13 FEVRIER 2013 NEWS: El Paraiso - Syrie - Le Mans -
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PEROU – 
El Paraiso - Peruvian archeologists have discovered a temple believed to be about 5,000 years old at the ancient El Paraiso archeological site in a valley just north of Lima, the Culture Ministry said. If the date is confirmed, it would be among the oldest sites in the world, comparable to the ancient city of Caral, a coastal city some 200 kilometers (125 miles) to the north. The discovery, dubbed the Temple of Fire, was found in one of the wings of El Paraiso's main pyramid. It includes a hearth that experts believe was used to burn ceremonial offerings. "The smoke allowed the priests to connect with the gods," said Marco Guillen, who led the team of researchers who made the find. Archeologists found the hearth in mid-January as they were carrying out conservation work at a set of 4,000-year-old ruins known as El Paraiso, located some 40 kilometers northeast of Lima in the Chillon River Valley. The discovery shows "that the Lima region was a focus of civilizations in the Andean territory," Deputy Culture Minister Rafael Varon told reporters. Archeologists believe the ancient coastal civilizations raised crops including cotton, which they traded with coastal fishermen for food. El Paraiso, spread across 50 hectares (125 acres), has 10 buildings and is one of the largest ancient sites in central Peru.
http://phys.org/news/2013-02-peru-archeologists-ancient-temple.html
SYRIE - A Syrian government official warned Wednesday of rampant trafficking in antiquities from his country and appealed for U.N. help in halting the illicit trade that has flourished during the nearly 23-month-long civil war. Maamoun Abdulkarim, head of the government's antiquities department, warned of the smuggling at a UNESCO-sponsored workshop in Amman, Jordan, which brought together regional antiquities directors, customs and police officials, as well as international protection agencies. He expressed hope that the Security Council would issue a resolution that would ban trading in stolen antiquities from Syria, and underscored that his nation's cultural heritage must be preserved without taking political sides in the conflict. "We want a united front to stop the destruction," Abdulkarim told The Associated Press on the sidelines of the gathering. "These acts are not only attacks on Syria's heritage, they are attacks on the world's heritage." Among the artifacts stolen from Syria is an 8th century B.C. Aramaic bronze statue with gold overlay taken from the Hama museum and now listed by Interpol. Byzantine mosaics from the Roman city of Apamea near Aleppo were bulldozed and removed.
http://phys.org/news/2013-02-syria-trafficking-antiquities.html
FRANCE – 
Le Mans - Au nord du Mans, le fort potentiel en minerai de fer est à l'origine, au moins dès le Ve siècle avant notre ère, de la naissance et de l'essor de la métallurgie du fer. Très présente à l'époque gauloise, la métallurgie prend, durant l'Antiquité, une place de plus en plus importante. Elle est représentée par des ateliers de transformation du minerai de fer en lingots de fer, mais aussi par des mines souterraines, dont les plus profondes actuellement connues atteignent 8 m. Les grands travaux au nord du Mans (autoroute A28, puis maintenant LGV) ont permis de mettre en évidence, sur de grandes surfaces, les techniques d'extraction, mais aussi l'âpre quotidien du travail de nos ancêtres mineurs.