11 AVRIL 2011 NEWS - Egypte - Five Valleys - Esvres - Lu’an - Gallipoli - Khandvi -
- 11 AVRIL
- EGYPTE - Thieves stole around 1,000 relics from museums and archeological sites across Egypt since protests against the government broke out in January, Egypt's minister for antiquities Zahi Hawass said Sunday in a newspaper interview. "About 1,000 objects were stolen, none of them major items. There is an inventory of everything and it will be difficult for the items to leave the country." The inventory of all the items that were stolen during the uprising and the weeks of unrest that followed will be given to UNESCO, the UN cultural agency, Hawass said. The tomb of Hetep-ka at Saqqara and the tomb of Em-pi at Giza as well as the Egyptian museum in Cairo, which houses most of the King Tutankhamen collection, were among the places targeted by thieves, he added.
http://news.discovery.com/archaeology/egypt-uprising-looted-artifacts-110410.html
- ROYAUME-UNI – 
Five Valleys - Cotswold Archaeology have unearthed the remains of the earliest known Roman settlement in the Five Valleys including more than a dozen human burials near Stroud in Gloucestershire, south-west England. The excavations revealed evidence of some of the earliest Roman activity currently known in the area dating back to the mid to late 1st century AD – not long after the Roman invasion in AD43. There is also some evidence of much earlier activity from the Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age and Late Iron Age periods, including a tree throw containing at least four individual Beakers (2600 BC-1800 BC). The main discovery – on land being developed by Barratt Homes – consisted of a large rectangular enclosure which contained a stone-built crop dryer and over 300 pits and postholes. The enclosure was approached by a well used sunken track-way leading from Doverow Hill to the north-west. Four of the pits were heavily scorched, and with iron slag also found on the site, may indicate small scale iron working taking place. At least one small roundhouse lay just outside of the enclosure.
http://romanarcheo.blogspot.com/
- FRANCE – Esvres - Denis Fouillat archéologue à l'Inrap et Jean-Philippe Chimier responsable du programme de recherche sur la commune sont venus donner un premier bilan de leurs découvertes sur une surface de 89 hectares de prospection. Le principal fait novateur vient de la découverte d'un site de l'âge de bronze occupé jusqu'à l'âge du fer au sud de l'Indre pendant cinq cents ans. Des tessons en céramiques et des objets métalliques (bronze et fer) datés attestent de cette découverte intéressante qui devra être confirmée par de prochaines campagnes de prospection. Le site en question est situé sur un promontoire entre Indre et Échandon. Par contre, au nord et à l'est de la commune et dans le bourg, les recherches ont confirmé qu'Esvres est une des rares communes dont l'origine gauloise est semblable à celle de Neug-sur-Beuvron. La présence de nombreux sites de scories prouve le travail du fer dans le secteur nord, la présence de la nécropole de la villa gallo-romaine sont confimées par les archéologues qui comptent bien poursuivre pendant l'été prochain sur de sites inaccessibles habituellement.
- CHINE – 
Lu’an - A dozen mysterious squares were found on the innermost cover of a coffin excavated from the 2,000-odd-years-old tomb in Lu'an city, Anhui province Sunday. On 8:30 am, archaeologists began to open the coffin in the northern tomb. As they had expected, it was a triple coffin divided by three covers-the top cover, the middle one and the innermost one under which the occupant of the tomb rested. After the middle cover was opened and cleaned, six pairs of squares appeared, lining up in order. They looked like decorative patterns on modern security doors- Opinions vary about what the squares suggest. Li Dewen, professor of the Anhui Provincial Cultural Relics and Archaeology Institute, said in a deliberate way that they are merely decorative patterns. Wang Xin, who is in charge of the archaeological excavation, tended to believe that something may be suggested for the squares, however, it is hard to tell what the suggestion is before the inmost coffin cover is lifted, he said. The twelve squares may be associated with the calendar, in which there are twelve months in a year and twelve hours in a day, Yao Zhizhong, professor of the Lu'an -based West Anhui University said. The opening of the inside coffin scheduled for Sunday afternoon will be postponed. It is likely to be opened after being moved to another place along with the coffin in the southern tomb.
http://english.anhuinews.com/system/2011/04/11/003933464.shtml
- TURQUIE – 
Gallipoli - Diggers at Gallipoli in 1915 favoured rum over beer, but Turkish soldiers went for the amber fluid as they fought pitched trench battles just metres from each other. The initial phase of the first-ever joint Australian, Turkish and New Zealand archaeological survey of the 3.7sq km Anzac battlefield, where 8700 Australians died, has been released and it has not only verified much of the history, but has uncovered an incredible number of artefacts. These include broken rum and beer bottles, a billy can and lid, petrol tins, pieces of uniform, jam jars, food cans, homemade bricks, bullets and even an oven for baking Turkish bread.Most of the rum jars were found on the Anzac side and the beer bottles were in the Turkish lines. In just two weeks the team studied 4000m of trenches, 12 cemeteries, seven collapsed tunnels and recovered some 69 artefacts.They also found collapsed tunnels and evidence to support the famous Anzac assault of the so-called "German officers' trench".
- INDE –Khandvi - Two sets of rare copperplate inscriptions belonging to the Vakataka dynasty were discovered in Khandvi, in Ahmednagar district. The artefacts have records about the grant regarding the Sahuli Village in Bhandara being donated by Vakataka ruler second Pravarsena in 442 AD. Vakataka was a very powerful royal Indian dynasty that originated from Deccan in 275 to 500 AD. The copperplate is issued from the royal camp of Bharatwada in Nagpur district to a person named Kaluttakswami residing in Padmanagara. The original name of Sahuli is Chudubhunaka and it is situated on the right bank of the river Vainaganga. The rulers of the Vakataka dynasty which includes Pravarsena I, Rudrasena I, Prithivishena and Rudrasena II have been mentioned as predecessors of the donor king in the inscription. One also finds a reverent mention of Prabhavatigupta, mother of Pravarsena II, who was the daughter of Chandragupta Vikramaditya in the inscriptions. the inscription has four plates put together with a ring and a royal seal. “The inscription measures 20.2 x 10.2 cm and weighs 1,719 grams. The grant is written in Sanskrit and inscribed in Brahmi script-
http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_rare-copperplate-inscriptions-found-in-ahmednagar_1530021