International Meeting on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage Sites, 22-23 September, Paris
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An International Meeting on Underwater Cultural Heritage Sites Protection will be held on 22 and 23 September 2016 at UNESCO Headquarters (22nd September in Room II and 23rd in Room IX, Fontenoy building) in support of implementing the 2001 Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage.
It will focus on the issue of quantification and identification of threats to underwater cultural heritage especially in what regards pillage and commercial exploitation and on preventive measures to be taken. International experts will present their experiences, followed by a round table which will allow the exchange of views regarding the effectiveness of the means used.
The meeting will bring together representatives of the States Parties to the UNESCO 2001 Convention and other States, experts representing different national authorities (Culture and Foreign Ministries, Navy, Customs, Coastguards, Police, Museums etc.) and international organizations (UNESCO, INTERPOL, Europol, etc.).
13th century Maya codex, long shrouded in controversy, proves genuine
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PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] —The Grolier Codex, an ancient document that is among the rarest books in the world, has been regarded with skepticism since it was reportedly unearthed by looters from a cave in Chiapas, Mexico, in the 1960s.
But a meticulous new study of the codex has yielded a startling conclusion: The codex is both genuine and likely the most ancient of all surviving manuscripts from ancient America.
Stephen Houston, the Dupee Family Professor of Social Science and co-director of the Program in Early Cultures at Brown University, worked with Michael Coe, professor emeritus of archeology and anthropology at Yale and leader of the research team, along with Mary Miller of Yale and Karl Taube of the University of California-Riverside. They reviewed “all known research on the manuscript,” analyzing it “without regard to the politics, academic and otherwise, that have enveloped the Grolier,” the team wrote in its study “The Fourth Maya Codex.”
The paper, published in the journal Maya Archaeology, fills a special section of the publication and includes a lavish facsimile of the codex.
The study, Houston said, “is a confirmation that the manuscript, counter to some claims, is quite real. The manuscript was sitting unremarked in a basement of the National Museum in Mexico City, and its history is cloaked in great drama. It was found in a cave in Mexico, and a wealthy Mexican collector, Josué Sáenz, had sent it abroad before its eventual return to the Mexican authorities.”
Read more: 13th century Maya codex, long shrouded in controversy, proves genuine
Tommy Thompson silent on where he stashed the Gold
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By Earl Rinehart
A judge is done listening to Tommy Thompson's excuse that an illness prevents him from remembering where he put treasure from a sunken ship.
With lawyers for investors waiting for their cut of the SS Central America gold standing nearby, Thompson's attorney argued in federal court in Columbus on Friday that Thompson's systemic exertion intolerance disease — chronic fatigue syndrome — inhibits his memory.
The lawyer, Todd A. Long, had asked U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley to close Friday's hearing to the public because there would be medical testimony, but the judge refused because of "the public's interest."
"There's no evidence his inability, unwillingness or refusal to comply is the result of some mental defect," Marbley said of Thompson. He said that neither a psychologist nor a psychiatrist whom the defense hired has said Thompson definitively has the condition or that it impairs his memory.
Read more: Tommy Thompson silent on where he stashed the Gold