06 FEVRIER 2018: Shakur - Sichuan - Xinjiang - Fuping - Silchester - Barrow Clump - Volterra - Kunal - Jalalpur -
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OMAN – 
Shakur - Beads, arrowheads and vessels with distinctive markings were discovered in the Wilayat of Dhank, the Ministry of Heritage and Culture said. All the finds date back to anywhere from the third to the first millennium BC. In a statement the Ministry said: “The Ministry of Heritage and Culture recently completed excavation work at the Shakur site in the Wilayat of Dhank, in cooperation with a US mission from the University of Temple headed by Dr. Kimberly William.” Talking about the discoveries, the Ministry said, “Several archaeological finds were discovered including beads, arrowheads and trade stamps. The most prominent finds this season were vessels made of chloride with distinctive engravings inside. It also has some text that likely belonged to the Andalusian civilisation. Future studies will reveal more information about this text and the importance of this archeological and commercial site.”
http://timesofoman.com/article/127562
CHINE - Sichuan - An ancient artifact suspected to be a type of boat-shaped coffin popular two millennia ago in China has been unearthed in southwestern Sichuan Province, authorities said Sunday. If confirmed, the boat coffin, found at the construction site of a reservoir in Pengxi County, could be the biggest ever discovered in Chinese history. The suspected coffin measures about 24 meters long, up to 70 cm wide and is more than 1 meter tall. It is made of a type of precious wood called Nanmu, and although its ends do not curl up in the traditional manner, it otherwise looks like the funerary boxes that were popular in Sichuan, Chongqing, and surrounding areas before the Western Han Dynasty (202 B.C. to 8 A.D.). Local archaeologists said that the item could have been made before the Western Han Dynasty and is of high research value. "It looks a bit different from other boat coffins found in the past," according to an expert with the Sichuan Provincial Cultural and Archaeology Research Institute. "But it is highly possible that it is a boat coffin." The boat will be further analyzed in a lab, according to the institute. Previously, the biggest boat coffin, unearthed in Chengdu, Sichuan's provincial capital, measured 18.8 meters.
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-02/04/c_136948772.htm
CHINE - Xinjiang - About 4,500 cultural relics were unearthed in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in 2017, authorities said. Archaeologists found the items in 0.741 hectares of historical ruins, where 927 tombs were excavated last year, according to a seminar held Monday. One of the ruins sites, in Jeminay County, ranked among the top six archaeological discoveries in China in 2017. "It has been a fruitful year for Xinjiang archaeology work," said Wang Weidong, with the regional department of culture. "We will continue our work and extend it to the southern areas in 2018."
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-02/05/c_136951195.htm
CHINE - Fuping - The earliest known landscape mural from the Tang Dynasty (618-907) was unearthed in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, the Shaanxi Institute of Archaeology said. The mural was found in a tomb believed to be that of Li Daojian, a great-grandson of the first Emperor of the Tang Dynasty, Li Yuan. The single chamber brick tomb was excavated in Fuping County in 2017, according to the institute. Archaeologists were able to identify the dates and owner of the tomb from an epigraph from the tomb, despite the tomb showing signs of looting. Although some of the murals were affected by flooding and theft, what remains still has rich patterns, said Wang Xiaomeng, deputy dean of the institute. The tomb is located near Xi'an, which was the capital of 13 dynasties
http://www.china.org.cn/arts/2018-02/05/content_50415787.htm
ROYAUME UNI – 
Silchester - Over the decades there have been tantalising hints about the Emperor Nero (r. AD 54-68) and his possible connections with the Roman city of Calleva Atrebatum in modern-day Silchester. Now archaeologists at the University of Reading have uncovered more evidence to support this idea. Professor Michael Fulford and teams from the University of Reading having been leading projects at Silchester since the 1970s, excavating remains from both the underlying Iron Age oppidum, or fortified town, and from the later Roman city that supplanted it. During the excavations in autumn 2017, the remains of a Roman temple were discovered in Insula XXX on the east side of the town. There, four tile fragments stamped with Nero’s name were recovered from a ritual pit. While several tiles bearing the emperor’s name have previously been recovered from Silchester or other nearby sites, this is the largest number from any one context found in the town. The discovery comes after another two tiles were discovered during summer excavations at Little London, just over a mile south-west of Silchester, and the only other site in Britain to have produced a Nero tile. This investigation confirmed the site as a major brickworks and the source of the Nero tiles, providing further evidence of the scale of the emperor’s Silchester project. ‘These findings are a crucial piece of the jigsaw as we look to solve the mystery of Nero’s links to Silchester,’ said Michael. ‘Only a handful of Nero-stamped tiles have ever been found before, so to unearth this many was very exciting. It adds to the evidence that Nero saw Silchester as a pet project where he could construct extravagant buildings, like those seen in Rome, to inspire awe among his subjects in the UK.’ The recently uncovered temple is one of a group of three excavated at Silchester (the other two were discovered in 1890), and evidence suggests that it was built sometime between AD 50 and 70, falling within Nero’s reign. as the layout of this temple is similar to the others, it is possible that they were all constructed around this time – possibly through the support of the emperor. This is a theory that the University of Reading team hopes to explore further.
https://www.archaeology.co.uk/articles/new-evidence-neros-links-roman-silchester.htm
ROYAUME UNI – 
Barrow Clump - During November, Wessex Archaeology returned to Barrow Clump – a Neolithic settlement on Salisbury Plain reused as a burial site during the early Bronze Age and the Anglo-Saxon period – to salvage archaeological remains that are under threat from the activity of tunnelling badgers. The first modern excavations at Barrow Clump were carried out between 2012 and 2014. During this earlier project, parts of the site’s early Bronze Age barrow were uncovered, as well as the remnants of an Anglo-Saxon cemetery whose graves radiated around half of the prehistoric burial mound.Over the past year, further badger disruption had been noted at the site, and the latest excavations were focused on rescuing areas of the Anglo-Saxon cemetery that had not been previously excavated. This work unearthed six more burials, including that of a probable female (buried with two copper disc-brooches, a pair of tweezers, a perforated Roman coin necklace, and glass/amber beads) and a probable male (buried with a spearhead, belt buckle, knife, and a very well-preserved decorated pot to the left side of his head). There were also one juvenile and three infant burials recorded, and the location of these inhumations has helped to fully determine the outer boundaries of the cemetery.
https://www.archaeology.co.uk/articles/breaking-ground-barrow-clump.htm
ITALIE – 
Volterra - The mountaintop town of Volterra in central Italy witnessed the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. Now, researchers are using the latest reality capture technology and software to preserve a 3D digital record of its ancient temples, theaters and other buildings for the future, and to gain new insights into how they were made. Volterra in the Tuscany region, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) southwest of Florence, is among the oldest inhabited cities in Europe, said Wladek Fuchs, professor of architecture at the University of Detroit Mercy. To many tourists, Volterra's is most famous for its Medieval stone buildings, built from the 12th century when the town was subject to the rule of the Republic of Florence. From the 14th century, it was ruled by the Medici family and later the Grand Dukes of Tuscany. But to archaeologists and architects, the fame of Volterra dates from at least the time of the Etruscans, from around the seventh century B.C. After the fifth century B.C., Volterra was one of the 12 cities of the Etruscan League, a political alliance of ancient city-states that had a formative influence on the emerging city of Rome, about 100 miles (160 km) to the southeast. "It's estimated that the hill where Volterra is located has been inhabited for about 3,000 years, and it was never abandoned," Fuchs told Live Science. The team also documented the town's ancient acropolis, or sacred district, which includes the remains of both Etruscan and later Roman temples. Another significant site was an Etruscan-era arched gate in the defensive stone wall of the city, dated to around the fourth century B.C: "It is one of only two gates of this kind in Italy," Fuchs said: "And it was not the Romans, but the Etruscans, who invented the arch."
https://www.livescience.com/61650-ancient-volterra-3d.html
INDE – 
Kunal - Fresh excavations are underway at Kunal, a pre-Harappan site around 5,000 years old, in Haryana’s Fatehabad district. The archaeological excavations at Kunal had started in 1986 and are continuing with a few field-season gaps, an official release said. Findings at Kunal have contributed to early Harappan studies in the Indian sub-continent and can open new prospects for future researches, the release said. Three successive phases of occupation from pit-dwelling to that of square and rectangular mud-brick houses have come to light, and are supposed to be the earliest remains of the pre-Harappan culture in India, it said. In earlier excavations, a hoard of regalia item, including six gold beads of a necklace, an armlet and a few bangle pieces and 12,445 beads of semi-precious stones, were found, the release said. That makes the whole gamut of the luxury items as “richest” when seen in the context of rural nature of settlement of 3,000 BC, it said.One of the important contributions of this site is the discovery of steatite and shell seals, which are the earliest example of seal manufacturing in India, so far, the release said.
INDE – 
Jalalpur - The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has discovered pottery pieces, and tools made of stones and bones believed to be of the pre-Christian era from a mound in Jalalpur village of Cuttack district. “Discoveries of ancient artefacts indicated that a rural settlement might have thrived in that period. What is important in these latest discoveries is that we have found continuity in the progress of rural culture from a pre-historic era,” said D. B Garnayak, superintending archaeologist of ASI’s excavation branch in Bhubaneswar. Excavation carried out in 12 acres of land in the Jalalpur village has unearthed remnants of axe, adze, celts and thumbnail scrappers chiselled from stones, harpoons, point and stylus made of bones and potteries with marks of paintings. Rich materials found from excavation sites indicate that the people had a subsistence economy and they largely relied on agriculture, fishing and hunting. Discovery of tortoise shell, dolphin and shark teeth and fish bones indicated that the settlement could have been closer to the sea coast. Some rice grains have also been detected. Further excavation is expected to throw light on whether there was cultural link with other settlements, what happened to settlements established around the Prachi river, and how it declined, they said.