Looted artifacts being returned to Italy from NYC
NEW YORK — Two stolen ancient artifacts are being returned to Italy from New York City. An Italian government representative is taking possession of them at a ceremony Wednesday. The artifacts are a Pompeii plaster wall painting and a Corinthian vase for mixing water and wine. They were recovered by immigration and customs officials in June. Both items had been scheduled for auction in New York before they were discovered to have been stolen. Immigration officials said the vase may have been illegally introduced into the art market by Giacomo Medici (JAH’-kuh-moh MEH’-dih-chee) in 1985. The art dealer was convicted in Rome in 2004 of conspiracy to traffic in antiquities. The wall painting was reported stolen in Italy in 1997. Original article-with photos … Read entire article »
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Google adds Pompeii to its Street View
Google has added Pompeii to its Street View application, allowing internet users to take a 360-degree virtual tour of the ancient Roman city. Italy’s culture ministry says it hopes the move will boost tourism to the site, state news agency Ansa reports. Among the ruins visible on the search engine’s free mapping service are the town’s statues, temples and theatres. The city was buried in ash after Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD79 and was not discovered until the 18th Century. The volcanic debris preserved many of the city’s buildings, frescos, silverware, mosaics and other artefacts. “Giving people a chance to take a virtual stroll through Pompeii will give an extraordinary boost to Italian tourism,” Ansa quoted Mario Resca of the culture ministry’s heritage promotion department as saying. The Google Maps service, launched in 2007, provides panoramic … Read entire article »
Sydney academic unearths the secret of Pompeii’s bones
The ruined Roman city of Pompeii continues to yield secrets, this time in a book by a Sydney University academic in the first systematic study of human bone remains. Resurrecting Pompeii by Dr Estelle Lazer, archaeologist at Sydney University, was launched earlier this month. The book discusses the information gained from looking at the skeletal remains of victims of the AD 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Although Pompeii has been continuously studied since 1748, early scholars were seduced by the more glamorous artefacts and wall paintings yielded by the site. The less attractive evidence, the bones, was largely ignored. Until Dr Lazer’s work, there had not been a systematic study into victim profiling information that could be gathered from studying bones, including sex, age, general health and height and population affinities. Dr Lazer found … Read entire article »
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Italian archaeologists find lost Roman city of Altinum near Venice
The bustling harbour of Altinum near Venice was one of the richest cities of the Roman empire. But terrified by the impending invasion of the fearsome Germanic Emperor Attila the Hun, its inhabitants cut their losses and fled in AD452, leaving behind a ghost town of theatres, temples and basilicas. Altinum was never reoccupied and gradually sunk into the ground. The city lived on in Venetian folk tales and historical artefacts but its exact position, size and wealth gradually faded into obscurity. Now, using aerial photography of the region, Italian archaeologists have not only located the city, but have produced a detailed map revealing its remarkably intact infrastructure and showing it to be slightly larger than Pompeii. The abandonment of the city and its subsequent preservation makes it an archaeological time capsule, a … Read entire article »
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