Tuesday, 23 May 2017

Ancient coins from Amman Citadel replaced with fakes

AMMAN — The Lower House Integrity Committee recently asked the tourism minister to provide a list containing the ancient artifacts, coins and antiquities that are displayed in the Kingdom’s museums. The request was made following the discovery of fake ancient gold and silver coins in the Citadel Museum in Amman.

There were 401 ancient coins in the Citadel Museum. 400 of these were replaced by fakes.
A French archaeologist discovered the ancient gold coins a few years ago. He brought students to Jordan to show them his discovery, and found out that the coins were fake.

He alerted authorities.
The Amman Citadel is a historical site at the center of downtown Amman, Jordan. Known in Arabic as Jabal al-Qal'a, the L-shaped hill is one of the seven jabals that originally made up Amman. There is evidence of occupation since the Neolithic period.
Most of the buildings still visible at the site are from the Roman, Byzantine, and Umayyad periods.
The Temple of Hercules was built between 162-166AD when Geminius Marcianus was governor of the Province of Arabia. It is the most significant Roman structure in the Amman Citadel. The site contains a hand carved out of stone ... the hand of Hercules. It is the remains of a statue.


http://www.jordantimes.com/news/local/house-panel-looking-museum-artefacts-after-400-ancient-coins-replaced-fakes

Sunday, 14 May 2017

British treasure hunters caught hunting for the wreck of a 'Nazi gold ship'


SS Porta, sister ship to SS Minden.
A group of British treasure hunters have prompted a diplomatic row with Iceland after they were caught searching for a ‘Nazi gold ship’. Advanced Marine Services have been accused of looking for the wreckage of German cargo ship SS Minden by Icelandic authorities after a stationary Norwegian research boat Seabed Constructor, rented by the firm, was spotted in Icelandic waters.
SS Minden sank off the coast of Iceland on September 24, 1939. Minden was on its way from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to Germany when it was stopped by British ship Calypso. As instructed by German authorities Minden’s crew sunk the ship so the British wouldn’t catch it. The cargo on board the ship is now a topic of debate. Historians claim records say the cargo on board was worthless. Some are saying gold was on board.

Saturday, 13 May 2017

Treasure hunter who discovered Galloway Hoard will get £2million

Scot Derek McLennan, 49, stumbled across an unprecedented 10th century haul of rare Viking coins, jewellery and pottery in 2014. Now he has been handed his riches after Scotland national museums were told they must give him £1.98million for the find.

The Galloway Hoard was described by experts as “one of the most important finds ever discovered in Scotland”. The 100-item haul included an early Christian cross, silver brooches and bracelets and gold rings.
See ----->http://psjfactoids.blogspot.ca/2016/08/the-galloway-viking-hoard.html

Wednesday, 10 May 2017

Ancient Gold of Romania

The first of what archaeologists called the "most sensational finds of the last century" surfaced not in a museum but at Christie's New York.
Among pieces of ancient jewelry for sale on December 8, 1999, was Lot 26, a spiraling, snake-shaped gold bracelet that the auction house identified as a "massive Greek or Thracian gold armband."

Christie's estimated it would sell for as much as $100,000. When the bidding stalled at $65,000, the sale was called off—and the bracelet and its owner disappeared back into the shadowy underworld of ancient artifacts.

Lot 26, a "massive Greek or Thracian gold arm band," circa 2nd-1st Century, B. C.
Lot 26 set off an international search to recover the lost heirlooms of Dacia, an empire that was once a rival to ancient Rome. After nearly a decade of sleuthing by everyone from FBI agents to Interpol investigators and Romanian prosecutors, more than a dozen similar bracelets have been found, along with hundreds of gold and silver coins. Their discovery has led to new insights into Dacian society and religion.

Sarmizegetusa was once the capital of the Dacians, a civilization crushed by the Roman Emperor Trajan in two bloody wars more than 1,900 years ago. The victory, Roman chroniclers boasted, yielded one of the largest treasures the ancient world had ever known: half a million pounds of gold and a million pounds of silver.

After his victory, Trajan took the spoils to Rome, where they paid for his famous forum. In that same complex, the Roman Senate erected a column dedicated to Trajan and illustrating the story of the wars. Sarmizegetusa was leveled and forgotten for centuries. But stories of Dacia's gold lived on, inspiring generations of peasants who lived nearby to dig in the steep valleys.

It wasn't until Romania's communist dictatorship collapsed in 1989 that dreams of striking it rich came true. Groups of local treasure hunters started using metal detectors (unavailable in communist times) to hunt for artifacts in the thick forests at the rugged site.
Treasure hunters hit the mother lode in May 2000, according to Romanian police. Their metal detector pinged over a stone slab about two feet wide, embedded in a steep hillside. Underneath, in a small chamber made of flat stones propped against each other, they found ten spiraling, elaborately decorated Dacian bracelets, all solid gold. One weighed two and a half pounds (1.2 kilograms). Over the next two years, Romanian police say, looters found at least 14 more bracelets at Sarmizegetusa.
Sarmizegetusa's stolen gold was nearly lost. Recovering it involved authorities in Europe and the United States and a decade of sleuthing by Romanian prosecutors and museum curators. In all, Romanian authorities have recovered 13 hammered gold bracelets and more than 27.5 pounds (12.5 kilograms) of gold.
The recovered bracelets—now on display in Bucharest, are the only ones of their kind discovered in Romania. At least another dozen, including the one still known as Lot 26, remain missing.

Monday, 8 May 2017

Experts discuss moving day for King Tutankhamun’s loot

Archaeologists and conservation experts met in Cairo on Sunday to discuss the safe transportation of King Tutankhamun’s throne, chests and bed from the Egyptian Museum in central Cairo to a new one being built on the other side of the Egyptian capital.
Moving items belonging to Tutankhamun has become a particularly sensitive issue since 2014, when the beard attached to the ancient Egyptian monarch’s golden mask was accidentally knocked off during work on the relic’s lighting.

Workers later hastily tried to reattach it with an epoxy compound, causing damage to the priceless artifact and causing an uproar among archaeologists across the world.

Sunday, 7 May 2017

The Kingdom of Macedon


Philip II circa 322-317 BCE
Philip II made many critical military innovations before his kingdom began its conquest of the South. His son Alexander III - Alexander the Great - finished the job, uniting all Greeks under one rule. Alexander then conquered the Persian Empire and parts of Afghanistan and India, creating the largest empire the world had yet seen.

Macedon fell in battle to the Roman Republic in 168, the same year the Romans took control of the rest of Greece. The kingdom enjoyed a brief two-year independence from 150 to 148 BC before it was folded into the province of Macedonia.

Kingdom of Macedon, Alexander III the Great 323 BCE
Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BC. In the years following his death, a series of civil wars tore his empire apart. Alexander's legacy includes the founding of some twenty cities. Alexander's settlement of Greek colonists in the east resulted in a new Hellenistic civilization, aspects of which were still evident in the traditions of the Byzantine Empire in the mid-15th century AD
See ----->http://psjfactoids.blogspot.ca/2017/01/top-macedonian-artifacts.html
See ----->http://psjfactoids.blogspot.ca/2017/01/tomb-of-philip-ii-father-of-alexander.html
See ----->http://psjfactoids.blogspot.ca/2017/01/the-amphipolis-tomb.html