This is interesting:

30.11.2007 / 16:23 WWII army bag is found in desertLONDON. November 30. KAZINFORM. A bag belonging to a World War II soldier from Lancashire has been discovered in the Egyptian desert after lying there for more than 60 years.Alec Ross, from Burnley, lost the bag containing personal letters and photos, while serving with the 8th Army.Egyptian tour guide Kahled Makram found the bag in the Sahara desert and traced Mr Ross’s family through a BBC website on World War II.The bag is being sent to Burnley to Mrs Ross’s sister, Irene Porter.source

This happened to me, too. Continue reading Anyone Misplace a Bag? A Green Bag? →

Hot off the presses from PNAS, we have a paper on ancient jade exchange in Southeast Asia. From the abstract:

We have used electron probe microanalysis to examine Southeast Asian nephrite (jade) artifacts, many archeologically excavated, dating from 3000 B.C. through the first millennium A.D. The research has revealed the existence of one of the most extensive sea-based trade networks of a single geological material in the prehistoric world. Green nephrite from a source in eastern Taiwan was used to make two very specific forms of ear pendant that were distributed, between 500 B.C. and 500 A.D., through the Philippines, East Malaysia, southern Vietnam, and peninsular Thailand, forming a 3,000-km-diameter halo around the southern and eastern coastlines of the South China Sea. Other Taiwan nephrite artifacts, especially beads and bracelets, were distributed earlier during Neolithic times throughout Taiwan and from Taiwan into the Philippines.

Continue reading Ancient Jade Exchange in Southeast Asia →

A mural-decorated temple that may date to 4,000 years old is being reported from the coastal desert region of Northern Peru.

Some of the walls of the 27,000-square-foot site – almost half the size of a football field – were painted, and a white and red mural depicts a deer being hunted with a net.Alva said the temple was apparently constructed by an “advanced civilization” because it was built with mud bricks made from sediment found in local rivers, instead of rocks.”This discovery shows an architectural and iconographic tradition different from what has been known until now,” said Alva, who discovered and is the museum director for another important pre-Incan find, the nearby Lords of Sipan Moche Tombs.

[source]

Hierakonpolis is a site famous for its many “firsts,” so many, in fact, it is not easy to keep track of them all. So we are grateful(?) to Max Brooks for bringing to our attention that the site can also claim the title to the earliest recorded zombie attack in history….Recent work at Hierakonpolis has, however, revealed compelling evidence that zombies may have been problematic already in Predynastic Egypt (ca. 3500 B.C.).

This zombie work has been going on for some time but mostly very hush hush. Finally, we have a detailed report to sink our teeth into, over at Archaeology.org.Click here to find out more about the ancient zombies.