Archeological Sites

Indiana Jones and the Christian catacombs? Not quite

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Sometimes a job is just a job, even when from the outside it looks like it involves the stuff of an Indiana Jones movie.

Fabrizio Bisconti is the newly named archaeological superintendent of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology, which oversees the upkeep and preservation of 140 Christian catacombs from the third and fourth centuries scattered all over Italy.

Most of the time, he said, the job is just work and study.

Staff members can spend a full month with surgical tools and cotton balls cleaning a third-century sarcophagus, but then there are those stunning, shocking, awe-inspiring moments of discovery.

Mid-June brought one of those "wow" moments when restorers cleaning a ceiling in the Catacombs of St. Thecla found what turned out to be the oldest known image of the apostle Paul. The fresco was hidden under a limestone crust.

Bisconti said treasure hunting and exploring were not his passions as a youth; he was into literature. But as a university literature student, he took an archaeology course "and fell in love."

"Certainly, there is great emotion when you find something new, but for us archaeology is our job, the subject of our studies," he said.

Bisconti said most of what he and his fellow archaeologists do all day involves very slow, painstaking precision care of the oldest intact Christian monuments and artwork.

Very little remains of any Christian church built before the fifth century, but the 140 catacombs in Italy offer clear evidence of how early Christians worshipped, how they lived and, especially, what they hoped and believed about death.

Because the catacombs are underground and were filled in with dirt in the fifth century -- when people began burying their dead in cemeteries within the city walls -- the catacombs remained remarkably intact, Bisconti said.

Deciding which catacombs to excavate and whether or not to open them to the public is a process that takes years and tries to balance the values of preservation, scholarship, education and Christian devotion, he said.

"Opening a catacomb means allowing its degradation," he said.

As soon as the dirt in a catacomb is removed, the frescoes and inscriptions start fading and decaying. Human visitors, who sweat and breathe, add moisture to the air, which speeds up the growth of mold and the flaking of any painted surface, he said.

The catacombs are technically the property of the Italian government, which under the terms of the 1929 Lateran Pacts with the Vatican, entrusted their care and oversight to the Vatican.

Most of the 140 Christian catacombs in Italy are in Rome, and only five of those are open to the public: the catacombs of St. Sebastian, St. Callixtus, Priscilla, St. Agnes and Domitilla.

"There are many, many other catacombs," he said.

For Bisconti, the most interesting of the closed catacombs is one on Via Latina in Rome. "It was discovered in 1955 and we have found more than 100 frescoes of scenes of the Old and New Testaments, but also of pagan myths," he said.

The most popular Old Testament stories are Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac, Jonah in the belly of the whale, the story from the Book of Daniel about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace -- "all of these gave support and comfort to Christians because they are examples of salvation," Bisconti said.

Most of the catacombs were built around the tomb of a martyr because other Christians wanted to be buried near a hero of the faith. Even after the catacombs were no longer used for burial and were filled in, paths leading pilgrims to the martyr's tomb were left open for several hundred years.

Most of the catacombs demonstrate the early Christian preoccupation with the equality of all believers, he said. The bodies were sealed into niches carved out of the earth, usually with very simple inscriptions.

Slowly, however, decorations were added and wealthier Christians were buried in sarcophagi or thick marble caskets.

Bisconti said his office is two or three years away from allowing the public to visit the Catacombs of Pretestato, located near the Catacombs of Domitilla. Never before opened to the public, the Pretestato burial grounds are the site of more than 1,000 sarcophagi, many still intact.

"It was very snobbish, very chic" to be buried there, Bisconti said.

The superintendent added that, whether dealing with a sarcophagus or with a simple niche in a catacomb, if a sealed tomb is found, Vatican workers leave it closed out of respect for the deceased.

Bisconti said it is true that the art and symbols found in the catacombs repeat the same things, "but that is because it was catechetical art. They were advertisements to convince people to convert. They were a way to repeat a message and demonstrate the conviction that it was true."
 
In search of prairie treasure in Alberta

By Megan Kopp, For The Calgary Herald

The Bodo site is unusual as Mortlach pottery, is not typically found in Alberta. Boots laced tight, I slung the water canteen around my neck and strode across the sand in search of buried treasure.

OK, maybe I was wearing light hikers and carrying a water bottle and the dunes were stabilized with trees--but the treasure was all real. Mortlach pottery, arrowheads, bone beads and 5,000-year-old stone tools lay waiting to be discovered in the Bodo Bison Skulls Archaeological Site southeast of Wainwright
 

Saber79

New member
That was such an interesting read about the Vatican catacombs.
I would definitely love that job.

Thanks for posting! (y)
 
Saber79 said:
That was such an interesting read about the Vatican catacombs.I would definitely love that job.Thanks for posting! (y)
Glad you got something out of it! Imagine what waits down there to be discovered!

I get a little weary of comentary like:

"It was very snobbish, very chic" to be buried there, Bisconti said."

Understanding that things can get "lost in translation", I would love to know how he chose those words and the support for them. Dueling interpretation can be entertaining but it's important to keep in mind, they're guess-timating.
 

Lance Quazar

Well-known member
Rocket Surgeon said:
Glad you got something out of it! Imagine what waits down there to be discovered!

I get a little weary of comentary like:

"It was very snobbish, very chic" to be buried there, Bisconti said."

Understanding that things can get "lost in translation", I would love to know how he chose those words and the support for them. Dueling interpretation can be entertaining but it's important to keep in mind, they're guess-timating.

This isn't some ancient text we're talking about in a dead language. This is a journalism piece between two modern and educated individuals.* There's no reason to suspect at all that there were any problems whatsoever translating Italian to English.

Hell, he might not have been speaking in Italian at all. He's clearly a highly educated man and no doubt speaks flawless English.
 
Lance Quazar said:
This isn't some ancient text we're talking about in a dead language.
We're talking about? You're apart of the team in Italy?

Lance Quazar said:
This is a journalism piece between two modern and educated individuals.*
Yet flawed human beings with an agenda which modernity and education don't necessarily trump.

Lance Quazar said:
There's no reason to suspect at all that there were any problems whatsoever translating Italian to English.
As I pondered...two different modern and educated individuals may have opted for different terms.

Lance Quazar said:
Hell, he might not have been speaking in Italian at all. He's clearly a highly educated man and no doubt speaks flawless English.
Might/clearly/no doubt...very telling choice of words. From doubt to certainty. Clearly you're looking at this with an undeniable slant...

Me, I'm just proposing a question.
 
Last edited:

Archaeologist

New member
Well, from my experience of being an archaeologist in Berlin and dealing with well educated Germans and Italians, I have yet to meet one capable of speaking fluent English, let alone flawless. In fact, I must converse in their language, or the language of the country, most of the time.
However, I think it is our interpretation, or rather, our vernacular understanding of the words that makes them uneasy to some. Chic, in Europe means fancy, while the general definition of snob (and therefore snobbish) is someone who believes their taste to be superior to others. Is it wrong to interpret the burial a burial not accessible to every person of that time, which cost money, planning, etc. as an insight to that person's taste? I believe it is safe to say the people buried in the catacombs likely thought they were better than the common people and had the money to display that, even in death.
Of course, despite the definition, I would not use the term snobbish because of the vernacular association it has nowadays with "stuck up" people. However, someone learning a foreign language or translating cannot be blamed for not knowing the vernacular of every English speaking culture. But burials with fancy frescos does say you have wealthier taste than other people...
 

Saber79

New member
Rocket Surgeon said:
Glad you got something out of it! Imagine what waits down there to be discovered!

I get a little weary of comentary like:

"It was very snobbish, very chic" to be buried there, Bisconti said."

Understanding that things can get "lost in translation", I would love to know how he chose those words and the support for them. Dueling interpretation can be entertaining but it's important to keep in mind, they're guess-timating.


Yeah I always get a charge out of this stuff...I took the whole 'snobbish, chic' quote as meaning that crypt was an expensive and a certain definition of status or position within the community, perhaps how like Arlington National Cemetery in Washington D.C. or the Beverly Hills Cemetery in California are regarded today.
 
Saber79 said:
Yeah I always get a charge out of this stuff...I took the whole 'snobbish, chic' quote as meaning that crypt was an expensive and a certain definition of status or position within the community, perhaps how like Arlington National Cemetery in Washington D.C. or the Beverly Hills Cemetery in California are regarded today.

I did too, it just reminded me of a quote from an Archeologist who very openly states that camps compete for finds but also, (and some more so) for the spotlight to advance, (or try to cement) their interpretations of the finds. A nice little insight into the motivations, and human nature!

It was funny to see how an NYU scientist interviewed for the Colbert Report had to write a paper to refute the assertion that orangutans were a closer link to humans then chimps...and how that paper would probably be read by no one!
 
Digging up the Saudi past: Some would rather not
By DONNA ABU-NASR The Associated Press

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Much of the world knows Petra, the ancient ruin in modern-day Jordan that is celebrated in poetry as "the rose-red city, 'half as old as time,'" and which provided the climactic backdrop for "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade."

In this July 12, 2009 photo, a visitor takes a picture of the Thaj Treasure at an exhibit at the Saudi National Museum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The Arabian Peninsula has a rich, largely unexplored history _ dotted with ancient kingdoms and crisscrossed by caravan routes carrying frankincense to the Mediterranean that drew in the Romans. But its treasures are little known outside a small circle of archaeologists and academics.

In this July 8, 2009 photo, a man looks to hand written Quran at an exhibit at the Saudi National Museum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.The Arabian Peninsula has a rich, largely unexplored history _ dotted with ancient kingdoms and crisscrossed by caravan routes carrying frankincense to the Mediterranean that drew in the Romans. But its treasures are little known outside a small circle of archaeologists and academics.

In this July 12, 2009 photo, a visitor looks at the Thaj Treasure at an exhibit at the Saudi National Museum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The Arabian Peninsula has a rich, largely unexplored history _ dotted with ancient kingdoms and crisscrossed by caravan routes carrying frankincense to the Mediterranean that drew in the Romans. But its treasures are little known outside a small circle of archaeologists and academics.

That's because it's in Saudi Arabia, where conservatives are deeply hostile to pagan, Jewish and Christian sites that predate the founding of Islam in the 7th century.

But now, in a quiet but notable change of course, the kingdom has opened up an archaeology boom by allowing Saudi and foreign archaeologists to explore cities and trade routes long lost in the desert.

The sensitivities run deep. Archaeologists are cautioned not to talk about pre-Islamic finds outside scholarly literature. Few ancient treasures are on display, and no Christian or Jewish relics. A 4th or 5th century church in eastern Saudi Arabia has been fenced off ever since its accidental discovery 20 years ago and its exact whereabouts kept secret.

In the eyes of conservatives, the land where Islam was founded and the Prophet Muhammad was born must remain purely Muslim. Saudi Arabia bans public displays of crosses and churches, and whenever non-Islamic artifacts are excavated, the news must be kept low-key lest hard-liners destroy the finds.

"They should be left in the ground," said Sheikh Mohammed al-Nujaimi, a well-known cleric, reflecting the views of many religious leaders. "Any ruins belonging to non-Muslims should not be touched. Leave them in place, the way they have been for thousands of years."

In an interview, he said Christians and Jews might claim discoveries of relics, and that Muslims would be angered if ancient symbols of other religions went on show. "How can crosses be displayed when Islam doesn't recognize that Christ was crucified?" said al-Nujaimi. "If we display them, it's as if we recognize the crucifixion."

In the past, Saudi authorities restricted foreign archaeologists to giving technical help to Saudi teams. Starting in 2000, they began a gradual process of easing up that culminated last year with American, European and Saudi teams launching significant excavations on sites that have long gone lightly explored, if at all.

At the same time, authorities are gradually trying to acquaint the Saudi public with the idea of exploring the past, in part to eventually develop tourism. After years of being closed off, 2,000-year-old Madain Saleh is Saudi Arabia's first UNESCO World Heritage Site and is open to tourists. State media now occasionally mention discoveries as well as the kingdom's little known antiquities museums.

"It's already a big change," said Christian Robin, a leading French archaeologist and a member of the College de France. He is working in the southwestern region of Najran, mentioned in the Bible by the name Raamah and once a center of Jewish and Christian kingdoms.

No Christian artifacts have been found in Najran, he said.

Spearheading the change is the royal family's Prince Sultan bin Salman, who was the first Saudi in space when he flew on the U.S. space shuttle Discovery in 1985. He is now secretary general of the governmental Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities.

Dhaifallah Altalhi, head of the commission's research center at the governmental Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities, said there are 4,000 recorded sites of different periods and types, and most of the excavations are on pre-Islamic sites.

"We treat all our sites equally," said Altalhi. "This is part of the history and culture of the country and must be protected and developed." He said archaeologists are free to explore and discuss their findings in academic venues.

Still, archaeologists are cautious. Several declined to comment to The Associated Press on their work in the kingdom.

The Arabian Peninsula is rich, nearly untouched territory for archaeologists. In pre-Islamic times it was dotted with small kingdoms and crisscrossed by caravan routes to the Mediterranean. Ancient Arab peoples — Nabateans, Lihyans, Thamud — interacted with Assyrians and Babylonians, Romans and Greeks.

Much about them is unknown.

Najran, discovered in the 1950s, was invaded nearly a century before Muhammad's birth by Dhu Nawas, a ruler of the Himyar kingdom in neighboring Yemen. A convert to Judaism, he massacred Christian tribes, leaving triumphant inscriptions carved on boulders.

At nearby Jurash, a previously untouched site in the mountains overlooking the Red Sea, a team led by David Graf of the University of Miami is uncovering a city that dates at least to 500 B.C. The dig could fill out knowledge of the incense routes running through the area and the interactions of the region's kingdoms over a 1,000-year span.

And a French-Saudi expedition is doing the most extensive excavation in decades at Madain Saleh. The city, also known as al-Hijr, features more than 130 tombs carved into mountainsides. Some 450 miles from Petra, it is thought to mark the southern extent of the Nabatean kingdom.

In a significant 2000 find, Altalhi unearthed a Latin dedication of a restored city wall at Madain Saleh which honored the second century Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius.

So far, there has been no known friction with conservatives over the new excavations, in part because they are in the early stages, are not much discussed in Saudi Arabia, and haven't produced any announcements of overtly Christian or Jewish finds.

But the call to keep the land purged of other religions runs deep among many Saudis. Even though Madain Saleh site is open for tourism, many Saudis refuse to visit on religious grounds because the Quran says God destroyed it for its sins.

Excavations sometimes meet opposition from local residents who fear their region will become known as "Christian" or "Jewish." And Islam being an iconoclastic religion, hard-liners have been known to raze even ancient Islamic sites to ensure that they do not become objects of veneration.

Saudi museums display few non-Islamic artifacts.

Riyadh's National Museum shows small pre-Islamic statues, a golden mask and a large model of a pagan temple. In some display cases, female figurines are listed, but not present — likely a nod to the kingdom's ban on depictions of the female form.

A tiny exhibition at the King Saud University in Riyadh displays small nude statues of Hercules and Apollo in bronze, a startling sight in a country where nakedness in art is highly taboo.

In 1986, picnickers accidentally discovered an ancient church in the eastern region of Jubeil. Pictures of the simple stone building show crosses in the door frame.

It is fenced off — for its protection, authorities say — and archaeologists are barred from examining it.

Faisal al-Zamil, a Saudi businessman and amateur archaeologist, says he has visited the church several times.

He recalls offering a Saudi newspaper an article about the site and being turned down by an editor.

"He was shocked," al-Zamil said. "He said he could not publish the piece."

Associated Press Writer Lee Keath contributed from Cairo.
 
Madain Saleh

Much of the world knows Petra, the ancient ruin in modern-day Jordan that is celebrated in poetry as "the rose-red city, 'half as old as time,'" and which provided the climactic backdrop for "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

But far fewer know Madain Saleh, a similarly spectacular treasure built by the same civilization, the Nabateans.

8E24080.jpg
That's because it's in Saudi Arabia, where conservatives are deeply hostile to pagan, Jewish and Christian sites that predate the founding of Islam in the 7th century.

But now, in a quiet but notable change of course, the kingdom has opened up an archaeology boom by allowing Saudi and foreign archaeologists to explore cities and trade routes long lost in the desert.

The sensitivities run deep. Archaeologists are cautioned not to talk about pre-Islamic finds outside scholarly literature. Few ancient treasures are on display, and no Christian or Jewish relics. A 4th or 5th century church in eastern Saudi Arabia has been fenced off ever since its accidental discovery 20 years ago and its exact whereabouts kept secret.

In the eyes of conservatives, the land where Islam was founded and the Prophet Muhammad was born must remain purely Muslim. Saudi Arabia bans public displays of crosses and churches, and whenever non-Islamic artifacts are excavated, the news must be kept low-key lest hard-liners destroy the finds.

"They should be left in the ground," said Sheikh Mohammed al-Nujaimi, a well-known cleric, reflecting the views of many religious leaders. "Any ruins belonging to non-Muslims should not be touched. Leave them in place, the way they have been for thousands of years."

In an interview, he said Christians and Jews might claim discoveries of relics, and that Muslims would be angered if ancient symbols of other religions went on show. "How can crosses be displayed when Islam doesn't recognize that Christ was crucified?" said al-Nujaimi. "If we display them, it's as if we recognize the crucifixion."

In the past, Saudi authorities restricted foreign archaeologists to giving technical help to Saudi teams. Starting in 2000, they began a gradual process of easing up that culminated last year with American, European and Saudi teams launching significant excavations on sites that have long gone lightly explored, if at all.

At the same time, authorities are gradually trying to acquaint the Saudi public with the idea of exploring the past, in part to eventually develop tourism. After years of being closed off, 2,000-year-old Madain Saleh is Saudi Arabia's first UNESCO World Heritage Site and is open to tourists. State media now occasionally mention discoveries as well as the kingdom's little known antiquities museums.

"It's already a big change," said Christian Robin, a leading French archaeologist and a member of the College de France. He is working in the southwestern region of Najran, mentioned in the Bible by the name Raamah and once a center of Jewish and Christian kingdoms.

No Christian artifacts have been found in Najran, he said.

Spearheading the change is the royal family's Prince Sultan bin Salman, who was the first Saudi in space when he flew on the U.S. space shuttle Discovery in 1985. He is now secretary general of the governmental Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities.

Dhaifallah Altalhi, head of the commission's research center at the governmental Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities, said there are 4,000 recorded sites of different periods and types, and most of the excavations are on pre-Islamic sites.

"We treat all our sites equally," said Altalhi. "This is part of the history and culture of the country and must be protected and developed." He said archaeologists are free to explore and discuss their findings in academic venues.

Still, archaeologists are cautious. Several declined to comment to The Associated Press on their work in the kingdom.

The Arabian Peninsula is rich, nearly untouched territory for archaeologists. In pre-Islamic times it was dotted with small kingdoms and crisscrossed by caravan routes to the Mediterranean. Ancient Arab peoples -- Nabateans, Lihyans, Thamud -- interacted with Assyrians and Babylonians, Romans and Greeks.

Much about them is unknown.

Najran, discovered in the 1950s, was invaded nearly a century before Muhammad's birth by Dhu Nawas, a ruler of the Himyar kingdom in neighboring Yemen. A convert to Judaism, he massacred Christian tribes, leaving triumphant inscriptions carved on boulders.

At nearby Jurash, a previously untouched site in the mountains overlooking the Red Sea, a team led by David Graf of the University of Miami is uncovering a city that dates at least to 500 B.C. The dig could fill out knowledge of the incense routes running through the area and the interactions of the region's kingdoms over a 1,000-year span.

And a French-Saudi expedition is doing the most extensive excavation in decades at Madain Saleh. The city, also known as al-Hijr, features more than 130 tombs carved into mountainsides. Some 724 kilometers from Petra, it is thought to mark the southern extent of the Nabatean kingdom.

In a significant 2000 find, Altalhi unearthed a Latin dedication of a restored city wall at Madain Saleh which honored the second century Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius.

So far, there has been no known friction with conservatives over the new excavations, in part because they are in the early stages, are not much discussed in Saudi Arabia, and haven't produced any announcements of overtly Christian or Jewish finds.

But the call to keep the land purged of other religions runs deep among many Saudis. Even though Madain Saleh site is open for tourism, many Saudis refuse to visit on religious grounds because the Quran says God destroyed it for its sins.

Excavations sometimes meet opposition from local residents who fear their region will become known as "Christian" or "Jewish." And Islam being an iconoclastic religion, hard-liners have been known to raze even ancient Islamic sites to ensure that they do not become objects of veneration.

Saudi museums display few non-Islamic artifacts.

Riyadh's National Museum shows small pre-Islamic statues, a golden mask and a large model of a pagan temple. In some display cases, female figurines are listed, but not present -- likely a nod to the kingdom's ban on depictions of the female form.

A tiny exhibition at the King Saud University in Riyadh displays small nude statues of Hercules and Apollo in bronze, a startling sight in a country where nakedness in art is highly taboo.

In 1986, picnickers accidentally discovered an ancient church in the eastern region of Jubeil. Pictures of the simple stone building show crosses in the door frame.

It is fenced off -- for its protection, authorities say -- and archaeologists are barred from examining it.

Faisal al-Zamil, a Saudi businessman and amateur archaeologist, says he has visited the church several times.

He recalls offering a Saudi newspaper an article about the site and being turned down by an editor.

"He was shocked," al-Zamil said. "He said he could not publish the piece
 
Archaeologists discovered the lost Byzantine port of Theodosius.

In Yenikapi, a neighborhood of textile factories and seedy hotels where one of the main transit stations for Istanbul?s new subway and commuter rail system was to be built, archaeologists discovered the lost Byzantine port of Theodosius.

It was originally built at the end of the 4th century AD by Emperor Theodosius I when Istanbul ? then known as Constantinople ? was the capital of the eastern Roman Empire. The port?s harbor silted over centuries ago, and eventually disappeared beneath subsequent layers of civilization. Until its rediscovery in 2004, archaeologists said they only knew about the port from ancient books.

?This was a big moment of joy and happiness for us, an unexplainable feeling,? recalls Professor Zeynep Kiziltan, the acting director of Istanbul?s Archaeology Museum

?At around one meter below sea level, we started finding the remains of ropes. As we continued [digging] a bit more, the remains of a boat surfaced.?

Since that discovery, armies of hundreds of laborers and archaeologists have been working in a giant pit, three shifts a day, seven days a week. The scale of the excavation is unusual in modern-day archaeology, says Cemal Pulak, an anthropologist from Texas A&M University?s nautical archaeology program.
?Its mind-boggling ? it really looks like an Indiana Jones-type operation,? says Pulak, who has worked as a consultant on the excavation of the lost port.

The Yenikapi dig has uncovered an ancient armada: 34 Byzantine ships ranging from dating between the 7th and 11th centuries AD. In one tent, two workers carefully uncover the ancient wooden beams of a 40-meter long merchant vessel. A third man preserves the wood by keeping it moist, sprinkling the relics with water from a hose.

? Plans to travel beneath the Bosphorus have been delayed at least four years by the excavation of the Theodosious Port. The postponement has added untold millions of dollars have also been added to the cost of the entire project.

In the rush to move forward, the residents of Istanbul have accidentally uncovered a valuable piece of their city?s ancient past.via Tunnel links continents, uncovers ancient history
 
Funny, the History Channel Special emphasizes the similarities to Indy

Archaeologist Kathryn Bard?s Amazing Egyptian Digs
Don?t compare her to Indiana Jones, she?s the real deal
By Vicky Waltz

http://www.bu.edu/today/2009/11/25/archaeologist-kathryn-bard-s-amazing-egyptian-digs

Five years ago, Kathryn Bard made a remarkable discovery in the Egyptian desert. While digging with an archaeological team along the Red Sea coast, she reached into the opening of a wall ? and felt nothing. Further excavation revealed an ancient man-made cave containing a mud brick, a small grinding stone, shell beads, and part of a box.

Days later, the team, led by Bard, a College of Arts & Sciences associate professor of archaeology, and Italian colleague Rodolfo Fattovich, uncovered the entrance to a second cave. Inside they found a network of larger rooms filled with dozens of nautical artifacts: limestone anchors, 80 coils of knotted rope, pottery fragments, ship timbers, and two curved cedar planks that likely are steering oars from a 70-foot-long ship. According to hieroglyphic inscriptions, the ship was dispatched to the southern Red Sea port of Punt by Queen Hatshepsut during the 15th century B.C.

?It just gave me chills to stumble across such a frozen moment in time,? Bard recalls. ?The ropes were perfectly preserved. They looked as if they?d been coiled yesterday.?

The team discovered seven caves at Wadi Gawasis containing relics dating back 4,000 years. The first pieces ever recovered from Egyptian seagoing vessels, they offer a tantalizing glimpse into an elaborate network of Red Sea trade.

Best known for its exports of gold, incense, ebony, elephant ivory, and exotic animals, the exact location of the port city Punt remains a mystery; Bard believes it was in present-day eastern Sudan. Inscriptions discovered more than a century ago indicate that Egyptian pharaohs mounted naval expeditions to Punt as far back as the Old Kingdom (2686 ?2125 B.C.), and Bard?s findings give credibility to the legend in the form of stelae, limestone slabs installed in niches outside of the second cave.

Most of the stelae are indecipherable, worn blank from centuries of wind and sand. But one was in near-perfect condition. ?I found it lying facedown in the desert,? Bard says, ?and it contained the complete historical text of two expeditions, one to Punt and one to Bia-Punt, as ordered by King Amenemhat III, who ruled at about 1800 B.C.?

In addition to the stelae, the team recovered more than 40 cargo boxes, 2 bearing painted inscriptions reading ?The wonders of Punt.?

?It was like a modern-day packaging label,? Bard says. ?The preservation was incredible.?

Since the initial discovery, the team has returned to Wadi Gawasis each year and uncovered more artifacts: clay sealings, boxes and bags, cooking tools, fragments of a letter written on a sheet of papyrus. ?We even found a piece of pottery that describes how to prepare a meal for 100 men,? she says. ?The Egyptians kept records of everything.?

Bard will make her fifth voyage to Egypt in late December. ?We think there?s another cave,? she says. ?And through analysis of satellite images, we think we?ve found some sort of walled structure beneath the harbor that may be a ship slipway or a dock.?

The team limits its excavations to six weeks between fall and spring semesters to avoid summer heat and humidity ? not to mention the desert?s sizable population of poisonous vipers, which hibernate during the winter.

It all sounds very Raiders of the Last Ark, but don?t compare Bard to Indiana Jones. ?He bungles into anything, anywhere,? she says. ?There?s no planning, no organization, just lots of adventure. Real archaeology is nothing like the movies.?

Bard has never outrun a Nazi, but she has had a narrow escape, and it led her to Wadi Gawasis. In 1998, she and an excavation team fled war-torn Ethiopia via a mountainous one-lane dirt road as bombs erupted in the distance. The experience, though harrowing, brought her to Egypt.
?We knew we couldn?t go back to Ethiopia,? Bard says, ?so we decided to explore the other end of the Red Sea. Little did we know what we?d find.?

Relics from the discovery at Wadi Gawasis will be showcased at the Egyptian National Museum in Cairo beginning December 6. Bard was a curator for the exhibition.
 

AnnieJones

New member
Wow,I didn't know about this one!
Thanks for putting this up!(y)
Rocket Surgeon said:
Much of the world knows Petra, the ancient ruin in modern-day Jordan that is celebrated in poetry as "the rose-red city, 'half as old as time,'" and which provided the climactic backdrop for "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

But far fewer know Madain Saleh, a similarly spectacular treasure built by the same civilization, the Nabateans.

8E24080.jpg
That's because it's in Saudi Arabia, where conservatives are deeply hostile to pagan, Jewish and Christian sites that predate the founding of Islam in the 7th century.

But now, in a quiet but notable change of course, the kingdom has opened up an archaeology boom by allowing Saudi and foreign archaeologists to explore cities and trade routes long lost in the desert.

The sensitivities run deep. Archaeologists are cautioned not to talk about pre-Islamic finds outside scholarly literature. Few ancient treasures are on display, and no Christian or Jewish relics. A 4th or 5th century church in eastern Saudi Arabia has been fenced off ever since its accidental discovery 20 years ago and its exact whereabouts kept secret.

In the eyes of conservatives, the land where Islam was founded and the Prophet Muhammad was born must remain purely Muslim. Saudi Arabia bans public displays of crosses and churches, and whenever non-Islamic artifacts are excavated, the news must be kept low-key lest hard-liners destroy the finds.

"They should be left in the ground," said Sheikh Mohammed al-Nujaimi, a well-known cleric, reflecting the views of many religious leaders. "Any ruins belonging to non-Muslims should not be touched. Leave them in place, the way they have been for thousands of years."

In an interview, he said Christians and Jews might claim discoveries of relics, and that Muslims would be angered if ancient symbols of other religions went on show. "How can crosses be displayed when Islam doesn't recognize that Christ was crucified?" said al-Nujaimi. "If we display them, it's as if we recognize the crucifixion."

In the past, Saudi authorities restricted foreign archaeologists to giving technical help to Saudi teams. Starting in 2000, they began a gradual process of easing up that culminated last year with American, European and Saudi teams launching significant excavations on sites that have long gone lightly explored, if at all.

At the same time, authorities are gradually trying to acquaint the Saudi public with the idea of exploring the past, in part to eventually develop tourism. After years of being closed off, 2,000-year-old Madain Saleh is Saudi Arabia's first UNESCO World Heritage Site and is open to tourists. State media now occasionally mention discoveries as well as the kingdom's little known antiquities museums.

"It's already a big change," said Christian Robin, a leading French archaeologist and a member of the College de France. He is working in the southwestern region of Najran, mentioned in the Bible by the name Raamah and once a center of Jewish and Christian kingdoms.

No Christian artifacts have been found in Najran, he said.

Spearheading the change is the royal family's Prince Sultan bin Salman, who was the first Saudi in space when he flew on the U.S. space shuttle Discovery in 1985. He is now secretary general of the governmental Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities.

Dhaifallah Altalhi, head of the commission's research center at the governmental Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities, said there are 4,000 recorded sites of different periods and types, and most of the excavations are on pre-Islamic sites.

"We treat all our sites equally," said Altalhi. "This is part of the history and culture of the country and must be protected and developed." He said archaeologists are free to explore and discuss their findings in academic venues.

Still, archaeologists are cautious. Several declined to comment to The Associated Press on their work in the kingdom.

The Arabian Peninsula is rich, nearly untouched territory for archaeologists. In pre-Islamic times it was dotted with small kingdoms and crisscrossed by caravan routes to the Mediterranean. Ancient Arab peoples -- Nabateans, Lihyans, Thamud -- interacted with Assyrians and Babylonians, Romans and Greeks.

Much about them is unknown.

Najran, discovered in the 1950s, was invaded nearly a century before Muhammad's birth by Dhu Nawas, a ruler of the Himyar kingdom in neighboring Yemen. A convert to Judaism, he massacred Christian tribes, leaving triumphant inscriptions carved on boulders.

At nearby Jurash, a previously untouched site in the mountains overlooking the Red Sea, a team led by David Graf of the University of Miami is uncovering a city that dates at least to 500 B.C. The dig could fill out knowledge of the incense routes running through the area and the interactions of the region's kingdoms over a 1,000-year span.

And a French-Saudi expedition is doing the most extensive excavation in decades at Madain Saleh. The city, also known as al-Hijr, features more than 130 tombs carved into mountainsides. Some 724 kilometers from Petra, it is thought to mark the southern extent of the Nabatean kingdom.

In a significant 2000 find, Altalhi unearthed a Latin dedication of a restored city wall at Madain Saleh which honored the second century Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius.

So far, there has been no known friction with conservatives over the new excavations, in part because they are in the early stages, are not much discussed in Saudi Arabia, and haven't produced any announcements of overtly Christian or Jewish finds.

But the call to keep the land purged of other religions runs deep among many Saudis. Even though Madain Saleh site is open for tourism, many Saudis refuse to visit on religious grounds because the Quran says God destroyed it for its sins.

Excavations sometimes meet opposition from local residents who fear their region will become known as "Christian" or "Jewish." And Islam being an iconoclastic religion, hard-liners have been known to raze even ancient Islamic sites to ensure that they do not become objects of veneration.

Saudi museums display few non-Islamic artifacts.

Riyadh's National Museum shows small pre-Islamic statues, a golden mask and a large model of a pagan temple. In some display cases, female figurines are listed, but not present -- likely a nod to the kingdom's ban on depictions of the female form.

A tiny exhibition at the King Saud University in Riyadh displays small nude statues of Hercules and Apollo in bronze, a startling sight in a country where nakedness in art is highly taboo.

In 1986, picnickers accidentally discovered an ancient church in the eastern region of Jubeil. Pictures of the simple stone building show crosses in the door frame.

It is fenced off -- for its protection, authorities say -- and archaeologists are barred from examining it.

Faisal al-Zamil, a Saudi businessman and amateur archaeologist, says he has visited the church several times.

He recalls offering a Saudi newspaper an article about the site and being turned down by an editor.

"He was shocked," al-Zamil said. "He said he could not publish the piece
 
'Indiana Jones' of Egyptian archaeology demands British Museum hand back Rosetta StoneBy Fiona Macrae

His flamboyant and confrontational style has already secured the return of some 5,000 treasures.
Now, Zahi Hawass, the 'Indiana Jones' of Egyptian archaeology, has his sights set on the most glittering prize of all - the Rosetta Stone.


Dr Hawass has demanded that Britain return the 2,200-year-old stone tablet to its homeland.​


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Archaeological treasure: Zahi Hawass has demanded that Britain return the 2,200-year-old Rosetta Stone to its homeland of Egypt
Arriving in Britain to publicise his quest, he declared that a loan would not be good enough. Instead, the Rosetta Stone, which has resided in the British Museum since 1802, must be handed over on a permanent basis.
The Museum, however, is standing its ground, declaring its collections should not be broken up and it is the legal owner of the stone.

The stone, which dates back to 196BC, was discovered in Egypt by Napoleon's French forces in 1799 and seized from them by the British two years alter.
Its value lies in its inscriptions, which in three different languages - Latin, heirogylphic and Demotic, an ancient Egyptian script - provided scholars with the key to deciphering ancient hieroglyphs and unlocking many of the secrets of the pharaohs.

Indiana Jones: Dr Hawass, who wears a trademark stetson, is head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities


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Dr Hawass, who like Indiana Jones wears a trademark stetson, is secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, making him responsible for the conservation and protection of all archaeological finds.
He regularly features on TV documentaries, has written 16 books, and it is said, likes to tease friend Omar Sharif, that his by far the better known as the two men.

As part of his conservation duties, he has drawn up a 'shopping list' of artifacts 'stolen' from Egypt by colonial powers and claims to have already secured the return of several thousand.

Bolstered by France's agreement to return some fresco fragments earlier this year, he has renewed a campaign, first launched six years ago, for the return of the Rosetta Stone.
Earlier this week, it appeared he would be pacified with temporary custody.

But today he claimed that he didn't not like the 'tone' of the British Museum's response and he wants the stone back for good.
He said: 'When I said I want to have it on a short-term loan, the British Museum wrote a letter to say that they need to know the security of the museum that will host the stone.

'They know that this museum is going to be the largest museum in the world, the security will be perfect.'
Secrets of the pharaohs: The stone is inscribed with Latin, heirogylphic and Demotic scripts, and provided the key to deciphering ancient hieroglyphs
Responding to suggestions that Egypt would be tempted to return the treasure if given it on loan, he said: 'We are not the Pirates of the Caribbean.

'We are a civilised country. If I sign a contract with the British museum, (we) will return it.'

He has also accused the British Museum of not looking after the treasure properly, saying: 'They kept it in a dark, baldy lit room until I came and requested it. Suddenly, it became important to them.'
Custody: The stone, which resides in the British Museum, was discovered in Egypt by Napoleon's forces in 1799 and seized by the British two years later
The Museum, however, is well-practised in fending off such requests.

It has long refused Greek treatise to return the Elgin Marbles to Athens, and has retained ownership of dozens of 'Lewis Chessman' - elaborately carved chess figures discovered on Scotland's Outer Hebrides in the early 19th century despite calls for them to be returned to Scotland.

Roy Clare, head of the government-funded Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, said the stone must stay in London.

He told BBC Radio4's Today programme: 'This icon is an icon globally.

'An object inherits additional culture through its acquisition.'
 

Stoo

Well-known member
'Indiana Jones' of Egyptian archaeology demands British Museum hand back Rosetta Stone By Fiona Macrae
Thanks for the article, Rocket. Funny story:

I've seen the original Rosetta Stone in the British Museum a couple of times and was aware that the one in Cairo was a replica and while there this summer, we had an Egyptologist guide for 2 days (she knows Dr. Hawass). At the Cairo Museum, the Rosetta Stone greets you as the 1st exhibit inside. The guide mentioned that is was actual stone so I later asked, "Isn't the original in London?", which caught her off-guard and she humbly admitted that it was a replica. I kind of embarassed her so I should have just stayed silent "and smiled quietly to myself" (as Eric Idle would say).

The locals whom I spoke to about Dr. Hawass all admired him for his aggresiveness in preserving the ancient culture but had criticisms of him as well. I suspect that Zahi will win this tug-of-war but it will be interesting to follow the progression.
 
Stoo said:
I've seen the original Rosetta Stone in the British Museum a couple of times and was aware that the one in Cairo was a replica and while there this summer, we had an Egyptologist guide for 2 days (she knows Dr. Hawass). At the Cairo Museum, the Rosetta Stone greets you as the 1st exhibit inside. The guide mentioned that is was actual stone so I later asked, "Isn't the original in London?", which caught her off-guard and she humbly admitted that it was a replica. I kind of embarassed her so I should have just stayed silent "and smiled quietly to myself" (as Eric Idle would say).

The locals whom I spoke to about Dr. Hawass all admired him for his aggresiveness in preserving the ancient culture but had criticisms of him as well. I suspect that Zahi will win this tug-of-war but it will be interesting to follow the progression.

Great story, like I tell my kids: ask questions and as Indy put it: [don't] take [things] at face value. Sometime it makes you feel like that student in Froderick Fronkensteens class, (isn't it true...) but rather that then willingly be a dupe!

Here's something you may be familar with if you paid attention to the History Channel's Indiana Jones Special...

Department of Interior lax in care of museum collections, report says...

Remember the last scene of the movie "Raiders of the Lost Ark," where the Bible's ark of the covenant is packaged up and lost in a large government warehouse?

That actually is happening to untold artifacts and documents, because the Department of Interior largely doesn't know what is in its collections, often doesn't know if items were obtained legally and doesn't properly care for many of them, according to the department's inspector general.

"Elements of the nation's heritage are being neglected and forgotten in thousands of boxes that contain millions of objects neither identified nor accounted for," says an inspector general's report released Wednesday.

"The Department of Interior is failing to fulfill its stewardship responsibilities over museum collections second in size only to the Smithsonian Institution."

The inspector general evaluated how well collections are being managed by visiting 28 department facilities — from national park museums to artifact storage facilities — and three nondepartmental museums with artifacts and documents on loan from the department.

None of the facilities visited were in Utah. However, Utah was the site of a large federal raid last year on private sellers of Indian artifacts found on public land. Officials then said that such people were robbing the nation of its heritage. The new report says poor management of federal museums may be doing the same.

The report said widespread problems were found with accessioning — the process of ensuring that items were obtained legally — as well as cataloging and performing regular inventories. It said many of the problems had been earlier noted in other reports since 1990.

The report says the department has an estimated 146 million items in its museum collections, but 78 million of them have not been catalogued — just over half of them.

All Interior agencies have huge cataloging backlogs, but the National Park Service stood out with an estimated backlog of 60 million items, according to the report.

"The backlog at Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco, Calif., was over 3 million objects, while the backlogs at Acadia National Park in Bar Harbor, Maine, and the Alaska Region Curatorial Center in Anchorage, Alaska, were around 1 million objects each," the report said. "In some cases, objects remained uncataloged for decades."

As a result, "millions of objects remain boxed — unknown and unaccounted for," the report said. "These objects are, for the most part, unavailable for research, education or display and are susceptible to theft, deterioration and damage."

Of the 28 sites the inspector general visited, "nine were not accessioning (making sure items were received legally) upon receipt," the report said. "In fact, three of these sites were not accessioning at all."

The Bureau of Reclamation's New Melones Artifact Storage Facility in Jamestown, Calif, for example, had accessioned only about 24,000 of the estimated 418,000 objects stored there.

The report said the department also is not conducting required annual inventories to verify that items in collections have not disappeared or been stolen.

For example, five of the seven Bureau of Indian Affairs facilities visited not only had failed to conduct such inventories but also "were unable to provide a current inventory listing of the objects in their collections," the report said.

Besides the Interior Department's own facilities, the report said, the inspector general found that Interior is not tracking well what items the department has loaned to colleges and outside museums and "had little idea of what objects those facilities held."

On top of all that, the report said: "We found that the department needs to take additional steps to improve preservation practices over its museum collections. Because the preservation of the collections at many DOI sites has been neglected, countless (items of) artwork, artifacts and other museum objects are in jeopardy."

The report said the problems were caused by poor management and by failure of the government to allocate enough manpower and money to care for and track collections.

The document made numerous recommendations to resolve problems, including doing annual inventories, pursuing partnerships with colleges and foundations that could help catalog and care for items and identifying all items the department has and what facilities have them.

The report said the department agrees with the need for improvements, but "it took exception to how we described the current state of the museum program" and said it actually had made many improvements in the past two decades.

The inspector general acknowledged that some improvements had been made, but said, "We stand by our conclusions on DOI's museum program."
 
The Amber Room looted by Nazis may have been discovered...

The Russian Geraldo Rivera?



Seized by the Nazis during their invasion of the Soviet Union in WWII, it has been missing since the end of the war.

The Amber Room is made entirely of amber, gold and precious stones.When its 565 candles were lit the Amber Room was said to "glow a fiery gold ".

Treasure hunter Sergei Trifonov has found a bunker in the Russian city of Kaliningrad, formerly called Konigsberg, which he says contains the incredible treasure.

It is estimated to be worth around £150million, but many consider it priceless.

Sergei believes he will break into the bunker by the end of the month to find the treasure.

He said: "Believe me or not, it's there, 12 metres down in the sub-soil.

"This place was built in February 1945 with two aims: accommodating the headquarters of General Otto Lasch and storing the treasures of Konigsberg, a city under siege."

The Amber Room was presented to Peter the Great in 1716 by the King of Prussia.

Catherine the Great later had the room embellished and moved it from the Winter Palace in St Petersburg to her summer house in Tsarskoye Selo, outside the city.

It was seized by the marauding Germans during their onslaught on Russia in 1941 and transferred to Konigsberg.

The treasure was lost in 1945 following air raids and a savage ground assault on the city.

Its disappearance has fascinated treasure hunters for decades, making the Amber Room the new El Dorado.

Despite Sergei's enthusiasm some historians have not been won over by his claims.

Vladimir Kulakov, an expert at Russia's Institute of Archaeology, said: "He's a good storyteller but he can't prove anything."



Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2812988/Treasure-stolen-by-Nazis-found.html#ixzz0d5WCPSL0
 
Menachem Youlus: Indiana Jones or Rene Belloq?

Heidi Zawas(;) ) eat your heart out!
Youlus says he has rescued 500 Torahs since he began his mission a quarter-century ago. The number Youlus gives on this spring afternoon in 2009 has soared to 1,100.

The fundraising video describes Youlus's rescue operation in dramatic fashion. While a violin plays a mournful tune, supporters give testimonials. The screen flashes archival photos of concentration camp barracks and piles of desecrated Torah scrolls. The message is clear: Make a donation so Youlus can parachute in, rescue these fragile survivors and breathe new life into the ancient text known as the Tree of Life.

One testimonial comes from Rabbi Leila Gal Berner of Kol Ami, a Reconstructionist community in Northern Virginia. Cradling a Torah from Youlus, Gal Berner, 59, relates its remarkable history. "There was a legend of a Torah scroll that had been hidden under the floorboards at Bergen-Belsen [concentration camp]. Menachem came to Bergen-Belsen on a tour and literally fell into a hole in the corner of the floorboards, felt something strange, suspected that this might be where it was. It was dug up. Indeed it was the Torah, fully there. After some negotiations, Rabbi Youlus was able to purchase the Torah." For Gal Berner, rescuing a scroll like hers means "that community didn't die when Hitler tried to kill it."

Youlus's discovery at Bergen-Belsen comes as news to the historian at the camp museum. "I can definitely exclude that there could have been a find of the Torah scroll on the grounds of the Bergen-Belsen Memorial" in recent years, writes Thomas Rahe. In 1945, British troops burned down all the barracks to stop the spread of typhus.

Asked about his Bergen-Belsen adventure, Youlus at first jokes about his dumb luck being a "schlemiel" and literally stumbling on a holy treasure. Confronted with the camp historian's denial, he shoots back: "It's not Bergen-Belsen. She says it was Bergen-Belsen." Which camp was it? He can't remember: He says he has toured so many concentration camp sites. Why did he allow Gal Berner to tell this story on the video? He says he's never watched it.

Gal Berner a historian who has taught at leading universities stands by Youlus even after being informed of the facts and of Youlus's denial. She skirts the question of what the scribe told her about the Torah's origins. "I believe that Rabbi Youlus is an honest man who is doing holy work, I believe that he must navigate complicated territory in order to find and rescue the Torah scrolls he finds."

In 2008, Central Synagogue, in Manhattan, dedicated another of Youlus's rescued Torahs. This one came with an iconic name attached. Youlus says he secretly unearthed it in Oswiecim the Polish town made infamous by its German name, Auschwitz. Oswiecim Jews, Youlus said, buried this Torah in a metal box in their cemetery to save it from the Nazis. More than six decades later, he told the New York Times, he located the scroll with a metal detector and dug it up. But it was missing four parchment panels. The local Jews removed these panels, he said, before burying the Torah, and later somehow spirited the fragments into the camp. Youlus says he placed an ad in a local newspaper offering to pay for parchment with Hebrew writing on it. Miraculously, a priest a former Auschwitz prisoner responded the very next day and sold him four panels that proved to be an exact match.

Poland's chief rabbi, American Michael Schudrich, responds: "I cannot confirm anything that Menachem has written. I do not know the people he is referring to." Youlus's discovery is also a mystery to Tomasz Kuncewicz, director of the Auschwitz Jewish Center, which cares for the Oswiecim cemetery, and to Dorota Wiewiora, head of the tiny Jewish community still living in the region. She is dismayed at the idea that someone would dig among human remains. And, Wiewiora adds, if such a Torah really was dug up, it would rightfully be the property of her community. "No one would sell it. It's not ethical."

Asked why no one in Oswiecim knew about his ad hoc archaeological dig, Youlus changes major details of the story he told Central Synagogue and the New York Times. He says the box containing the Torah was not made of metal, though he can't say exactly what the material was. Youlus says he simply took an educated guess as to where it was buried, hired a crew to dig and found it in the ground beyond the old cemetery walls. As for the priest who supplied the missing parchment panels, Youlus didn't find him through a classified ad. He says his great aunt, friends with an unidentified Polish cardinal, helped find the priest. What was the priest's name? "I have no idea," Youlus says. According to the Archdiocese of Krakow, the last local priest who survived Auschwitz died years before Youlus says he arrived on the scene in 2004.

In a 3-hour interview, Youlus is unable to provide a single name, date, place, photograph or document to back up the Auschwitz stories or any of the others. He says that until Save a Torah was founded in 2004, he kept no records.

Zitelman says the only paperwork he gets from Youlus is an invoice the rabbi himself writes up for each Torah. He says Youlus does not submit any airline tickets or hotel receipts for overseas missions. So where does he think Youlus finds the Torahs? "It's my understanding these Torahs come from various locations, including monasteries, museums, antique shops, private owners and other places like that.These Torahs belonged to synagogues or Jewish communities or families that were destroyed or killed during the Holocaust.These stolen Torahs are no different than art that was stolen from Jews by the Nazis and others, and is now being returned to its rightful owners."

Many state museums and archives in Eastern Europe hold hundreds of scrolls. And half a dozen major Jewish organizations, backed by the U.S. State Department, have been pressing governments in the region to return them to Jewish hands in an orderly fashion. Wesley Fisher, director of research for the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, is working on the issue. He acknowledges that the slow pace of negotiations "leads many people to think, 'Well, they should just be taken.' " But he says he believes the Jewish people should not "repeat theft," and with the revival of Jewish life in the region, it's "not a matter for individuals to decide in cowboy-like fashion" who should have these scrolls.

Jews in Ukraine report that Torahs periodically disappear from museum shelves and end up overseas. Youlus is aware of these shadowy dealings: "I think that there is a gray market in some of these areas. And I am very, very careful whom I deal with." But he won't name the people with whom he deals, so, for now, the source of his old Torahs remains murky.

What's also hard to ascertain is how the two Torahs Youlus says he found in a mass grave in Ukraine wound up in the hands of five different buyers.

The first was Martin Ingall, 50, of Potomac, who reported Youlus's discovery to the Jewish genealogical newsletter. Its August, 2001, issue states that Ingall, president of Technology Information in Rockville, bought one of the two Torahs and suggested that someone else might want the second. After reading this, Kushner then purchased what Youlus told him was the second scroll. But another Pennsylvania couple, Phyllis and David Malinov, also read the notice and felt a tug on their heartstrings. Phyllis, 71, knew her mother had immigrated from Kamenets-Podolsk. So the couple, a teacher and a physician, headed off to the Wheaton bookstore. After they told Youlus about their family connection to the town, David Malinov, 72, recalls, the scribe "was in favor of our receiving the Torah." They paid about $10,000, they say, for what Youlus told them was one of two Torahs, and took it back to their Jewish fellowship group in Pike County, Pa. Around the same time, the Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center outside Baltimore, which caters to Jewish organizations, was looking for a Torah. The center's executive director, Carol Pristoop, wrote down the incredible story that Youlus told the Pearlstone donors, who paid $10,000 for the scroll. She saved her notes, which state the Pearlstone Torah is one of two found in a mass grave.

Hantman also remembers Youlus telling her that her Westchester County congregation was receiving one of two Torahs from the mass grave. Youlus declines to explain how five parties believed they had one of these two Torahs. But Zitelman says: "There's a total of eight Torahs -- two that were in the mass grave and six that were from the general community. I don't know what Rabbi Youlus said specifically to anybody."

Clark University professor Deborah Dwork, co-author of a history of Auschwitz, says such tales can play into the hands of Holocaust deniers. For her, the historical record must be "absolutely crystal clear. Anything that deviates from that one whit does the memory of the Holocaust a huge disservice," she says.

As for Youlus's Torah rescue stories, Berenbaum came to his own conclusion. "A psychiatrist might say they are delusional. A historian might say they are counter-factual. A pious Jew might call them midrash, the stories we tell to underscore the deepest truths we live," he says. Midrash, in this context, refers to the ancient tradition of rabbis telling anecdotes and fables to convey a moral lesson. "Myth underscores the deepest truth we live," Berenbaum says.

But for Kushner, who to honor his father bought a Torah he believed was from a mass grave, "It's better that I should know the truth than I should go on the rest of my life believing in a myth."

There's MORE:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...1/22/AR2010012203257.html?sid=ST2010012500035
 
Abdel Rahman El-Aydi led a team of archaeologists discovering 57 tombs at Lahoun, 70 miles south of Cairo, dating back to 2750 BC during the reign of Egypt's first and second dynasties.

Some of the tombs were decorated with religious texts that ancient Egyptians believed would help the dead to cross through the underworld.

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Mr El-Aydi said one of the oldest tombs was almost completely intact, with all of its funerary equipment and a wooden sarcophagus containing a mummy wrapped in linen.

Archaeologists discovered scenes of different ancient Egyptian deities, such as the falcon-headed Horus, Hathor, Khnum and Amun, decorating some of the tombs.
 
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