An international team of archaelogists working at the Museum of Ireland released information today on the forensic analysis of two Iron Age bodies discovered in Irish bogs. The bodies were both found in the course of routine work in peat bogs 25 miles apart. The first body, found at Clonycavan in February, 2003, was that of a young man 5′ 2″ in height, with unusually-styled pomaded hair. The second, found in the course of clearing a ditch near Croghan Hill, County Offaly, was that of an exceptionally large male individual estimated to have been 6’6″ in height. Both bodies exhibited signs of extreme violence.

BBC account.

Irish Times

Mirror

The true resting place of the Lost Ark?

The Telegraph reports:

If Indiana Jones had done his homework, he would have found the Ark of the Covenant by raiding a church in the barren mountains of northern Ethiopia.

Many Ethiopians believe that the Ark, containing the stone tablets inscribed with God’s Ten Commandments, rests in the church of St Mary of Zion, at the town of Axum, and some western scholars have endorsed this national myth as true.

The story underpins the country’s sense of identity. Ethiopia believes itself to be a unique nation with an ancient Christian tradition. This fervent patriotism has led Ethiopia into a perilous military confrontation with neighbouring Eritrea.

Axum

All who subscribe to the position taken in this “story” are, in this blog’s opinion, too stupid to live.

Yale University has become the latest victim of a world-wide trend, fueled by resentment and leftist ideology, in which backward countries seek to regain possession of archaeological treasures removed long ago by scientists from wealthier and more advanced nations. Just as the Slavic and Turkic-descended inhabitants of modern-day Greece, seeking the return of the Parthenon’s Elgin Marbles from the British Museum, have no more real personal connection to the Greek civilization which actually produced the art than did the British Lord Elgin, who saved them from destruction; the Spanish-descended litigants from Peru have no more connection to the previous inhabitants of their country who produced the artifacts in the first place than did their discoverer, the American Hiram Bingham.

CNN reports:

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peru is preparing a lawsuit against Yale University to retrieve artifacts taken nearly a century ago from the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu, a Peruvian cultural official said Wednesday.

Peru in recent years has held discussions with Yale seeking the return of nearly 5,000 artifacts, including ceramics and human bones that explorer Hiram Bingham dug up during three expeditions to Machu Picchu in 1911, 1912 and 1914

“Yale considers the collection university property, given the amount of time it has been there,” said Luis Guillermo Lumbreras, chief of Peru’s National Institute of Culture, in an interview with The Associated Press.

Lumbreras said former President Augusto B. Leguia gave Bingham “permission to temporarily export the objects for scientific ends,” with the agreement that the artifacts would be returned after one year, and that the time frame later was extended by 18 months.

“Theoretically, they should have been returned after January 27, 1916,” Lumbreras said. “The fact is, they weren’t returned.”

For decades, Peru did not pursue the matter, he said.

“It stayed that way for nearly 100 years,” Lumbreras said. “The 100th anniversary of the scientific anniversary of Machu Picchu is coming. We believe it is time to return the collection.”

Israeli archaeologists have uncovered the ruins of a third- or fourth-century church in northern Israel, which they believe could be the oldest ever found in the Holy Land.