Archaeologists unearth ivory carving showing Whaling, thought to be c. 1000 BC

The 50-centimetre-long carving shows hunters in traditional Eskimo boats, along with whales and harpoons.

Russian Research Institute for Cultural and Natural Heritage in Moscow says the newfound ivory carving was determined to be 3,000 years old by radiocarbon dates on the soil in which it was embedded. The previous oldest solid evidence for whaling is some 2,000 years old.  The same site also yielded heavy stone blades, and remains from a number of dead whales.

Reported last week, at a meeting of the Society for American Archeology in Vancouver, Canada.

See Original ‘Nature’ article

2000 Year Old Frescos Discovered in Shandong China

The frescos were discovered in a tomb from the Western Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-25 A.D.)

Pictured is a depiction of a meeting between the two famous Chinese philosophers Laozi (about 600 B.C.-500 B.C.) and Confucius (551 B.C.-479 B.C.)

The well-preserved color frescos also include images of drinking, dancing, cock fighting, women servants and historical stories; they are the best preserved so far discovered in the region so far and will contribute to the study of funeral and folk customs and painting arts during the Western Han Dynasty

Found at  Xinhua China View

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Further 4 images

Manuscript Confirms Identity of Mona Lisa

Handwritten notes made by an acquaintance of Leonardo Da Vinci have been discovered that document Da Vinci was working on three paintings in 1503 which is when art historians agree the work is dated. The notes discuss that one of the projects was a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo who has been tentatively linked to the painting before; the painting in the Louvre is also known as La Gioconda.

The notes were found in a manuscript at Heidelberg University library and the University’s Dr. Armin Schlechter has confirmed that “all doubts are now eliminated” as to the identity of the famous smiling lady, a Florence noblewoman born Lisa Gherardini in 1449.

View Manuscript

See Reuters Article

See Wikipedia Lisa del Giocondo reference

Celtic buried treasure unearthed in Brittany

 The largest treasure trove of pre-Roman, Gaulish money ever to be found has been discovered in Saint-Brieuc in central Brittany.

The 545 coins are each worth thousands of dollars to collectors but priceless to historians and archaeologists. Smaller caches of Gaulish coins have turned up in the past but rarely of such quality and never in such numbers.

The dig unearthed the remains of a large manor house or farm, which is thought to have belonged to the “Osisme” people - a Celtic tribe living in the far west of the Breton peninsula. The coins were probably buried in the farm’s boundary embankment. Possibly to hide the wealth from the Romans.

Read article

Link found at Mirabilis.ca

2,000-year-old Roman art exhibition at the National Museum of Rome

The exhibition, called Rosso Pompeiano, includes more than 100 paintings including Eros and Psyche above.  They shed light on the beliefs, home decorations, fashions, architecture, landscape, dining tables and people who lived in the ancient city of Rome and in Pompeii before its destruction by a volcanic eruption in AD79.

See article including 10 images.

Museo Nazionale Romano

Magna Carta fetches $21m in New York auction

 A copy of the Magna Carta has been sold for more than $21m to an American tycoon who promises it will remain on public display in America.

David Rubenstein, co-founder of the Carlyle Group private equity firm, paid $21.3m (£10.6m) for the document at Sotheby’s in New York yesterday - the first time a copy of the historical charter has been sold by public auction.

The copy was issued in 1297 by King Edward I, when the Magna Carta formally became part of English law, more than 80 years after it was written. It is one of only 17 in existence and the only one in private ownership.  The Magna Carta is the origin of several freedoms or rights; not least the US Constitution right to habeas corpus which, pre-911, required more than the mere word of an official, before any person could be imprisoned.

See article

Captain Kidd treasure ship wreck discovered by underwater archaeologists

 Indiana University underwater archaeology team has announced it has likely discovered the shattered remnants of a ship once commandeered by the notorious buccaneer William “Captain” Kidd (c. 1645 - May 23, 1701) off a tiny Dominican Republic island. The vessel is believed to be the wreckage of the Quedagh Merchant. A 3 masted, Armenian square rigger which was captured by Kidd in 1698 and renamed the Adventure Prize before being scuttled in the Caribbean.

Captain William Kidd was a Scottish privateer, based largely in New York and had official warrants to attack various vessels in the name of the British King  but the Quedagh Merchant  would eventually contribute to Kidds downfall since though operating for the French East India Company, it happened to be captained by an Englishman. Kidd was eventually tried, hanged and gibbeted for murder and piracy.

See article.

See Indiana University page

Michelangelo Sketch of St Peter’s Basilica found by chance

                                                                                                                                         

The discovery was reported Thursday in the Vatican daily L’Osservatore Romano, which said the sketch for the dome of the basilica was rendered in masons red chalk for stonecutters working on its construction. The report said it was believed to have been made in 1563, less than a year before Michelangelo’s death.”The sureness in his stroke, the expert hand used to making decisions in front of unfinished stone, leave little doubt, the sketch is Michelangelo’s,” Vitale Zanchettin, the researcher who found the sketch, wrote in L’Osservatore Romano.

Michelangelo, who began working on the basilica’s construction in 1547, was in his late 80s when the sketch was drawn, using blood-red chalk. The sketch would be especially rare, the Vatican newspaper noted, because the artist ordered many of his designs destroyed when he was an old man.

The sketch shows a portion of the base of the dome to indicate how much stone needed to be hewn.

Michelangelo completed the dome and four columns for its base before he died in February 1564.

See image of sketch

See Full Article 

Ancient Roman Empire road map displayed for one day.

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.

Practical guide   

At first sight, it looks very unlike a modern map. Both the landmass and the seas have been stretched and flattened. The Mediterranean has been reduced to a thin strip of water, more like a river than a sea.

Instead of being oriented from north to south, the map, which is only 34 centimetres wide, works from west to east but despite its unfamiliar appearance, the director of the Department of Manuscripts, Autographs and Closed Collections at the Austrian National Library, Andreas Fingernagel, says it is an intensely practical document, more like a plan of the London Underground than a map.

“The red lines are the main roads. Every so often there is a little hook along the red lines which represents a rest stop - and the distance between hooks was one day’s travel.”

“Every so often there is a pictogram of a building to show you that there was a hotel or a spa where you could stay,” he said.

Clue to ancient world

At the centre of the Tabula Peutingeriana is Rome. The city, represented by a crowned figure on a throne, has numerous roads leading to and from the metropolis. Some, such as the Via Appia and the Via Aurelia, still exist today.

The Tabula Peutingeriana scroll dates from the late 12th or the early 13th century and was made in Southern Germany or Austria but Mr Fingernagel says it is very different from other medieval maps and is clearly a copy of a much earlier document, dating back to the 5th century.

“The interests of map makers in the Middle Ages were quite different. They don’t show roads or rest stations, instead they show the holy places of Christianity.”

And the map contains other details which indicate the original probably dates back to the 5th century, including the city of Aquileia, which was destroyed in 452 by the Huns. The scroll was named after one of its earlier owners, the Renaissance German humanist Konrad Peutinger.

The Tabula Peutingeriana was included in the Unesco Memory of the World Register this year, and was on limited view in Vienna on 26 November 2007.

See image.