Top Archaeology News: Wednesday October 20th, 2010

Archaeologists and Middle Tennessee State University students believe the remains of a mastodon are behind a Franklin home, about 20 miles south of Nashville. Mastodons are prehistoric, elephant-like creatures, believed to have weighed up to 12,000 pounds.

Swiss archaeologists find 5,000-year-old door that may be one of the oldest ever found in Europe.

Egypt's top archaeologist has shown off a newly discovered tomb of a pharaonic priest, a find he says could point the way to a new necropolis to be excavated near the famed Giza pyramids.

When freelance artist Ben Wood and archaeologist Eric Blind heard about a hidden 18th-century mural at Mission Dolores in 2004, they wanted to see it. With permission from the church, they lowered a camera into a 3-by-3-foot trap door in the attic.

One of the stars of the Oriental Institute’s new show, “Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond,” is a clay tablet that dates from around 3200 B.C. On it, written in cuneiform, the script language of ancient Sumer in Mesopotamia, is a list of professions, described in small, repetitive impressed characters that look more like wedge-shape footprints than what we recognize as writing.


This Thursday evening, Oct. 21, Verde Valley residents will have their first opportunity to hear about the recently proposed Verde Valley Archaeological Center, during the monthly meeting of the Verde Valley Chapter of the Arizona Archaeological Society.

A World War II-era bomb crater was spotted in Darwin, Australia. The city was subjected to 63 bombing raids during the war.

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