Another Faberge record

Hardly a surprise, given the strength of Russian buyers, the iconic nature of Imperial eggs, and the outstanding provenance of this example. Hardly expensive, either, in comparison to what is being thrown around nowadays for paintings from the 1980s and 1990s:

A Faberge egg made for the Rothschild banking family has sold at auction for a world record £8.9m.

The Rothschild egg made in 1902 is just one of 12 in public hands known to have been produced to standards required by the Russian Imperial family.

The gold and pink egg has a clock for a face and a diamond-encrusted cockerel which nods its head and flaps its wings on the stroke of each hour.

A private Russian art collector bought the clock at Christie's in London.

Flaking medieval paintings at Westminster Abbey

A bad situation, which has been apparent to clued-in visitors for some time (far too many patches holding loose paint layers in place):

Environmental conditions inside Westminster Abbey are now causing "serious concern", according to one of its own conservators, Marie Louise Sauerberg. The Coronation Chair, commissioned in 1296 and used for virtually every crowning since 1308, has suffered from serious flaking of its gilded surface. Humidity levels fluctuate considerably in the abbey, mainly because of central heating. Polychromed wood is particularly vulnerable to these changes, causing the paint to flake.

Although unpublicised at the time, three years ago the chair was treated in situ, with adhesive being used to stabilise the lifting gilding.

Serious damage has also been sustained by the ancient sedilia, or priests' stalls, which date from around 1307. The sedilia, on the south side of the high altar, are decorated with paintings and are among the abbey's greatest treasures. They also feature some of the earliest English paintings on panel. . .

The condition of the sedilia is now so fragile that if one were to pass one's hand over the surface, a considerable area of the surviving 700-year-old paint would simply fall off. Even though they are just beyond the reach of tourists' hands, tiny paint fragments occasionally fall to the floor.

The throne, too, is on view but beyond the reach of the public in the ambulatory.

The environmental damage is largely the result of heating in the abbey, which reduces relative humidity. This is now thought to vary from around 30% to 80% throughout the year, a very high range.

Revolutionary War cheval-de-frise

In a small survey boat, maritime archaeologist J. Lee Cox Jr. was checking the bottom of the Delaware River at the Sunoco Logistics pier in South Philadelphia when he got a hit on the side-scan sonar. . .

Earlier this month, Cox identified it as the business end of a cheval-de-frise, an iron-tipped log once embedded in the river, along with many others, to gore the hulls of British warships menacing Philadelphia in the mid-1770s. It had been silently resting not far from where oil-laden Sunoco tankers have berthed since Philadelphia's industrial age. . .

The yellow pine log, with its heavy iron tip, was once bolted into a wooden-framed box anchored with rocks. Poised on the river bottom with scores of other chevaux-de-frise, it was a formidable defense against British ships.

Bruns said the newly discovered relic was probably placed in the river in 1775, at a time when the Pennsylvania Council of Safety, under the direction of Benjamin Franklin, was overseeing the colony's defense.

Lupercal found?

The discovery in Rome of a vaulted cavern, studded with coloured mosaics and buried deep beneath the ruins of an emperor's palace, suggests that the story of how the city was founded might be more than a mere myth.

Archaeologists are thrilled by the discovery of the colourful underground domed structure, saying it might prove to be the venerated site of the Lupercal.

Better late than never, but this is awfully late . . .

A "final effort" is under way in South America to track down and prosecute ex-Nazi war criminals before they die.

Operation Last Chance - a scheme devised by the Simon Wiesenthal Center - attempts to locate Nazis in hiding. . .

The operation - launched in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia in July 2002 - has so far provided the names of 488 suspects from 20 different countries, the Simon Wiesenthal Center said.

Roman road map on (brief) display

The map isn't itself Roman, but what it depicts is:

The Tabula Peutingeriana is one of the Austrian National Library's greatest treasures.

The parchment scroll, made in the Middle Ages, is the only surviving copy of a road map from the late Roman Empire.

The document, which is almost seven metres long, shows the network of main Roman roads from Spain to India.

It is normally never shown to the public. The parchment is extremely fragile, and reacts badly to daylight.

But it has been on display for one day to celebrate its inclusion in Unesco's Memory of the World Register.