Leprosy Through the Ages

TÜBINGEN, GERMANY—A team of scientists has compared samples of the bacterium that causes leprosy, Mycobacterium leprae, taken from five medieval skeletons from Europe with samples from 11 modern strains. The DNA was so well preserved that the scientists were able to determine that a type of the disease found in Europe 1,000 years ago is the same as what is found in the Middle East now. Johannes Krause of the University of Tübingen says this suggests that the disease was spread by European armies during the Crusades. The disease carried to the New World by European explorers is also similar to the one found in the Americas today. The oldest known case of leprosy in the world has been identified in a 4,000-year-old skeleton from India. 

Gasometre Found in Canada’s First Industrial Neighborhood

MONTREAL, QUEBEC—Construction workers uncovered the brick foundations of a gas reservoir or “gasometre” that stored fuel in the late nineteenth century. The cylindrical container, owned by The New City Gas Works, lit Canada’s first industrial neighborhood. Coal was brought into the city by barges traveling on the Lachine Canal, which was then heated and transformed into gas that was stored in the gas-holder and then piped into homes and street lights, reducing the risk of fire posed by oil lamps and candles. “We will be able to create a 3-D image of the whole structure as it was when it was first built,” said archaeologist Bernard Hébert.

New HD Scans of Tut's Tomb

MADRID, SPAIN—Egyptologists will be able to view high-resolution images of the tomb of Tutankhamun with a new navigator prepared for Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities by the Factum Foundation, which is dedicated to using digital recording for the preservation and exhibition of artifacts. Such detailed images can protect ancient works of art from exposure to too many people. The scientists will be able to examine the entire tomb and monitor its condition remotely, using a web browser, and they will be able to leave notes for other researchers on what they’ve seen.

Lost Medieval Carved Stone Found in Wales

SILIAN, WALES—Nikki Vousden of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales and Roderick Bale of the University of Wales were out for a walk when they found a stone inscribed during the medieval period with a linear Latin cross and a lozenge-shaped ring. The stone was sitting in a stream near St Sulien’s Church, and the water helped bring the carvings to their attention. The church was built in the late nineteenth century on the foundations of a medieval church building, but the stone, which had been recorded and studied, had been lost. The stone has been moved to the interior of the church.

Floods Wiped Out Pyramid Workers’ Town

AUSTIN, TEXAS—The administrative center known as Heit el-Ghurab, located on low ground near Egypt’s Giza Plateau, was inhabited by the workers who built the pyramids and the accountants and managers who kept the building projects running. Excavations conducted by Karl Butzer of the University of Texas uncovered layers of mud and sand that indicate the city was flooded and rebuilt ten times over a period of 45 years. Butzer thinks the building teams stayed in such a dangerous place because their pharaoh, Menkaure, may have thought a floodwall and his personal power protect the city. “He had a problem with his sense of importance. He was the divine offspring of the gods, and he thought if he prayed hard enough things would be OK. They weren’t,” Butzer explained. Menkaure’s son decided to build somewhere else.

Arrest Warrant Issued for Suspected Antiquities Smuggler

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK—U.S. authorities have issued an arrest warrant for American citizen Subhash Kapoor, 64, who is currently awaiting trial in India, where he is accused of being part of an international antiquities smuggling ring. Federal agents raided Kapoor’s Manhattan art gallery and storage facilities last year, and they have seized his business records. He is suspected of supplying stolen artifacts, accompanied with forged provenance documents, to museums around the world. “It’s one of our most significant antiquities and artifacts investigations that we’ve conducted,” said Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent in Charge James T. Hayes said last year, after a raid.

Siberian Mammoth Hunters Wanted Ivory

MOSCOW, RUSSIA—Paleontologist Pavel Nikolskiy and archaeologist Vladimir Pitulko of the Russian Academy of Sciences think that people who lived in Siberia between 33,500 and 31,500 years ago hunted mammoths every few years, when they needed their ivory tusks for tool making. The bones of at least 31 mammoths that had been hunted over a period of 2,000 years have been uncovered at the Yana archaeological site. Stone spear points found in some of the bones suggest that hunters attacked their large prey from behind. 

2,500-Year-Old Warrior Burials Unearthed in Serbia

BELGRADE, SERBIA—Skeletal remains of three warriors who had been buried with spears, daggers, and bronze ornaments have been unearthed in southeastern Serbia, near the ancient Roman road, Via Militaris. The 2,500-year-old burials are the first of their kind to be found in the region, where archaeologists usually find cremations.

Iceman’s Head Injury May Have Been Fatal

BOLZANO, ITALY—An analysis of proteins taken from a sample of Ötzi the Iceman’s brain supports the idea that he died from a head injury. In 2007, a CAT scan showed two dark areas of trauma at the back of the 5,300-year-old mummy’s cerebrum. It was suggested at the time that blood loss from an arrow wound in Ötzi’s shoulder could have caused him to lose consciousness. The head wound may then have been caused by a fall or a blow to the head. The new tests, conducted by an international team of scientists, showed a significant number of proteins from clotted blood cells related to the body’s response to stress and wound healing. 

How To Move a Moai

LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA—Carl Lipo of California State University argues that the moai of Easter Island could have been “walked” upright on rounded bases from their quarries into position on ceremonial platforms using only ropes. He and his colleagues tested the possibility of “walking” a five-ton statue in Hawaii, but critics have said that the terrain they covered wasn’t as rough as that found on Easter Island. “It goes from something you can’t imagine moving at all, to kind of dancing down the road,” Lipo said. Previous researchers have thought that the island’s palm tree forests must have been cut down and used to roll the colossal statues into place, triggering an ecological disaster that eventually wiped out the Rapa Nui. Lipo counters that the island’s villages were never large, and that the tree rollers would have been crushed by the weight of the moai. Instead, deforestation could have been caused by rats that ate the palm nuts before they germinated, and slash-and-burn agricultural practices. 

Kneeling Attendants Return to Cambodia

PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA—The two statues known as the Kneeling Attendants have returned to Cambodia after nearly twenty years at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. They are thought to have been taken from the Koh Ker Temple in Siem Reap during the civil war of the 1970s, and were donated to The Metropolitan Museum in pieces between 1987 and 1992. The statues were welcomed home by government officials and Buddhist monks. “It was a great privilege to be able to show works of Khmer art in New York, but we are also very pleased to see these pieces rightfully returned to Cambodia,” said Maxwell K. Hearn, head of the Asian Art department at the museum. The Kneeling Attendants will reside in Phnom Penh’s National Museum.

German Bomber Recovered From the English Channel

COSFORD, ENGLAND—The only known surviving example of a German Dornier Do 17 bomber has been recovered from the English Channel and transported to the Royal Air Force Museum in Cosford for conservation. The World War II-era plane was lifted from the sea floor, its wings were removed, and it was covered in citric-acid based gels to protect it from the air during its journey to the museum. “Parts of both of the engines fell off and a part of one of the wings. Divers had to go down afterwards and recover these,” added John Harper of the commercial diving company that assisted with the recovery. Conservation could take up to five years before the bomber is ready to take its place in an exhibit on the Battle of Britain at the RAF Museum in London.