Mass plague burials underlie Venetian island

Ancient mass graves containing more than 1,500 victims of the bubonic plague have been discovered on a small island in Italy's Venetian Lagoon.

Workers came across the skeletons while digging the foundation for a new museum on Lazzaretto Vecchio, a small island in the lagoon's south, located a couple of miles from Venice's famed Piazza San Marco (see a map of the Venetian Lagoon).

The island is believed to be the world's first lazaret—a quarantine colony intended to help prevent the spread of infectious diseases.

The lazaret was opened during the plague outbreaks that decimated Venice, as well as much of Europe, throughout the 15th and 16th centuries A.D.

From National Geographic. Interesting that the plague proved more devastating in the 16th century than in the 15th. Photos here.

ADDENDUM: This writeup at the BBC also mentions some other finds:

The Venetian authorities are surveying two ancient ships found beside the lost island of San Marco in Boccalama that disappeared beneath the rising lagoon over 500 years ago.

The island - the site of an abandoned 11th century monastery - became a mass grave for scores of thousands of victims of the plague, the Black Death, in 1348.

Now, on what was the foreshore, they're unearthing the two oldest ships ever found in Venice - sunk by the island's monks in a doomed attempt to bolster sea defences against the encroaching lagoon.

The ships are some 700 years old; one is reportedly a galley. It doesn't appear that full excavation will be possible, however, due to the usual problem -- shortage of funds:

At the end of this month, part of a steel barrier will be lowered and the lagoon waters will once again cover the lost island.

That is thought to be the best way of preserving the vessels until, at a future date, they can be salvaged and brought to a museum. . .

But in Venice's naval museum there is disquiet at the authority's decision to leave the ancient wrecks where they are for the moment.

Biggest ancient coin hoard ever?

Rather impressive:

A cellar containing 1.5 tons of ancient coins, including some 2,000-year-old ones, have been discovered by a villager in Changzi County, north China's Shanxi Province.

The man in Qianwanhu village discovered the cellar with some 10,000 coins, ranging from 3 cm to 1 cm in diameter, on Aug. 23 when he was digging a channel to place pipes for tap water, said Li Lin, an official of the Changzi Center of Cultural Heritage and Tourism.

The "money cellar" was 1.5 meters under the earth, with coins being piled orderly into a cuboid of 1.3 meters long, 0.65 meter wide and one meter high . . .

Most of the coins were made during the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) with the remainders made during Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) and Tang Dynasty (618-907) . . .

From People's Daily.

Rhode Island's Plymouth Rock

What a story! And what a lede:

It could have been Rhode Island's Plymouth Rock. If only it hadn't been accidentally dynamited 130 years ago.

Off Gano Street in Fox Point there is a weathered, solitary monument in Slate Rock Park that serves as the one nod to the founding moment of the Rhode Island colony.

"The Landing Place of Roger Williams," the monument reads. On one side, a plaque states that Williams first crossed the Seekonk River and landed at that site, atop a ledge called Slate Rock, in 1636. The other three sides of the monument are barren, with large holes where other plaques have been ripped out.

Despite its name, there is no slate or rock of any sort to be seen in Slate Rock Park. Unfortunately, in 1877, Slate Rock itself was mistakenly blown up, by city workers trying to uncover more of the rock and preserve the symbol of Williams' arrival . . .

From the Providence Journal. The Roger Williams statue in Prospect Park has also suffered from vandalism and neglect, which is particularly shameful considering that its base also houses Roger Williams' remains.

More butchery on the Temple Mount

Just the latest in a far too long litany of archeological outrages:

Muslim authorities at al-Aqsa mosque, also venerated by Jews as the Temple Mount, are digging a 150-metre trench for water pipes and electricity cables.

Israeli critics say the work is causing irreparable damage, indiscriminately piling up earth and carved stones.

Mosque officials insist it is urgent infrastructure work doing no damage. . .

The Waqf resumed working this week, using a mechanical digger on a metre-deep trench, cutting through the subsoil and piling it up beside the trench.

Israeli archaeologists say such material should be carefully sifted and documented, as it would be even at sites of far less significance than this most sensitive cultural and religious location.

Gabriel Barkai of the Committee Against the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount calls it an act of barbarism.

"They are digging in the most crucial and delicate point of the Temple Mount - of the whole country," the Bar-Ilan University senior lecturer told the BBC.

"They should be using a toothbrush, not a bulldozer."

From the BBC.

Norman Cohn obit

Norman Cohn, a historian who influenced a generation of historians and social scientists with his insight that totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century, chiefly Communism and Nazism, were propelled by mythologies associated with medieval apocalyptic movements, died on July 31 in Cambridge, England. He was 92. . .

In highly detailed, laboriously researched studies that depended on his knowledge of many ancient languages, Mr. Cohn reached far back into history to illuminate subjects of compelling current interest from totalitarianism to anti-Semitism to repression of minorities. . .

He was an unusual historian in that as a student he did not study history, but was trained as a linguist; he then put his knowledge of medieval Latin, Greek, Old French and High and Low German to work in his famously meticulous research. He also brought passion to his search for the roots of hatred: he had lost relatives in the Holocaust.

The Times Literary Supplement included his seminal 1957 book, “The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages,” in a 1995 list of the 100 nonfiction works with the greatest influence on how postwar Europeans perceive themselves. Other books on the list were by Camus, Sartre and Foucault.

From the NY Times.

Constable sketch discovered

A lost sketch by John Constable, never recorded in the catalogues of his work, has tumbled with a cascade of other drawings and letters from volumes which the British Library has owned for almost a century.

The library has only just appreciated the scale of its bequest from John Platt, a wealthy textile manufacturer who became a serious art collector, who died in 1902, leaving many of his magnificently bound volumes to the British Museum. The delicate little pencil drawing of Hyam Church in the artist's native Suffolk, bought from his grandson 50 years after his death, has been hidden among the pages of one of the books ever since.

Read the rest in the Guardian.

WW1 tunnel excavations

As battle raged across the fields of Flanders, British soldiers found brief respite from the horrors of the First World War in "underground towns" far below the mud and gore. Now, more than 90 years after the armies left and the extraordinary networks of tunnels were flooded, the task of finally revealing their secrets has begun.

The prize, archaeologists and historians believe, is an unprecedented insight into the lives of British troops on the Western Front.

They believe that, because of the absence of light and oxygen in the flooded tunnels, possessions, such as beds, weapons, helmets, clothing and even newspapers, will have been preserved and will be found exactly as they were left in 1918.

Read the rest in the Telegraph.

Yet another makeover for the $100 bill

The big thing will be a security thread which the Washington Post describes thus:

It combines micro-printing with tiny lenses -- 650,000 for a single $100 bill. The lenses magnify the micro-printing in a truly remarkable way.

Move the bill side to side and the image appears to move up and down. Move the bill up and down and the image appears to move from side to side.

Release is scheduled for late 2008; the Post also notes:

The new security thread is used on the Swedish 1,000 kroner note and has been selected by the government of Mexico for some higher denomination notes.

Felix said many other devices expected to be included in the $100 redesign will be similar to features added over the past four years to the $20, $50 and $10 bills. That means subtle pastel colors on the currency and patches of micro-printing that are difficult to duplicate, along with a touchup on Ben Franklin's portrait.

A new $5 bill is coming out, too. The new equipment required for printing all these upgraded banknotes will also mean that there will be no technical obstacle to varying the size of American currency.

Greek fires approach ancient Olympia

There are fears for the ancient ruins of Olympia, a world heritage site and home to the first Olympics, as Greece's devastating forest fires close in.

Water-bombing planes are trying to suppress the flames near the site, and nearby villages have been evacuated.

From the BBC.