Small sculpture, huge price

A tiny limestone figure of a lion from ancient Mesopotamia has sold at auction for $57m (£28m), almost double the previous record price for a sculpture.

The 8.3cm (3.25in) tall Guennol Lioness is thought to have been carved 5,000 years ago in what is now Iraq and Iran.

The lion, whose new owner has not been identified, had been on loan to the Brooklyn Museum of Art for 59 years.

From the BBC. It is to be hoped that the Lioness will not now disappear from public view. At the same time, one wonders how many generations of visitors walked past the diminutive figurine when it was in Brooklyn without giving it a second glance.

A spoonful of honey

Natural honey is a more effective remedy for children's coughs than over-the-counter medicines, researchers say. A dose of buckwheat honey before bedtime easily outperformed a cough suppressant in a US study.

Honey did a better job of reducing the severity and frequency of night-time coughs. It also improved sleep quality for children and their parents.

Dextromethorphan (DM), the active ingredient in many cough mixtures sold in chemists and supermarkets, had no significant impact on symptoms.

The ineffectiveness of dextromethorphan as a cough suppressant despite its potential side effects is no news -- which is noteworthy in itself. Modern over-the-counter cough remedies may not be as dramatic an example as, say, bleeding, but our continuing embrace of them is no less irrational. From the Times of London. The study is available online here. Note that the study does appear to have a fair number of weak spots, so I'm sure this is not the last we'll hear on the subject.

Important mummified dino find

A high school student hunting fossils in the badlands of his native North Dakota discovered an extremely rare mummified dinosaur that includes not just bones but also seldom seen fossilized soft tissue such as skin and muscles, scientists will announce today.

The 25-foot-long hadrosaur found by Tyler Lyson in an ancient river flood plain in the dinosaur-rich Hell Creek Formation is apparently the most complete and best preserved of the half-dozen mummified dinosaurs unearthed since early in the last century, they said.

More about this amazing find in the Washington Post. More at National Geographic.

£165,000 truffle

One of the biggest truffles found in decades has fetched $330,000 (£165,000) at an auction held simultaneously in Macau, London and Florence.

A Macau casino owner, Stanley Ho, made the record-breaking bid for the white truffle, which weighed 1.5kg (3.3lb).

Luciano Savini and his son found the highly-prized fungus after it was dug up by his truffle dog near Pisa, northern Italy, last week.

From the BBC, which also notes:

Mr Ho outbid British artist Damien Hirst and Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed of Abu Dhabi to the prize, according to the South China Morning Post.

It should be noted that the high price could well owe something to the sale being a charity auction, as with this story from a few years back, where the then-record truffle ended up going bad before it could be eaten.

Victoria Crosses stolen in New Zealand

Nine rare and valuable Victoria Cross (VC) medals awarded for acts of extreme bravery in combat have been stolen from a military museum in New Zealand.

The thieves managed to evade security patrols, cameras and an alarm when they broke into the Army Museum in Waiouru on North Island early on Sunday.

From the BBC.

Palmyra infant cremation find

Syrian archeologists have discovered an ancient glass jar containing an infant's ashes at one of the Mideast's most famous archaeological sites.

The discovery of the 2nd century A.D. jar amid the ruins of Palmyra was the first of its kind, shedding light on previously unknown funeral practices common at the time, Khalil Hariri, a senior Syrian archaeological official, told The Associated Press late Friday.

Archeologists unearthed the jar from a newly discovered cemetery within Palmyra, said Hariri.

From the Guardian.

Gaugins, with a difference

Many art collectors would give their eye teeth for a painting by Paul Gauguin – but how much would they give for his teeth?

Four rotten molars, which may have belonged to the French Post-Impressionist, have been found by archaeologists at the bottom of a well that the painter built on the remote island of Hiva Oa, on the Marquese islands in the Pacific Ocean.

According to the Gauguin specialist Caroline Boyle-Turner, there is strong possibility that the teeth belonged to the quarrelsome, syphilitic painter.

They almost certainly came from a European mouth, she says, because they are severely decayed. Marquese islanders of a century ago did not eat sugar and their teeth did not decay. The well, dug beside a hut used by Gauguin, was used to dump debris from his home but was sealed just after his death.

The well was actually excavated a full seven years ago, but it's taken a while for a full accounting of its contents.

Other odds and ends from the painter's home found 9ft down the well include a New Zealand beer bottle, five broken plates from Brittany, smashed perfume bottles, orange and ochre minerals which are presumed to be hand-made paints, a makeshift artist's palette and -- most intriguingly -- an empty Bovril jar.

This suggests that Gauguin,an enfant terrible all his life, remained a rebel to the end. He was probably the only Frenchman ever to have liked Bovril.

Full story here.