Stop Press

A compilation of media articles on heritage topics. Obviously, these all reflect the viewpoints of the authors.

29 August

• Rare find discovered amid town's Old West kitsch
  Associated Press
  The Gypsy sat for decades in a restaurant amid the Old West kitsch that fills this former gold rush town, her unblinking gaze greeting the tourists who shuffled in from the creaking wooden sidewalk outside.

26 August

• Unesco warning over Libya looting
  BBC, United Kingdom
  The UN's cultural body has warned international art dealers and museums to look out for artefacts that may have been looted from Libya during fighting.

24 August

• Himalaya village caught between culture and nature
  BBC, United Kingdom
  An ethnic community in Nepal's remotest Himalayan district, bordering Tibet, says it has been struggling to save its unique Buddhist culture from being uprooted by floods from a glacial lake.

21 August

• In Transylvanian town, gold pits protectors of heritage against developers promising riches
  Washington Post, United States
  With the precious metal at an all-time high, a Canadian company is eager to start blasting out mountains and demolishing parts of the ancient Romanian town of Rosia Montana to build an open-cast mine where 300 tons of gold and 1,600 tons of silver are buried.

19 August

• Dutch museums may sell treasures to make ends meet
  Daily Star, Lebanon
  Rotterdam’s Wereldmuseum plans to sell its African and American treasures to cover funding shortfalls made more likely by the economic crisis in Europe and a planned cut in state subsidies to the arts starting in 2013.

• 150-Year-Old Perfume Found In Shipwreck
  Bernews, Bermuda
  Analysis of the artifacts excavated from the Mary Celestia shipwreck continue to reveal new information – and forgotten secrets – of a contraband stash of private goods hidden inside the steamer when it crashed into the reefs off Southampton on September 6, 1864.

17 August

• Prague museum to dry last of documents frozen after flood in 2002
  Prague Daily Monitor, Czech Republic
  Prague's National Technical Museum (NTM) director Karel Ksandr Tuesday opened the last of the packets with archive documents that were inundated in the museum's depository by the swelling Vltava river in summer 2002, then immediately frozen and gradually unfrozen for restoration.

15 August

• Venice split in two by Ponte dell'Accademia revamp plans
  World Architecture News
  Reservations are rife in Venice today as news comes that one of only four bridges to cross the city’s treasured Grand Canal may be torn down and replaced by a more contemporary equivalent.

11 August

• Tyre tries to defend World Heritage status
  Daily Star, Lebanon
  In Tyre, the city’s past is very much present. A fisherman in shallow waters stands near massive stone columns that are only partially covered by the Mediterranean.

8 August

• Turkish museums’ storage crowded with smuggled artifacts
  Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
  Turkey’s archaeology museums are full of artifacts confiscated from smugglers, including the 25,000 artifacts waiting to be cataloged and put on display at the Istanbul Archaeology Museum. Last year alone a total of 68,000 artifacts were seized from smuggling rings.

• British Museum makes the Wikipedia connection
  The Guardian, United Kingdom
  Collaboration provides route for cultural institutions to work with the world's biggest online resource.

7 August

• Michelangelo's San Lorenzo Basilica exterior could be revived
  The Telegraph, United Kingdom
  Nearly 500 years after Florence ditched Michelangelo’s grand design for the exterior of San Lorenzo Basilica, the city’s mayor wants to finally realise the artist’s vision.

• Stamping out the illicit trade in cultural artifacts
  The Guardian, United Kingdom
  The instability of the Arab Spring has created opportunities for smugglers of antiquities. The west has a responsibility to act.

6 August

• When Data Disappears
  New York Times, United States
  To avoid a “digital dark age,” we have to rethink preservation.

1 August

• Russian icons discovered in Egypt
  The Art Newspaper
  Researchers attribute the unique climate of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula as a leading factor in the preservation of a treasure trove of Russian icons and liturgical objects recently found in St Catherine’s Monastery.

updated on: 1 September, 2011