Amazon Rainforest Rock Art Depicts Giant Ice Age Creatures
According to researchers, rock art found in the Amazon rainforest carries images of the area's earliest inhabitants living alongside giant Ice Age creatures.
The paintings are estimated to have been made between 11,800 and 12,600 years ago, towards the end of the last Ice Age.
The thousands of paintings were found on three rock shelters on the northern edge of the Colombian Amazon.
The excavations took place in 2017 and 2018, but the study is only now being released.
The paintings include depictions of what appear to be now-extinct animals, such as the mastodon, a prehistoric relative of the elephant, and giant sloths and Ice Age horses.
There are also paintings of geometric shapes, human figures, handprints and hunting scenes, as well as animals like snakes and birds.
Researchers say that the red paintings, made using pigments extracted from scraped ochre, make up one of the largest collections of rock art ever found in South America.
Norway Excavates a Viking Long ship Fit for a King
Pyramids, castles, palaces: symbols of power and status have taken many forms down the ages, and for the Vikings what really counted was the longship.
This month Norwegian archaeologists hope to complete their excavation of a rare, buried longship at Gjellestad, an ancient site south-east of Oslo. It is the first such excavation in Norway for about a century.
Most of the ocean-going ship has rotted away over the centuries, but archaeologist Dr. Knut Paasche believes the layout of the iron nails will still enable a replica to be built eventually.
Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) revealed it to be about 19m (62ft) long and 5m (16ft) wide - putting it on a par with the well-preserved Oseberg and Gokstad Viking ships on display in Oslo.
Dec 02, 2020
Looted Horse Head Returns to Beijing's Old Summer Palace
A horse head sculpture looted from China's Old Summer Palace 160 years ago has become the first of its kind to be restored to its original home.
It is one of 12 famous bronze animal head sculptures stolen from Beijing when British and French troops invaded China during the Second Opium War.
More than half of the pieces have already been found and returned to China, but are currently on display in other museums.
The horse head was donated by the late Macau tycoon Stanley Ho, who bought the artefact for US$8.9m (£6.63m) at a Sotheby's auction in Hong Kong in 2007 and later donated it to the Chinese government in 2019.
The Chinese government then spent a year refurbishing a temple in the Old Summer Palace grounds and turned it into an exhibition venue.
Nov 29, 2020
Netherlands Returns Nigeria's 600-year Old Ife Artefact
The Netherlands returned to Nigeria a terracotta head, thought to be at least 600 years old, after it was intercepted at the Schiphol airport, in Amsterdam, in 2019.
The artefact from the ancient Ife city in south-western Nigeria was smuggled to Netherlands through Ghana using a forged document.
The Nigerian government won a case in Netherlands against the suspected smuggler and was allowed to regain possession of the artefact.
The Netherlands ambassador to Nigeria attended the handover ceremony.
Nov 27, 2020
Museum of the Bible Returns Hand-written Gospels Looted from Greece during the First World War
The Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC, will return a rare 10th-11th-century hand-written gospel manuscript to the monastery of the Virgin Eikossifinissa (also known as the Kosinitza Monastery) on Mt. Pangeon in northern Greece. The historic document was among hundreds of objects looted from the site by Bulgarian troops in 1917.
In January, the Museum of the Bible informed the office of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the world leader of the Eastern Orthodox Church that it held one of the world's oldest hand-lettered gospels, and subsequently offered to return it. According to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency, the patriarch has permitted the museum to display the work until October 2021, and loaned it three more manuscripts as a gesture of gratitude for the gospels' return.
In recent years, the Museum of the Bible's collection, originally owned by the Green family in Oklahoma City, founders of the arts and crafts chain Hobby Lobby, has been found to hold many objects that were smuggled out of their countries of origin or brought into the US improperly.
Nov 22, 2020
1,300 Years Old Hindu Temple Discovered in Northwest Pakistan
A Hindu temple, believed to have been constructed 1,300 years ago, has been discovered by Pakistani and Italian archaeological experts at a mountain in Swat district of northwest Pakistan. The discovery was made during an excavation at Barikot Ghundai.
Fazle Khaliq of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Department of Archaeology said that the temple discovered is of God Vishnu. It was built by the Hindus 1,300 years ago during the Hindu Shahi period.
During their excavation, the archaeologists also found traces of cantonment and watchtowers near the temple site.
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