Archive for October, 2008

One of the sites that is always visited by the Diggings tour is the Colossi of Memnon, two huge statues that sit alone in the plain on the west bank of the Nile opposite Luxor.
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The excavations at Tel Mardikh in syria, 60 km south of Aleppo, were sensational, proving that this was the ancient Ebla. From previous inscriptions, scholars had assued that Ebla was an insignificant town in antiquity. Now Ebla is known to have been a large city of great political importance.
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In previous issued of Diggings we have spoken of the work of Franck Goddio, who has been exploring the murky waters off Alexandria. We have mentioned his discovery of the remains of the Pharos, the famous lighthouse that guided shipping into the harbour; we have also spoken of his discovery of Cleopatra’s palace, long...
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Tomb 55 in the Valley of the Kings has been a bit of a mystery ever since it was discovered in 1907. The tomb had been badly damaged by flood water and its sole occupant was a wooden sarcophagus lying on the floor, its lid split in two by a piece of rock that...
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Note: the first article in the list of contents is a personal account by the editor of some unusual places he went to while the Diggings tour was being cared for by assistant editor David Coltheart. It is a fascinating article, but unfortunately too long to be e-mailed – and in any case, the...
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Foreigners are a nuisence: not only do they persist in such anti-social behaviours as eating too much garlic, driving on the wrong side of the road and wilfully refusing to speak English (or, if they do, to speak it properly) but they also have different money and you never know, when you arrive in...
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Dating is one of the banes of an archaeologist’s life and work, mainly because of the various (and unsatisfactory) dating methods used by the people of antiquity. These suffered from two major flaws: in the first place most calendars were lunar rather than solar, and they were calculated according to the reign of the...
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I have only visited the Kabul museum once – and that was a long time ago – but I have pleasant memories of the old building which then housed it and the long lines of Buddhas which had been excavated in the north of the country where the gigantic statue of the Buddha stands...
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The Black Sea is a remarkable body of water; far larger than any lake, it is fed by a number of large rivers including the mighty Danube, the Dniester and the Dnieper – in fact about a third of the Continent of Europe drains into the Black Sea as well as larger areas in...
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Once upon a time history was nice and simple and everyone knew where they were with the subject. You had the Modern Period, which was obviously "a good thing" and before us you had the Medieval Period, where everbody was slightly less sophisticated but still European and Christian and therefore somewhat of "a good...
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