23 JANVIER 2012 NEWS : Laval - Channel Islands - Chandraketugarh - Redding - Lahore - Gizeh - Nagpur -
23 JANVIER
INDI-UNI : ANTHROPOLOGY - ARCHAEOLOGY
INSCRIPTION 2012 COURS A DISTANCE
REGISTRATION 2012 ONLINE COURSES
FRANCE – 
Laval - C'est un chantier archéologique de première importance qui a commencé, le lundi 9 janvier, à Laval. Pendant un an, une équipe de huit archéologues étudiera minutieusement le sous-sol de la cour du Château-Neuf, puis de la place de la Trémoille. Après l'opération de "piquetage", en début de semaine, qui permet aux scientifiques de déterminer la présence des réseaux, la pelle mécanique est entrée en action jeudi pour le "décapage". Des tranchées ont été ouvertes, qu'ils devront ensuite sonder, truelle à la main, pour établir un relevé précis de chaque niveau d'occupation du sol. Tout le mobilier archéologique sera soigneusement classé et étudié. L'enjeu est de proposer, in fine, des interprétations pour reconstituer l'histoire du site. Et les questions ne manquent pas. Le premier château de Laval, construit au XIe siècle par Guy de Dénéré, s'étendait jusqu'à l'actuel place des Acacias et la cathédrale. Au XIIIe siècle, le château adopte en partie la forme que nous lui connaissons. "Nous ne savons pas ce qu'est alors devenu l'espace libéré, précise Samuel Chollet, l'archéologue de la ville responsable du chantier. Les fouilles nous permettront de lever le voile sur ce mystère et de mieux connaître les premiers développements de la ville." Le chantier pourrait donc devenir passionnant, d'autant plus qu'à peine commencé, les vestiges d'une cour pavée ont été mises à jour.
http://www.mairie-laval.fr/franc/accueil/index.php?rubid=actu&id=2784&act=consult
ROYAUME UNI – 
Channel Islands - The remains of the first HMS Victory are to be raised from the sea bed nearly 300 years after it sank, it has been reported. The vessel, predecessor of Nelson's famous flagship, went down in a storm off the Channel Islands in 1744, taking more than 1,000 sailors to their deaths. Along with a bronze cannon collection, some believe the ship was carrying a large quantity of gold coins from Lisbon to Britain that would now be worth a reported £500m. The ship's location was a mystery that eluded numerous searches before Odyssey discovered the wreck in May 2008. The Florida-based firm found the site at a depth of 330ft in the Channel, nearly 65 miles from where the ship was historically thought to have been wrecked, near the Channel Islands. The Dutch financial publication Amsterdamsche Courant reported on 18 November 1744, a month after the ship sank: "People will have it that on board of the Victory was a sum of £400,000 sterling that it had brought from Lisbon for our merchants." It was also thought that large quantities of silver and gold coins would have been on board the Victory from enemy prize ships captured by Balchin, worth £120,000 at the time.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jan/22/first-hms-victory-raise-us?INTCMP=SRCH
INDE – 
Chandraketugarh - Exactly 105 years after it was first "discovered", Chandraketugarh is finally getting some attention. The ruins dating back to 6th Century BC has been a pilferers' paradise for decades, and people all over the world have minted money smuggling the exquisite antiques out of the 'garh' (fortified city) tucked away in Berachampa village. Calcutta University's Ashutosh Museum did unearth remains of a temple in 1956-57. Constructed during the times of the legendary Mihir and Khana, the temple is two miles from King Chandraketu's fort. "The temple and the fort comprised the prosperous urban settlement that flourished between 4th Century BC and 12th Century AD. It was a remarkable civilisation spanning at least six eras, starting from that of the pre-Mauryans and ending with the Pala period," say ASI records. The temple, said to be built during the Pala era, is the most valuable archaeological find of the region. Almost nothing, however, is left of the polygonal structure connected to a square vestibule. The roof had collapsed long ago and all that remains are the walls and a flight of stairs. "The fort and the temple are immensely vulnerable to pilferage and decay. The heritage village complex will automatically protect the entire area. The excavation, on the other hand, will enhance Chandraketugarh's archaeological stature," said Amal Roy of the state archaeological department. According to a school of thought, Chandraketugarh was actually a port city that had come up on the rich, alluvial Ganga-Vidyadhari delta, and had eventually merged into the mainland, thanks to the rivers' changing courses.
USA – Redding - A high school student who digs Norwalk Community College’s archaeology program has found an ancient spearhead more than 4,000 years old at an NCC-sponsored archaeology dig. Professor Ernest Wiegand, coordinator of the NCC Archaeology as an Avocation program, said Dean discovered a spearpoint made of white quartz. This type of ancient artifact is known as a Burwell projectile point and was probably used as the tip of a spear. “It’s the first one of this type found at the Redding site. It dates to somewhere around 2,000 or 1,800 B.C. and may be even older than that,” Wiegand said. The Burwell projectile type, defined by archaeologist Dr. Lucianne Lavin on the basis of her work with Lyent Russell at the Burwell-Karako site near New Haven, Connecticut, dates to the Late Archaic period and has been found associated with other point types of the “Narrow Point” tradition in Connecticut.
PAKISTAN – 
Lahore - Extensive restoration work on Sunehri Masjid, a late Mughal era mosque in old Lahore, will depend largely on negotiations to get rid of shops located along the mosque’s boundary wall. The restoration project began last September and roughly 40 per cent of the first phase – involving the restoration of the domes, floor, pillars and frescoes – is complete, said officials of the Walled City project. This phase was supposed to be completed in December, but won’t be finished until the end of March. An archaeologist working at the site said a floral fresco on three doors and the main hall had been damaged as a result of water seeping into the foundations of the outer walls of the mosque. “We cannot detect and fix it until the shop keepers vacate the shops,” he said.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/325743/cultural-heritage-shops-hold-up-sunehri-masjid-restoration/
EGYPTE – 
Gizeh - Le Conseil suprême des Antiquités égyptiennes a annoncé avoir signé le contrat de construction pour le nouveau musée égyptien du Caire. Le projet, qui a été confié à l'architecte irlandais Heneghan Peng, se composera d'une galerie d'exposition permanente de 24 000 m² qui permettra d'accueillir plus de 100 000 objets. Il comprendra également un musée pour les enfants, un centre de conférences et des ateliers éducatifs. Situé à Gizeh, le nouveau musée surplombera le site archéologique. Son architecture, en espalier, sera couverte d'une façade en verre composée de triangles imbriqués rappelant les pyramides. Le nouveau complexe, dont la construction est chiffrée à M$810, devrait ouvrir en 2015. Il remplacera celui, daté des années 1920, situé actuellement dans le centre ville du Caire.
INDE – Nagpur - On Monday, as students of Marathi literature pay homage to Ram Ganesh Gadkari - called Shakespeare of Marathi literature - on his death anniversary, his house in Saoner district will be shedding quiet tears. Though declared a state protected monument in 1986, the place where Gadkari wrote plays like Ekach Pyala is a picture of neglect and may even be in danger of collapse.
