SAQQARA REVEALS WIDER BURIAL ZONE
Saqqara, Egypt (MR)- Situated just 12 miles south of Cairo, Saqqara is proving to be a richer archaeological site than previously believed. Egypt's top archaeologist Zahi Hawass relayed today the recent discovery of two new tombs as well as an entrance to a cemetary dating back 4300 years. Both finds, located slightly Southwest of the previous search areas of the Step Pyramid of King Djoser and that of Unas, the last king of the 5th Dynasty, are expected to shed light on the 5th and 6th dynasties which reigned over 4000 years ago.
One of the tombs, about a yard wide and 2.75 yards long, has an inscription above the entrance about the man, Yaamat, for whom it was built. The second tomb is twice the size and includes descriptions and an image of a seated woman. The rock-cut tombs were built for high post officials — one man (presumably Mr. Yaamat) in charge of the quarries used to build the nearby pyramids and another for a woman in charge of procuring entertainers for the pharaohs.
Excavations have been going on at Saqqara for about 150 years, uncovering a vast necropolis of pyramids, tombs and funerary complexes mostly from the Old Kingdom, but including sites as recent as the Roman era.
Saqqara continues to yield new finds. In November, Hawass proclaimed the discovery of a new pyramid, the 118th in Egypt, and the 12th to be found at Saqqara. Hawass believes only approximately 30 percent of Egypt's monuments have been uncovered, with the rest still under the desert sand.
Hawass also stated that a bust of Pharoah Amenhotep III that has been outside Egypt for close to 15 years was returned to the country on Sunday after a lengthy legal battle with an antiquities dealer in Britain.
Copyright 2008 Museum Review
Images by Malex.org
Labels: egypt, pharaoh, zahi hawass
From the AP:The FBI said Monday that it has recovered a 1778 painting by the Spanish artist Francisco de Goya that was stolen as it was being taken to an exhibition earlier this month.
"Children with a Cart," which disappeared en route from the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City and was valued at about $1.1 million, appeared to be unharmed, said Les Wiser, agent in charge of the Newark, New Jersey FBI office.
Steven Siegel, a spokesman for the FBI, said the bureau recovered the painting Saturday in New Jersey, but would not be more specific about where or how it was located. No arrests were made, but the case remains under investigation, he said.
The FBI said extensive news coverage of the theft led to tips that enabled the agency to recover the painting.
The painting was taken from an art transporter's truck that was parked overnight in a hotel parking lot in Stroudsburg, Pa., on Nov. 8, authorities said. It had been scheduled to be displayed in the exhibition "Spanish Painting from El Greco to Picasso: Time, Truth, and History," which opened at the Guggenheim on Nov. 17.
Siegel said the thieves apparently did not know what was inside the truck when they broke into it. "It was a target of opportunity. They probably thought it was a truck full of PlayStations," he said.
The image of four children at play was insured for about $1 million and was to be exhibited with about 135 paintings by Spanish masters.
The insurer had offered a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to the recovery of the artwork.
By Kenneth Barry from Reuters:Imagine you could walk up to Bill Gates or even a historical figure like financier J.P. Morgan and ask them what was the secret to their success.
The Museum of American Finance, which is readying new, larger quarters on Wall Street for next year, will allow you to do just that in a "Great Entrepreneurs" interactive exhibit.
In its current cramped space, the museum can hardly begin to tell the tales of bankers and tycoons, booms and busts that over the years formed the world's largest economy.
When it moves, the museum aims to tell its story with a mix of the educational and the entertaining, says Executive Director Lee Kjelleren.
"The challenge is to make a dynamic, engaging and interactive museum yet also not make it Disneyland," Kjelleren said. Today, people are more responsible for their financial wellbeing and need to understand financial matters more than ever before, he said.
In its new space at 48 Wall Street the museum hopes to fill a need that arose after September 11, 2001, when the New York Stock Exchange closed its doors to visitors for security reasons. The nonprofit museum, located a block away, is talking with the NYSE to have live feeds on large video screens that will show the exchange floor action. Video from foreign stock exchanges may be added later, Kjelleren said.
The "Great Entrepreneurs" exhibit will feature large mirrors in which, as you approach, an image of an American captain of industry will "come to life." You can pose questions, such as how he or she got started, what were the entrepreneur's background and education, what were the obstacles and what accounted for his or her success.
The entrepreneur will answer and describe the risks and rewards of the particular enterprises. "It's entertainment with a purpose," Kjelleren said.
The museum is moving from rooms a few blocks away at 28 Broadway in what was formerly John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Building. The new site was once the home of the Bank of New York, the city's first bank, founded in 1784 by Alexander Hamilton, the first U.S. Treasury secretary.
With its grand marble staircase, 30-foot ceilings and Palladian windows, the new site will expand the museum's size tenfold to 30,000 square feet. One corner will be an office furnished in the 18th-Century style that would be familiar to Hamilton. The museum has an early U.S. Treasury note, which features the first use of the dollar sign and was sold to and signed by President George Washington.
Hamilton was instrumental in securing investor confidence in the United States' creditworthiness and advocated tariffs and excise taxes to fund the national government. Richard Sylla, an economics professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, said America's economic success was largely due to Hamilton.
"He managed a financial crisis and injected liquidity into the market back in the 1790s the way (former Federal Reserve Chairman) Alan Greenspan managed our crises," said Sylla.
Fund-raising for the museum has begun with a goal of $10 million. The target to open the new space is spring of 2007.
From the APJapanese researchers said Sunday that a bottlenose dolphin captured last month has an extra set of fins that could be the remains of hind legs, a discovery that may provide further evidence that ocean-dwelling mammals once lived on land.
Fishermen captured the four-finned dolphin alive off the coast of Wakayama prefecture (state) in western Japan on Oct. 28, and alerted the nearby Taiji Whaling Museum, according to museum director Katsuki Hayashi.
Fossil remains show dolphins and whales were four-footed land animals about 50 million years ago and share the same common ancestor as hippos and deer. Scientists believe they later transitioned to an aquatic lifestyle and their hind limbs disappeared.
Whale and dolphin fetuses also show signs of hind protrusions but these generally disappear before birth.
Though odd-shaped protrusions have been found near the tails of dolphins and whales captured in the past, researchers say this was the first time one had been found with well-developed, symmetrical fins, Hayashi said.
"I believe the fins may be remains from the time when dolphins' ancient ancestors lived on land ... this is an unprecedented discovery," Seiji Osumi, an adviser at Tokyo's Institute of Cetacean Research, said at a news conference televised Sunday.
The second set of fins — much smaller than the dolphin's front fins — are about the size of human hands and protrude from near the tail on the dolphin's underside. The dolphin measures 8.92 feet and is about five years old, according to the museum.
Hayashi said he could not tell from watching the dolphin swim in a musuem tank whether it used its back fins to maneuver.
A freak mutation may have caused the ancient trait to reassert itself, Osumi said. The dolphin will be kept at the Taiji museum to undergo X-ray and DNA tests, according to Hayashi.
One of the tombs, about a yard wide and 2.75 yards long, has an inscription above the entrance about the man, Yaamat, for whom it was built. The second tomb is twice the size and includes descriptions and an image of a seated woman. The rock-cut tombs were built for high post officials — one man (presumably Mr. Yaamat) in charge of the quarries used to build the nearby pyramids and another for a woman in charge of procuring entertainers for the pharaohs.
Saqqara continues to yield new finds. In November, Hawass proclaimed the discovery of a new pyramid, the 118th in Egypt, and the 12th to be found at Saqqara. Hawass believes only approximately 30 percent of Egypt's monuments have been uncovered, with the rest still under the desert sand.
