a new desire for interreligious understanding:

Muslims in Spain have long been respectful to the country's ecclesiastical and civil authorities, but as numbers have swelled they have turned to more radical leaders. An alliance of Spanish converts, pro-Moroccan and pro-Saudi leaders took control of one of Spain's two main Islamic federations last year. Rising new leaders include fundamentalist imams from Saudi-funded mosques in Madrid and Fuengirola.

Full article here.

Previous post here.

"Wimbledon of Squash" to be demolished

Lambs squash club in Moorgate was described by Jahangir Khan, the six-times World Open champion, as the best he had ever played in. It is one of the most well-loved and prestigious squash clubs in the world, the largest in the UK, and home to the British Open.

This year the nine-court facility, known as the Wimbledon of squash, will be closed down, to make way for a block of flats.

This sounds like the story of a sport in the doldrums. It is hard to imagine Wimbledon or Wembley being unceremoniously sold to property developers. Squash has not captured British hearts and minds, it seems. You certainly have to sit up pretty late if you want to catch a match on TV. . .

And yet when you consider just how well Britain does at the sport, this coolness seems rather extraordinary.

From the BBC. The article discusses the association with social class and its effect on squash's popularity, leaving open the question why tennis managed to break through to a mass audience and squash hasn't. My take: glass courts help, but squash watchers still don't get to see enough of the players' faces -- not such a big deal for hockey or American football, but vital for individual sports. And even if this could be addressed, the problem of speed remains. Some sports are too fast for comfortable watchability, and there isn't much to be done about it.