Italy has been on a campaign to recover looted artifacts, using the courts and public shaming to compel museums and collectors to return them, and has won back several important pieces.

The items returned Tuesday were either spontaneously turned over to U.S. authorities or seized by police after investigators noticed them in Christie's and Sotheby's auction catalogues, gallery listings, or as a result of customs searches, court cases or tips. One 17th-century Venetian cannon was seized by Boston border patrol agents as it was being smuggled from Egypt to the U.S. inside construction equipment, police said.

U.S. Ambassador John Phillips joined Italy's carabinieri art police to show off the haul. It included Etruscan vases from the Toledo Museum of Art and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 17th-century botany books from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and a manuscript from the 1500s stolen from the Turin archdiocese in 1990 that ended up listed in the University of South Florida's special collections.

"Italy is blessed with a rich cultural legacy and therefore cursed to suffer the pillaging of important cultural artifacts," Phillips said, adding that Interpol estimates the illicit trade in cultural heritage produces more than $9 billion in profits each year.

Police said several of the items were allegedly sold by Italian dealers Giacomo Medici and Gianfranco Becchina, both convicted of trafficking in plundered Roman artifacts. After the objects were recovered, Italian authorities confirmed their provenance.

Police stressed that most collectors and museums willingly gave up the artifacts after learning they had been stolen. The Minneapolis museum director contacted the Italian culture ministry after reading an article about one suspect piece, police said.

Phillips praised the collaboration between Italy's police and U.S. Homeland Security and border patrol agents. He also said the U.S. had returned more than 7,600 objects to over 30 countries and foreign citizens since 2007.

Author: Nicole Winfield | Source: The Associated Press [May 26, 2015]

The Egyptian-style pyramid-shaped tomb of Gaius Cestius, an Augustan era general, reopened to the public this week following an extensive restoration initiated in March 2013. Japanese fashion mogul Yuzo Yagi who funded the project said "It is extraordinary to return it to the white city like [it was] two thousand years ago. It was a great job with an incredible team led by two women", referring to Rita Paris and Maria Grazia Filetici, Italy's archaeological superintendency directors who oversaw the project.

The 120 foot-high pyramid, according to Paris, was constructed in 330 days, made of white Carrara marble. The 21st century restoration of the 2000-year-old tomb took a cumulative 327 days, 75 days less than projected.

Yagi donated two million euros to the innovative internal and external restoration that required a mix of traditional and non-tradition conservation in areas such as vegetation removal, marble facade protection, marble panel stabilization and damage prevention, and a handicap-accessible entrance ramp.

The restoration was much needed after centuries of wear and tear, which included, as Paris detailed, the tomb's incorporation into the 3rd century AD walls, looting in the Middle Ages, mid-17th century restoration, and use as a meeting spot in the 19th century.

Present at the invitation-only inauguration was Umberto Vattani, president of the Italy-Japan Foundation, cultural and foreign affairs undersecretaries Francesca Barracciu and Benedetto Della Vedova, Rome Cultural Heritage superintendent Francesco Prosperetti, and Rome Mayor Ignazio Marino.

Barracciu said that the restoration was "a brilliant best practice that strengthens our belief that the public and private collaboration is a way to go again with more determination. And since last July's Art Bonus, we are very confident ".

When asked if Yagi would finance future heritage projects in Italy, the fashion mogul said "we have a long list of aid to Japan, for the tsunami-affected areas. But I would be happy to return in the coming years".

Author: Erica Firpo | Credit: ANSAmed [April 21, 2015]

The Italian agreement

"The fact of the matter is that physical weathering, deterioration and damage to marble and other architectural stones present a serious problem for the preservation of sculptures, monuments and buildings," said Luzin.

David: A sculpture made from Carrara marble

Before its relocation in Galleria dell'Accademia, David, the "Giant", was  symbolically displayed in the political heart of Renaissance Florence, the Piazza della Signoria. Over a period of almost three centuries, the statue was exposed to the action of weather, historical events and inappropriate restoration works. These coexisting factors prevented the appropriate preservation of a masterpiece that, already at the time of its creation, was regarded as challenging by many artists—due to the presence of taroli, imperfections of the marble.

Today David is in a highly stable condition but still presents a contemporary scientific challenge from a conservation point of view. Researchers are monitoring marble cracking of the 4.3 metre David with a system of sensors that record vibrations, rotations and environmental conditions. [1] Conservationists monitor the sculpture because it is thought that even small mechanical impacts and small temperature variations are detrimental to marble.

Geologically marble is formed by the alteration (metamorphism) of limestone under high temperature and high pressure. The metamorphic process causes a complete recrystallization of the original rock into an interlocking mosaic of calcite and/or dolomite crystals with very specific mechanical behaviour.

Carrara marble, the stone used by Michaelangelo in sculpting David, was  one of the most popular types of marble in the world because of its beauty and high lustre. For centuries it was quarried from the Apuan Alps in Tuscan Italy.

The popularity of Carrara marble was due in part to the wide range of varieties available (statuary, flowered, veined, brecciated, bardiglio, etc.), to the constancy of its quality, scarcity of defects, large size of single blocks that could be extracted, excellent physical and mechanical characteristics, and long-lasting strength and beauty." [2]        

However the suitability of marble from the Carrara area of Italy for buildings and artworks has been questioned because of 'spectacular bowing behaviour' of marble slabs on numerous modern buildings including the Amoco building in Chicago and the Grand Arche de la Defense in Paris.

A study of Carrara marble by a group of investigators led by Luzin have confirmed that microstresses caused by temperature variation and the thermo-mechanical properties of the marble itself help explain the deterioration. Co-investigators are Dimitry Nikolayev of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Moscow and Siegfried Siegesmund of theUniversity of Göttingen in Germany.

The investigators were interested in the different environmental conditions that influence marble deterioration and had to reproduce factors known to be important to the process of deterioration. Temperature effects were among those known to cause mechanical stress.

Luzin and collaborators used non-destructive neutron diffraction to confirm that thermally-induced microstress from a single thermal exposure can cause microcracking in the marble and therefore be responsible for weathering and deterioration of the marble [3].

"Neutron diffraction is a useful tool and a non-destructive method to investigate the texture, phase composition and spatial and orientation dependence of strain in a bulk marble sample," explained Luzin.

Although the commercial use of statue-grade Carrara marble is no longer allowed, an exception is made for restoration works and scientific research. Freshly cut marble from a quarry in Carrara, Italy was used for the testing.

"Although not easy, stress measurements in geological materials, such as marble are feasible and provide valuable characterisation," said Luzin.

He explained that the challenges are related to the need to measure two phases with sufficient accuracy. It is necessary to use a large gauge volume because of the coarse grain microstructure and longer measurement time in order to capture very delicate effects of microstress in calcite and dolomite—which are also very weak neutron scatterers.

The neutron high resolution powder diffractomter, Echidna, determined the amount of each phase in two cube samples of marble. In one sample, the dolomite comprised a volume fraction of 28 per cent  and in the other it was 18 per cent, which is not surprising given the highly visible non-uniform distribution of dolomite in the marble.

The Kowari diffractometer was used to produce pole figures, graphical representations that   capture the preferred crystallographic orientation (texture) of the calcite and dolomite. "A weak crystallographic texture in both phases was confirmed in the neutron diffraction experiment," said Luzin.

The stress experiments were carried out using the Kowari diffractometer in a specially designed sample environment unit in order to control temperature. "We took measurements of the calcite and dolomite phases at room temperature and at 80° C."

Using a technique to measure the stiffness of an elastic material, the researchers were able to accurately measure the accumulated damage after a thermal exposure that could be unambiguously attributed to microcracking.

"Evidently, a significant change in microstress caused micro-cracking in the marble sample due to temperature changes," said Luzin.

Although exaggerated temperature might not be relevant to real daily and seasonal temperature variation, smaller, more numerous natural temperature variations during long periods of time might result in even greater accumulated damage. There are historical examples of sculpture which deteriorated into a pulverised state after a century of exposure to temperature variation.

"We have a responsibility to try and preserve great works of art and architecture with non-destructive techniques and nuclear technologies give us the means to do this. Hopefully David and other important monuments can be preserved in the centuries to come," said Luzin.

References

[1] Giovanni Pascale, Filippo Bastianini, Roberto Carli, "Monitoring Marble cracking in the David by Michaelangelo Proc. Art'11, 10th Int. Conf. on Non-Destructive Investigations and microanalysis for the diagnostics and conservation of cultural and environmental heritage, Florence, April 13th-15th, 2011, NDT44

[2] Stephano Merlino Paolo Orlandi "Carraraite and zaccagnaite, two new minerals from the Carrara marble quarries: their chemical compositions, physical properties, and structural features" American Mineralogist, Volume 86, pages 1293–1301

[3] 310.4028/www.scientific.net/MSF.777.148. Luzin, V; Nikolayev, D and Siegesmund, S, Temperature Induced Internal Stress in Carrara Marble, Mater. Sci. Forum 777, 148-154 (2014)

Source: Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) [June 22, 2015]

A large marble crown which topped the "Statue of the Two Hercules" monument in the town of Cremona in northern Italy was brought crashing to the ground after the tourists climbed onto it to pose for the photograph.

The crown sat on top of a large marble shield which is flanked by two statues depicting Hercules.

The monument, located on Piazza del Comune, a medieval square at the heart of Cremona, is one of the city's best known symbols.

Police are investigating the accident, while experts were on Monday expected to assess the extent of the damage and give an estimate of how much repairs are likely to cost.

The statues were sculpted in the early 18th century and were placed on top of one of the gates that led into Cremona.

They were later removed from the gate and since the 1960s have been kept in the Loggia dei Militia, formerly the headquarters of the town's militia, on the main piazza.

Cremona is best known for its violin-makers, in a tradition dating back centuries.

The most famous was Antonio Stradivari, who made around 1,000 violins, cellos, violas and harps, and whose instruments are often referred to by the Latinised form of his name, Stradivarius.

Author: Nick Squires | Source: Telegraph [May 04, 2015]

A decision to cap Sunday free entries to no more than 15,000 visitors at a single time was made following a May 3 record of 35,000 visitors after reviewing UNESCO inspectors' analysis.

According to experts, high numbers of visitors cause increased moisture and micro-climate alterations which put Pompeii's priceless frescoes at risk.

The ministry and superintendency will present their reorganization plans at a press conference on Tuesday.

Source: ANSA [May 11, 2015]

Confindustria Ceramica

Confindustria Ceramica — the Italian Association of Ceramic Tile Manufacturers - has appointed us with the promotion of an integrated campaign aimed at enhancing the global perception of "Italian Ceramic Tiles".

The project originates out of the need to redefine the product positioning, reviving its role as a main component in design, life style, fashion, new housing styles, and with a view to extending the industry targets by involving ever more competitive, creative consumers, who are strongly fascinated by trendy products.

The Italian Ceramics means Infinite Creativity

The campaign strategy and concept have been identified from the unique product plus: ceramics is basically the only type of tile with which a practically infinite range of shapes, colours, and solutions is possible. Following a target audit phase, in which an opinion poll and one-to-one interviews have been conducted, the campaign has further developed through an integrated project guided by PR actions and implemented in different communication channels: off-line advertising, events, TV, web communication, web portal.

Several actions have been carried out over a period of about one year with appearances on TV channels, newspapers and magazines (editorials, web, TV, events) for a total of approximately 114 million contacts.

Confindustria Ceramica is the Italian Association of Ceramic Tile and Sanitary Appliance Manufacturers — in charge of promoting Italian ceramic products both in Italy and abroad. In the past few years, ceramics has lost appeal versus its competitors: i.e. wood, stone, or resin tiles, deemed to be more prestigious and "trendy". Ceramics is considered to be a "poor", "cold", "uncool" products, suitable only for some specific settings (e.g., kitchens and bathrooms).

Italy Has Always Been the Most Important Producer of Ceramic Tiles In the World

The campaign aims to revamp ceramics as a creative, prestigious, and trendy solution. Ceramics has the right "credentials" to play a leading role in design, fashion, new life styles and architectural design: from all rooms in the house, to large buildings and public spaces.

There are two main reference targets: namely "insiders" (architects, designers, interior designers) and an increasingly larger group of "consum-actors", who are creative, motivated, well informed and who want to play a leading role in creating their own world.

In order to define the target’s needs: opinion poll by Eurisko and one-to-one interviews to some selected influencers.

The Innovations Developed by Ceramics Manufacturers:

The campaign strategy and concept have been identified from the unique plus that distinguishes ceramics from all its competitive products: thanks to a major product innovation developed by ceramics manufacturers, ceramics is the only type of tile with which a practically infinite range of shapes, colours, sizes, decorations, and finishings is possible.

For this reason, ceramics is "Infinite Creativity", and it perfectly meets the needs of Consum-actors, who favour solutions that allow them to pursue an exclusive and personal style. Ceramic tiles and consum-actors are the perfect match.

Unlike previous industry campaigns that were somehow self-referencing — our product is beauty and technology, — this campaign focuses on consumers (and industry experts) by fuelling their desire to play a leading role, while suggesting them that ceramics is the right product to fulfil it.

The campaign has been implemented along two complementary planes: a PR action, aimed at prompting rational purchase motivations (brain), as well as a whole set of integrated strongly emotional actions with a view to consolidating the new product positioning: ceramics as a creative choice (heart).

VIA «The Italian Association of Ceramic Tile Manufacturers»

The house faced Via di Mercurio, a few steps from the Forum, and was named after the fountain-nymphaeum placed in the garden and adorned by refined mosaics.

The restoration was completed in 135 days, ahead of schedule, and cost around 240,000 euros. Most of this sum, some 200,000 euros, was paid by the Great Pompeii Project, an initiative of the Italian government aimed at protecting the archaeological site.

The rest was financed through a public-private partnership with the Citta' Italia foundation and donations made by citizens..

Source: AGI [May 06, 2015]

Idle Mode

Ray-Ban sunglasses have appeared in 1929 when Bausch & Lomb Company has received the order for creation of special glasses which should protect eyes of pilots from blinding shine of the sun and ultra-violet beams from, thus providing an image high definition for eyes. So were born legendary sunglasses «Aviator»...

Aviator's Sunglasses

In 1952 the company has departed from traditional metal designs and has created rigid plastic glasses under the brand name «Ray-Ban Wayfarer». At this time in the USA the jazz, swing and rock'n'roll everywhere reign. Fashion magazines write about a style and rest. Sunglasses should be not only reliable, but also stylish. Ray-Ban sunglasses immediately adapted for fashion trends, and with the courageous line of Wayfarer — became the legendary cult.

Ray-Bay is a Legendary Sunglass Brand!

Already more than ten years the most known sunglasses in the world are made in Italy by company «Luxottica» which has completely kept the production technology of lenses and has added set of new models. And thanks to the US adv agency «Cutwater» the brand always trims the sails to the wind constantly changing fashion-trends.
Make sure you stay up to date with fashion and style by wearing seasonal designer eyeglasses that will add the finishing touch to any wardrobe.

VIA The Cult Sunglasses: Ray-Ban

The excavation, led by a team of American and Canadian archaeologists from the American Institute of Roman Culture, is bringing back to light an upper-class Roman home, or domus, from the fourth century A.D, as well as 2,000 year-old mausoleum, both located in Ostia's Parco dei Ravennati.

The site had been closed during the winter but when archaeologists visited it a few days ago, they got a nasty shock.

"“When we re-opened the dig site we found that some serious damage had been done,"” the team of scholars told Il Messaggero.

But this was not just everyday vandalism. The number '666', the widely recognized symbol for the Antichrist, had been carved into the site numerous times and the area was littered with birds' feathers and the remains of bonfires. “

In addition to the spooky remnants of occult rites the site was also full of junk.

“"During the winter people had been sleeping out here and had left all sorts among the ruins,”" the archaeologists said.

Bottles were strewn across the ruins and the vandals had even removed some iron poles, perhaps as part of some mysterious ritual.

Source: The Local [July 10, 2015]

VIA Machine Head Announce Album Title, Release Date and European Tour

The interventions mainly concerned the plaster and the Basilica's columns, which were starting to show cracks.

Walls and columns have been restored to their old form adding material in nearly invisible ways, as in the case of the access steps to the building which were restored using mortar lime.

The Basilica is one of the highlights of any visit to the popular archaeological site.

Built in the second half of the second century BC, it was used for the administration of justice as well as for trade negotiations.

The magnificent building has a rectangular plan with three aisles, a pitched roof supported by central columns and half columns from the top of the walls, where original decorations are still visible.

In the back of the Basilica is the court, which can be reached by wooden stairs.

Visitors will have access to the Basilica only through the side entrance of the building.

Source: AGI [July 29, 2015]

The recovery of the 800 items from museums, universities and auction houses in the United States, Italy and Jordan marks a small victory for Iraqi authorities struggling to protect their heritage from theft and destruction by Islamic State fighters.

The hardline Islamist militants have taken over some of the world's richest archaeological sites in northern Iraq, home to Assyrian cities dating back 2,700 years and the Graeco-Roman era desert complex of Hatra.

Videos released by Islamic State show several sites bulldozed, blown up or battered with sledgehammers. Officials say priceless antiquities have also been stolen to help fund the militants' self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria.

Wednesday's collection of returned items, put on show at Baghdad's national museum, was modest compared to the suspected scale of the ongoing theft and destruction.

It included dozens of metal spearheads which officials said dated back to Iraq's Sumerian era between 4,000 and 2,000 B.C., tiny vases, pottery seals and fragments with cuneiform writing.

Some had been identified when they came up for sale at auction houses. Others were recovered from long-term loans to universities abroad, officials said.

The collection included nearly 200 items that went missing from Iraq's presidential palaces in the turmoil which followed the U.S.-led invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein, they said.

Alongside the white china tea set - each item marked with an eagle to represent the Iraqi republic - was a large ceremonial sword, silver cutlery and two rifles.

Government ministers attending a ceremony to mark their return called for greater international help to protect Iraq's antiquities, saying the scale of the threat was unprecedented.

Islamic State, which rejects all but its own narrow interpretation of early Sunni Islam as heresy, has destroyed ancient temples, shrines, churches, manuscripts, statues and carvings in territory it has seized. Officials say it has also looted widely, selling artefacts to fund its rule.

"We are not dealing with smugglers but a group that calls itself a state, carries weapons and trades in antiquities," Tourism and Antiquities Minister Adel Shirshab said. "The world must pay attention to the new danger".

More than three months after Islamic State fighters released video footage of them smashing statues and carvings at Mosul museum and the ancient sites of Hatra, Nimrud and Nineveh, Shirshab told Reuters it was hard to assess the damage.

"The region is under terrorist control. We don't have precise, detailed information...The situation is fluid and unclear.

Shirshab said that footage showing destruction at the sites was deliberately put out to obscure Islamic State fighters' real aim. "Many of these antiquities were stolen to fund this terrorist group," he said.

Author: Dominic Evans | Source: Reuters [July 08, 2015]

Indeed, with his black hair, curled form, and bared teeth, the ancient canine has stood ready for almost 2,000 years to discourage intruders from setting foot in the Domus of the Tragic Poet, supported by the famous inscription 'Cave Canem' or 'Beware of the Dog'.

Now, this universal symbol of the city that was preserved under the ash of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD has been restored and returned to the public eye in the archaeological remains of Pompeii.

Years of rain, mud, dirt and neglect were gradually cleaned away to bring him back to public viewing just in time for the dog days at the end of July.

The work on the mosaic canine is just one in a series of measures aimed at restoring and protecting Pompeii, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, for future generations, said Culture Minister Dario Franceschini.

In a post on his Twitter feed, he wrote: "Offered to the public the splendid new staging of Cave Canem". "(At) #Pompei, every day a proud step forward," wrote the minister.

The canine mosaic is now protected beneath a transparent cover designed to allow full public viewing of the mosaic mutt, with his great sense of movement as well as the realism and attention to detail that has made it one of the world's best known of the Pompeian masterpieces. Other restored works as well as extended tourist routes through the archaeological site should also be offered soon, officials suggested.

Work has been continuing at Pompeii, which for decades was neglected and even plundered due to slack security and poor protection.

At some points, the United Nations even threatened to withdraw its UNESCO World Heritage Site designation unless adequate money was invested to restore and protect Pompeii.

But, slowly things seem to be turning around.

In March Pompeii's largest house - Villa dei Misteri, famous for its frescoes of the cult of Bacchus - reopened after a two-year restoration and a three-month closure for work on its paving.

"We have behind us a year of extraordinary work," Franceschini said at that time.

"We have closed three work sites while another 13 have been opened, nine contracts have been started and we have hired 85 people". Almost precisely one year earlier, Franceschini pledged the Italian government would catch up on delays in restoring the Pompeii archaeological site and treat completing the ambitious 105-million-euro Great Pompeii Project as a "national challenge".

"The challenge of Pompeii is a challenge for the nation," Franceschini said, reiterating the importance of the Great Pompeii Project, aimed at safeguarding the unique site.

The European Commission, involved in funding the project, has insisted that the restoration work must be completed by the end of 2015.

There is some urgency.

In April 2014, heavy rains led to several reports of collapsed walls at the Pompeii site, soon after UNESCO warnings that the miraculously preserved ancient city could "completely fall apart" and lose its world heritage status unless urgent action was taken.

Source: ANSA [July 21, 2015]

When the first ones were discovered 100 years ago, archaeologists marvelled at the ancient relics, some of them foetuses, their little bodies amazingly intact.

But now the mummies, which are believed to be the oldest on earth, are melting. Mariela Santos, curator at the University of Tarapaca museum, noticed a few years ago that the desiccated skins of a dozen of the mummies were decomposing and turning into a mysterious black ooze.

"I knew the situation was critical and that we'd have to ask specialists for help," said Santos, whose museum stores and displays the so-called Chinchorro mummies, which date back as far as 5000 BC and are among archaeology's most enigmatic objects.

Within weeks, university staff members had contacted Harvard scientist Ralph Mitchell, an Ireland native who specialises in finding out why relics are falling apart. A bacteria sleuth of sorts, Mitchell has taken on assignments that included identifying a mysterious microflora breaking down Apollo spacesuits at Washington's National Air and Space Museum, analysing dark spots on the walls of King Tut's tomb and studying the deterioration of the Lascaux cave paintings in France.

Mitchell launched an investigation of the mummies' deterioration and this year issued a startling declaration: The objects are the victims of climate change. He concluded that the germs doing the damage are common microorganisms that, thanks to higher humidity in northern Chile over the last 10 years, have morphed into voracious consumers of collagen, the main component of mummified skin.

Mitchell believes that the case of the disintegrating Chinchorro mummies should sound a warning to museums everywhere.

"How broad a phenomenon this is, we don't really know. The Arica case is the first example I know of deterioration caused by climate change," Mitchell said. "But there is no reason to think it is not damaging heritage materials everywhere. It's affecting everything else."

Conservation of the fragile mummies has been a constant concern of researchers and curators since German researcher Max Uhle's archaeological expedition to Arica ended in 1919. Named after the nearby beach district where Uhle uncovered them, the Chinchorro mummies - about 120 of which are at the museum - are considered special for many reasons in addition to their age.

The community that made them was at the early hunter-gatherer stage of social evolution, compared with more advanced mummy-making civilisations such as the Egyptians, who had progressed to agriculture and trade, said Bernardo Arriaza, a professor at the University of Tarapaca's Institute of Advanced Research.

"Chinchorro mummies were not restricted to the dead of the top classes. This community was very democratic," said Arriaza, who for 30 years has led archaeological digs on the 500-mile stretch of Chilean coastline where most of the mummies have been found.

Arriaza spends some of his days at a dig on a cliff overlooking Arica. A score of partially unearthed mummies, possibly of the same family, cover a sloping area about 50 feet across. It's one of many sites that construction has revealed, in this case digging for a pipeline.

Vivien Standen, an anthropology professor at Tarapaca and co-author with Arriaza of dozens of papers on the Chinchorro mummies, said they are also unusual in that they include human foetuses.

"That's a very special facet, the empathy that it demonstrates, especially compared with modern times where foetuses are simply abandoned," Standen said.

Volcanic pollution of drinking water evident in the presence of arsenic in the mummies' tissue may hold the key to why the community began mummifying its dead.

"Arsenic poisoning can lead to a high rate of miscarriages, and infant mortality and the sorrow over these deaths may have led this community to start preserving the little bodies," Arriaza said. "Mummification could have started with the foetuses and grown to include adults. The oldest mummies we have found are of children."

Chinchorro mummies have survived into modern times only because of the arid conditions of the Atacama Desert, said Marcela Sepulveda, the university archaeologist who made the initial contact with Harvard's Mitchell.

Sepulveda said it was possible that other groups in Latin America were doing the same thing, "but what is unusual here is that thanks to the climate, the mummies have been conserved."

Arriaza and Sepulveda both direct laboratories with high-powered electron microscopes dedicated to the analysis of materials found on and around the mummies. Continued decomposition of the mummies jeopardises their research, they said.

"Just raising them from the ground introduces the challenge of not breaking them," said Santos, the museum curator. "But over the last several years, the higher humidity - and how to deal with it - has presented a whole new challenge."

After months of growing cultures of microorganisms collected from the skins of the decomposing Chinchorro mummies and comparing their DNA with known bacteria, Mitchell identified the transgressors as everyday germs "probably present in all of us" that suddenly became opportunistic.

"It was a two-year project to identify and grow them and then putting them back on the skin to show what was breaking down," said Mitchell, a professor emeritus who donated his time to the Chileans.

Mitchell had used the same painstaking process to identify the bug causing stains on the walls of King Tut's tomb in Egypt, and to conclude that the germs weren't introduced after the tomb was discovered in 1922 but probably were on the walls of the crypt when the boy king was entombed about 1300 BC.

Similarly, Mitchell used microbial analysis to investigate the erosion of Maya monuments at Chichen Itza at the request of the Mexican government. He found that the application of a polymer coating, far from protecting the ancient carvings and buildings as intended, was actually abetting the destructive microorganisms that were causing the stone work to crumble.

He also has an ongoing project at the USS Arizona monument at Pearl Harbor, where bacteria that thrive in the oil leaking from the battleship's fuel tanks are accelerating the disintegration of the sunken World War II vessel.

Mitchell began specializing in microbial damage to cultural relics in the mid-1990s, when the Italian government invited him to look at widespread damage to centuries-old frescoes at churches and palaces.

He identified Italy's main problem as industrial pollution, and thus came to the sad conclusion he has arrived at several times since: Isolating the problem doesn't always lead to a practical solution.

Mitchell seems more optimistic in his work with the Chilean mummies. Over the next two years, he and the faculty at the University of Tarapaca will be working on possible solutions to the deterioration. He thinks humidity and temperature control offer the best chance of stabilizing the relics.

Mitchell and the archaeologists feel a sense of urgency: The Chilean government has budgeted $56 million for a new museum scheduled to open in 2020 to house the mummies, and everyone wants the right climate controls built in to the new structure to safeguard the relics.

"The next phase of the project is to look at how you protect the mummies and at possible physical and chemical solutions to the problem, which we don't have yet," Mitchell said. He and the Chileans will experiment with different combinations of humidity and temperature to determine an optimal ambience.

Optimally, each mummy will be encased in its own glass cubicle in the new museum and have its own "microclimate," Arriaza said. But the irony is not lost on him and his fellow archaeologists that mummies that survived millenniums in the ground are proving fragile in the face of changing conditions of modern times.

"I'm not optimistic we can save them," said Standen, the anthropology professor. "From the moment they are taken out of the ground, they start deteriorating."

Author: Chris Kraul | Source: LA Times [May 08, 2015]

Mes Aynak is a vast site in a mountainous area south of Kabul, near Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan and adjacent to Taliban supply routes. The area is roughly the size of the city of Pompeii in Italy. Archaeologists say it is one of the richest sites in the country, with objects dating back 5,000 years. Excavations were conducted recently with the support of the French government and continue with urgency with a skeleton Afghan crew. Yet more than 90% of the site still remains unexamined.

It is almost sure to be under-examined. Mes Aynak is also the site of extensive copper deposits, which explains why it was a trading centre for centuries. The name Mes Anynak means “little source of copper,” although “little” understates the case. Those deposits are now under contract for extraction by China Metallurgical Group Corporation, a state-owned Chinese mining conglomerate that plans to begin mining the site this year. The copper underneath is said to be worth $100 billion, according to the Afghan government. That is an amount that might make the occasional Taliban attack seem tolerable.

The fight over Mes Aynak is the subject of this documentary film by Brent Huffman. The main narrator of the grim tale is the Afghan archaeologist Qadir Temori. With the help of French archaeologists, Temori and his team have unearthed temples, fortifications, objects and stupas (memorials) that reflect the Buddhist and Hellenistic styles common to the region. But China Metallurgical Group Corporation has built an extensive modern camp for workers and is poised to remove the hills and the ancient remains beneath with modern bulldozers.

To call this a David and Goliath story is like saying $100 billion is a modest incentive. The American archaeologist Mark Kenoyer, a specialist in Afghan and Pakistani cultures, compares bulldozing the site to submerging the city of Atlantis. The French archaeologist Philippe Marquis calls it “the tip of the iceberg.”We are told in interviews with Afghan officials that the proposed mine will enrich the country with $7 billion dollars of economic activity.

We are also told by former government employees that the minister responsible for the deal— which involved a Chinese payment of some $3 billion to the minister—is living in a luxurious new house. (That official has since resigned and has accused his successor of corruption, Huffman says.)

International protests have not made much difference. Alarmed archaeologists and Buddhists around the world achieved a brief delay by raising their voices, yet the mining seems set to begin.

Saving Mes Aynak does not fit the usual contours of films about art. There are exquisite objects on screen that came fr om recent excavations, although most of them are too recently unearthed to be conserved and exhibited in a delicately-lit jewel-box museum context. They are hardly the proven treasures that might induce politicians to fight for preservation.

A chilling parallel to this film came in another documentary at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. Overburden by Chad Stevens examines the practice of mountaintop removal to extract coal quickly and cheaply over a vast area, with a fraction of the workers required in the conventional deep mining process. Citizens in West Virginia who feared the destruction of their homes and water sources locked horns with a huge coal company, Massey Energy (which has since been sold to Alpha Natural Resources), and coalminers who were fighting for their jobs.

Saving Mes Aynak involves a hauntingly similar standoff. Overburden is the mining term that refers to rock and dirt between the surface and mineral deposits. In Mes Aynak, 5,000 years of culture are the overburden.

Huffman shows grim video of the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas by the Taliban in 2002, yet at a time when the destruction of ancient cultures is a stated policy of the Islamic State, Saving Mes Aynak presents us with a different crisis: the horror of business as usual. Under governments wh ere conservation doesn’t count for much, the race for resources runs faster than rescue archaeology.

Author: David D'Arcy | Source: The Art Newspaper [May 30, 2015]

Stolen-art expert Chris Marinello, director of Art Recovery International, said he has been shown photographs of items being offered from Syria that were "clearly looted right out of the ground".

"You could still see dirt on some of these objects," he told AFP.

They included cylinder seals, Roman bottles and vases, although Marinello said it was unclear whether the items were still in Syria, were in transit or had arrived in the key markets of Europe and the United States.

Concerns about looting during the Syrian war have increased following the advance of the Islamic State group through parts of Syria and Iraq, and recent propaganda videos showing their destruction of ancient sites such as Nimrud.

The UN Security Council in February demanded UN states act to stop the trade in cultural property from those two countries, amid warnings that they represented a significant source of funding for the militant group.

Experts say it is impossible to put a value on antiquities looted from Syria, which has been home to many civilisations through the millennia, from the Canaanites to the Ottomans.

The London-based International Association of Dealers in Ancient Art (IADAA) estimates the entire legitimate antiquities market in 2013 was worth between 150 and 200 million euros ($160-215 million).

Marinello said reputable dealers are "being very careful not to touch anything that could remotely be part of this recent wave of looting".

But Hermann Parzinger, an archaeologist and president of the Germany-based Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, said there was an "enormous market" from private buyers.

He warned that the cultural costs were huge, telling AFP: "The context which is so important to reconstruct the history of these civilisations is completely destroyed."    

Italy has proposed that world heritage body UNESCO create a military taskforce to protect cultural sites in war zones, but many experts believe little can be done to stop the current destruction.

Instead, they are forced to wait until the conflict ends and watch in horror as priceless historic sites are destroyed and the spoils gradually emerge onto the market.

Vernon Rapley, a former head of the art and antiquities squad at London's Metropolitan Police, expects many Syrian items to be held back to avoid flooding the market, as occurred after the US-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The looted artefacts were likely to be "hauled up in warehouses either in the country or near the country, and only linked to the art trade in small pieces and at a later stage", he told AFP.

Stephane Thefo, who leads an Interpol unit dedicated to fighting the illegal trafficking of cultural goods, agreed that many items may disappear for years -- but insisted that tackling the trade was the best way to combat looting.

The French policeman would like to see tougher national laws on trafficking of cultural goods, something Germany is currently considering.

"We have to act by seeking to narrow markets for the illicit trade, hoping that by curbing the demand, the supply would eventually decrease," Thefo said.

Identifying looted objects is no easy task, however, not least because cultural crime is rarely a police priority.

The law puts the onus on the authorities to prove an item is illegal and a long delay in an artefact being sold, or multiple owners, make it hard to establish provenance.

At a conference at the V&A museum in London this week on the destruction of cultural property in conflict areas in Iraq and Syria, Mali, Libya and Yemen, archaeologists stressed the need for proper inventories of heritage sites.

They noted that objects that have been photographed and digitally catalogued are more likely to be recovered.

Interpol is currently building a database of stolen objects, and James Ede, a London dealer and IADAA board member, urged cultural bodies to share their information with dealers.

"This material will necessarily surface on the open market sooner or later. The challenge therefore is to identify it and where possible to return it when it is safe to do so," he said.

Author: Alice Ritchie | Source: AFP [April 17, 2015]

VIA UNEARTH turns Darkness Into Light

The Superintendent for Cultural Heritage responsible for the sites at Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabia said in a statement that the closure "highlights the critical situation...at Mt.
Vesuvius archaeological sites".

The 36 staff members at Herculaneum are divided between five shifts daily but that is inadequate for a site that covers an area of 4.5 hectares and requires six or seven staff per shift to supervise and protect the ancient site, officials said.

A sudden illness threw the schedule off and forced Monday's closure to the public, they added.

Herculaneum - like the more famous Pompeii - was destroyed by an eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD.

Both are UNESCO World Heritage sites and concerns about their protection and preservation have been increasing amid reports in recent years about cave-ins, natural disasters, and outright thefts of priceless archaeological relics.

Source: ANSA [July 06, 2015]

The historic underground tunnel linking the Colosseum with its gladiatorial training barracks could be restored thanks to a $1.7 million donation from the Kuwait government.

“We are in talks with Kuwait, one of several countries that has shown an interest in investing in Rome’s cultural heritage,” a spokesman for the city council said.

The Ludus Magnus, also known as the Great Gladiatorial Training School, is located a few hundred yards from the arena and was the largest facility in Rome.

Thousands of gladiators lived and trained there for more than 650 years until the middle of the 6th century when gladiatorial shows came to an end.

Today, the ancient remains lie neglected and littered with rubbish.

The Kuwaiti donation will renovate the area where gladiators would suit up for battle and collect their weapons before walking through the torch-lit tunnel and out into the arena, in scenes famously recreated in Ridley Scott’s blockbuster Gladiator starring Russell Crowe.

“For many years the area around the gladiator school has been rather forgotten, and impossible to visit. We hope to make some significant improvements and restructure the whole zone,” a city spokesperson said.

First built by Emperor Domitian between 81 and 96AD, the barracks were at least two storeys high and included a practice area where gladiators would put their combat skills to the test.

Remains of the site were discovered in 1937 but are thought to be from the second phase of building during Emperor Trajan’s reign from 98AD.

Author: Kate Mead | Source: Yahoo News [June 05, 2015]