Stop Press

Recueil d’articles de presse sur des sujets liés au patrimoine. Les points de vue exprimés dans ces derniers n’engagent évidemment que leurs auteurs.

30 janvier

• Harvard Uses 3-D Printing to Replicate Ancient Statue
  Time, Etats-Unis
  3-D printing may be the wave of the future, but the technique—which is shaking up how architects, scientists, arms manufacturers and countless others go about their trade—will also now redeem the past.

• English Heritage launches study into effect of bridges on floods
  The Guardian, Royaume-Uni
  Ancient stone bridges with water pouring over the parapets, their narrow arches choked by fallen trees and debris washed down swollen rivers, have been recurring images in reporting the myriad floods of the past sodden years – and the bridges have often been blamed for damming the rivers' flow and causing misery to nearby communities.

• Italy fears for 'vanishing' heritage after arrests over sacking of historic library
  The Guardian, Royaume-Uni
  The director of the Vatican Museums has warned that Italy's cultural heritage is "vanishing" after prosecutors in Naples said two more people had been arrested on suspicion of taking part in a "premeditated, organised and brutal" sacking of the city's 16th century Girolamini library.

29 janvier

• France returns smuggled Nok artefacts to Nigeria
  BBC, Royaume-uni
  France has returned to Nigeria five ancient terracotta sculptures smuggled out of the country in 2010.

• Man arrested over Italian rare book thefts
  BBC, Royaume-Uni
  Police in Italy have arrested a book-binder after the discovery that hundreds of precious books were missing from a famous library in Naples.

• Spain's Prado Museum gets biggest art donation in decades
  Reuters, Etats-Unis
  Spain's Prado museum received its biggest private donation in decades on Tuesday with the gift of 12 medieval and Renaissance works by Spanish artists.

• Fossil remains in museum found to be 165 million year old marine super-predator
  Phys.org
  Researchers examining a fossil specimen discovered in a museum storage bin have found it to be the remains of a super-predator that lived during the Jurassic Period, around 165 million years ago. They describe the specimen, named Tyrannoneustes lythrodectikos, in their paper published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, as looking like a cross between a modern dolphin and a shark or crocodile.

28 janvier

• Ancient Stone Tools In Ethiopia Date Back 1.75 Million Years, May Show Rise Of Homo Erectus
  The Huffington Post, Etats-Unis
  Scientists have unearthed and dated some of the oldest stone hand axes on Earth. The ancient tools, unearthed in Ethiopia in the last two decades, date to 1.75 million years ago.

• Rembrandt Painting's Hidden Image May Yield To X-Ray Analysis
  The Huffington Post, Etats-Unis
  Scientists may be one step closer to revealing a hidden portrait behind a 380-year-old Rembrandt painting.

• Fendi throws coins in Rome's crumbling Trevi fountain
  The Guardian, Royaume-Uni
  Fashion house gives over €2m to fund restoration of baroque masterpiece as austerity bites into Italian cultural patrimony.

27 janvier

• Mali rebels fleeing Timbuktu burn library full of ancient manuscripts
  The Guardian, Royaume-Uni
  slamist insurgents retreating from the ancient Saharan city of Timbuktu have set fire to a library containing thousands of priceless ancient manuscripts, some dating back to the 13th century, in what the town's mayor described as a "devastating blow" to world heritage.

• Archaeological dig finds that ancient groups incinerated and buried their departed in pots
  Art Daily
  Researchers from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH-Conaculta) keep acquiring knowledge of funerary practices in the ancient groups that inhabited the north of Sonora, such as the incineration and burial (in pots) of their departed, a custom that has been known to archaeologists since the finding of a pre Hispanic cemetery of approximately 700 years old in the Archaeological Zone of Cerro de Trincheras.

26 janvier

• Skulls Found In Mexico May Have Belonged To Human Sacrifice Victims, Archaeologists Say
  The Huffington Post, Etats-Unis
  Archaeologists have unearthed a trove of skulls in Mexico that may have once belonged to human sacrifice victims. The skulls, which date between A.D. 600 and 850, may also shatter existing notions about the ancient culture of the area..

25 janvier

• Ancient Egyptian Mummy's Elaborate Hairstyle Recreated In 3D
  The Huffington Post, Etats-Unis
  Nearly 2,000 years ago, at a time when Egypt was under the control of the Roman Empire, a young woman with an elaborate hairstyle was laid to rest only yards away from a king's pyramid, researchers report.

• Digitizing the Portland Art Museum
  KOIN Local 6, Etats-Unis
  Inside a studio tucked into the depths of the Portland Art Museum is a photo shoot fit for a fashion model. The stars of these sessions do more than just turn heads. With each flicker of the flash, history is being documented in high resolution. The museum is embarking on a year’s long project to digitize its entire collection: All 44,000 pieces.

• Mexican archaeologists find complex panel of 1,000 year-old petroglyphs in Nayarit
  Art Daily
  Archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH-Conaculta) recently found a complex panel of petroglyphs that must have been carved between 850 and 1350 AD (some of which are over 1,000 years old), in a site called “Cantil de las animas” [Soul Ledge] near the town of Jesus Maria Cortes in Tepic, Nayarit

• The political economy of cultural heritage
  The Jakarta Post, Indonésie
  Last year we noticed greater attention being paid, both by the government and the public, to issues related to cultural heritage.Having been nominated for several years, subak in Bali was finally accepted by UNESCO onto the World Cultural Heritage list. Reports in the media said Borobudur, on the World Heritage list since 1991, was not being sufficiently maintained and not of much benefit to the surrounding population.

24 janvier

• National Portrait Gallery reunites Henry VIII with Catherine of Aragon
  The Guardian, Royaume-Uni
  Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon famously parted on tricky terms, but the National Portrait Gallery announced on Thursday it was reuniting the royal couple after it discovered an image of the devoutly Catholic queen hanging in, of all places, Lambeth Palace.

• French masterpiece by 17th century artist Charles Le Brun discovered in the Hotel Ritz
  Art Daily
  It is the art world's equivalent of finding a precious gold coin down the back of a sofa. A major renovation at Paris's legendary Ritz hotel has resulted in the discovery of a painting thought to be the work of 17th century artist Charles Le Brun that nobody knew was there.

• Stolen Henri Matisse painting back in Sweden's Moderna Museet after 25 years
  Art Daily
  A Matisse painting stolen 25 years ago has been returned to the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm, its owner said Wednesday, after a dealer had tried to sell it in London.

23 janvier

• Shakespeare's sonnets encoded in DNA
  The Guardian, Royaume-Uni
  All 154 Shakespeare sonnets were spelled out in DNA to demonstrate the vast potential of genetic data storage

• Earliest Evidence Of Chocolate In North America Seen In Bowls That Date Back 1,200 Years
  The Huffington Post, Etats-Unis
  They were humble farmers who grew corn and dwelt in subterranean pit houses. But the people who lived 1200 years ago in a Utah village known as Site 13, near Canyonlands National Park in Utah, seem to have had at least one indulgence: chocolate. Researchers report that half a dozen bowls excavated from the area contain traces of chocolate, the earliest known in North America. The finding implies that by the end of the 8th century C.E., cacao beans, which grow only in the tropics, were being imported to Utah from orchards thousands of kilometers away.

• Romanian authorities arrest three men involved in Rotterdam museum art heist
  Art Daily
  Romanian police have arrested three people on suspicion of involvement in the spectacular theft last year of seven masterpieces, including Monets and a Picasso, from a Rotterdam museum, police said Tuesday.

• Entombing the Tomb of the Gladiator: Who Will Save the Roman Ruins?
  Time, Etats-Unis
  When archaeologists announced the discovery of the tomb of Marcus Nonius Macrinus in Rome in 2008, the find was heralded as the most important in decades.

22 janvier

• Tumor In 1,600-Year-Old Roman Corpse Found To Contain Teeth, Bone
  The Huffington Post, Etats-Unis
  In a necropolis in Spain, archaeologists have found the remains of a Roman woman who died in her 30s with a calcified tumor in her pelvis, a bone and four deformed teeth embedded within it.

• Honduras seeks to protect cultural heritage
  InfoSurHoy
  The country is taking steps to combat the smuggling of religious art and objects from the pre-Columbian, Colonial and Republican periods.

• US plea to protect Syria's rich heritage
  France 24, France
  Syrians on both sides of the conflict must take steps to protect the country's rich historical and archeological heritage stretching back thousands of years, a top US official warned Tuesday.

21 janvier

• Havana: an open, innovative and diverse heritage
  Prensa Latina, Cuba
  Open, innovative, diverse, powerful, that's what Havana is like, a city where by definition people from all over the world have mixed making their mark and memory.

20 janvier

• 3-D sonar provides new high-resolution images of Civil War shipwreck in the Gulf of Mexico
  Art Daily
  The remains of the only U.S. Navy ship sunk in the Gulf of Mexico during Civil War combat now can be seen in 3-D sonar images from the Gulf's murky depths, revealing details such as a shell hole that may have been among the ship's fatal wounds.

19 janvier

• Fendi to pay for restoration of Rome's Trevi Fountain
  The Telegraph, Royaume-Uni
  Fashion house Fendi is to pay for the €2.5m (£2m) restoration of Rome’s historic Trevi Fountain, the monument that starred in Federico Fellini’s 1960 classic film La Dolce Vita.

• Nur Jehan and Mai Meharban: Govt to release funds for restoration of tombs
  The Express Tribune, Pakistan
  LAHORE: The chief secretary has approved the release of funds for the restoration of the tombs of Nur Jahan in Shahdara and Mai Meharban in Multan and the work should begin within a few months

18 janvier

• Ancient church frescoes created by renowned icon painter Onufri stolen in Albania
  Art Daily
  Several frescoes by a master painter were vandalised and some of their parts stolen from a 16th-century Orthodox church in southern Albania, an official said Wednesday.

• Getty Museum review targets its antiquities collection
  Los Angeles Times, Etats-Unis
  In the wake of a scandal over its acquisition of looted antiquities, the J. Paul Getty Museum is trying to verify the ownership histories of 45,000 antiquities and publish the results in the museum's online collections database.

• History vs. history as China plans to rebuild past
  Art Daily
  In a corner of old Beijing, the government may soon be both destroying history and remaking it. District officials want to re-create a piece of China's glorious dynastic past by rebuilding a square near the Drum and Bell towers in 18th-century Qing Dynasty fashion. To do it, they will demolish dozens of scuffed courtyard homes that preservationists say have themselves become a part of a cultural history that is fast disappearing as construction transforms the capital.

17 janvier

• Archaeologists find 1000-year-old skeletons twenty kilometers away from Chichen Itza
  Art Daily
  Twenty kilometers (12.43 miles) from the Archaeological zone of Chichen Itza in Yucatan, in the Mayan site of Xtojil, archaeologists from the National Institute of History and Anthropology (INAH – Conaculta) recovered ten burials, the majority of which were placed inside a cista [casket] more than a thousand years ago, possibly between 600 and 800 AD, when the pre Hispanic city had not yet been turned into the governing center of the peninsula’s north.

• Stratonikeia eyes UNESCO list
  Hürriyet Daily News, Turquie
  The world’s largest marble city, the ancient city of Stratonikeia in the Aegean province of Muğla’s Yatağan district, is expected to be included on the temporary list of UNESCO world heritage sites.

• One hundred years of Israel's archaeological archive has been scanned and is now online
  Art Daily
  The archaeological archive of Israel, which is administered by the Israel Antiquities Authority and amasses data on all of the activity of the archeological entities in the country, is computerized and will go online in the coming days.

• British Archaeologist Uncovers Martial Traditions of Minoan Civilization
  Sci-News
  Dr Barry Molloy, an archaeologist at the University of Sheffield, the United Kingdom, has discovered that the Minoan civilization had strong martial traditions, contradicting the commonly held view of Minoans – the Bronze Age people of Crete – as a peace-loving people.

16 janvier

• Sifting the Dust for Treasures While Trouble Swirls
  The New York Times, Etats-Unis
  The Syrian civil war is not the first conflict to complicate Professor Nicolò Marchetti’s efforts to turn Karkemish, an ancient city site on the banks of the Euphrates, on Turkey’s southern border and inside a restricted military zone, into a public archaeology park.

• Mysterious Shaman Stones Uncovered in Panama
  Discovery News, Etats-Unis
  Archaeologists have unearthed nearly 5,000-year-old shaman's stones in a rock shelter in Panama. The stone collection may be the earliest evidence of shamanic rituals in that region of Central America, researchers say.

• Global Heritage Fund Sets Tech Goals for History Conservation
  The Epoch Times, Etats-Unis
  Uncovering lost cities in India, preserving “earthen buildings” in China, and turning a historical site built in A.D. 400 in Peru into a viable tourist destination, were all projects made possible by the growth of an idea born in Palo Alto, Calif.

15 janvier

• In new study, Mexican researchers extract intact DNA from Palenque's Red Queen
  Art Daily
  The osseous remains of the Red Queen, the enigmatic character from Lakamha, “Place of the big waters”, today known as Palenque, in Chiapas, are being scientifically analyzed in order to date the burial in a more precise manner. It is still unknown as to whether the Red Queen was the wife of the celebrated dignitary Pakal II or if she was a ruler of that ancient Mayan metropolis.

• New cemetery endangers Egypt's more than 4,500-year-old pharaonic necropolis
  Art Daily
  In this more than 4,500-year-old pharaonic necropolis, Egypt's modern rituals of the dead are starting to encroach on its ancient ones. Steamrollers flatten the desert sand, and trucks haul in bricks as villagers build rows of tombs in a new cemetery nearly up to the feet of Egypt's first pyramids and one of its oldest temples.

14 janvier

• Picasso murals under threat
  The Art Newspaper, Royaume-Uni
  The Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage fears that Picasso’s first monumental concrete murals, which were made between the late 1950s and the early 1970s for two government buildings in Oslo, may be destroyed. The buildings were severely damaged during the deadly terrorist attack in the Norwegian capital in July 2011. The government is now considering whether to demolish the Modernist buildings that form the regjeringskvartal or government quarter.

• Des fresques découvertes au Colisée de Rome offrent des indices sur l’ancien aspect du monument
  Le Journal des Arts, France
  Lors de travaux menés dans une galerie interdite au public, des restes de fresques en couleur ont été découverts dans l’amphithéâtre Flavien, marqués de l’univers iconographique des gladiateurs.

• Famed Tunisia mausoleum in Sidi Bou Said ravaged by fire thought to be from arson attac
  Art Daily
  The mausoleum in Sidi Bou Said, a prime Tunisian tourism destination, has been ravaged by fire in what is thought to have been an arson attack which the presidency on Sunday denounced as a criminal act.

11 janvier

• Les remparts de la citadelle de Blaye menacés d’effondrement
  Le Journal des Arts, France
  e site fortifié par Vauban, et inscrit au patrimoine mondial de l’Unesco, risque de perdre une partie de ses remparts faute de moyens financiers dédiés à son entretien.

• What Did Our Ancestors Look Like? Hair and Eye Color Can Be Determined for Ancient Human Remains
  Science Daily, Etats-Unis
  A new method of establishing hair and eye colour from modern forensic samples can also be used to identify details from ancient human remains, finds a new study published in BioMed Central's open access journal Investigative Genetics.

• The J. Paul Getty Museum announces the return of a head of Hades from about 400-300 B.C.
  Art Daily
  The J. Paul Getty Museum announced today plans to voluntarily return a terracotta head to Sicily representing the god Hades and dating to about 400–300 B.C. The Museum acquired the sculpture in 1985.

• Racy colour frescoes discovered by Italian archaeologists inside Colosseum in Rome
  Art Daily
  Italian archaeologists have found brightly coloured fragments of frescoes depicting heroic and erotic scenes inside a corridor of the Colosseum in Rome, along with samples of ancient graffiti.

10 janvier

• La chambre d’Héliodore peinte par Raphaël au Vatican vient d’être restaurée
  Le Journal des Arts, France
  Les célèbres fresques réalisées par Raphaël entre 1511 et 1514 pour la chambre d’Héliodore au Vatican viennent d’être nettoyées et restauré

• Funding for digital heritage archive
  Flanders Today, Belgique
  The government of Flanders has announced funding in the amount of €11.8 million for a Flemish Institute for Archiving and Retrieval of Audio-visual Heritage (VIAA).

• World Monuments Fund celebrates completion of conservation project at Angkor Wat
  Art Daily
  Bonnie Burnham, president of World Monuments Fund (WMF), today announced that WMF has completed a major conservation project at the Churning of the Sea of Milk Gallery at Angkor Wat, one of four ongoing WMF projects in the Angkor Archaeological Park being undertaken in partnership with the APSARA National Authority (Authority for the Protection and Management of Angkor and the Region of Siem Reap).

• Taiwanese linguist races to save dying language
  Art Daily
  Her eyes lit bright with concentration, Taiwanese linguist Sung Li-may leans in expectantly as one of the planet's last 10 speakers of the Kanakanavu language shares his hopes for the future.

• Archaeology: Italian mission discovers Luxor necropolis
  ANSA, Italie
  Life-long archaeologist Angelo Sesana, now head of the mission carrying out excavations on the western bank of the Nile in Luxor, says with unabashed excitement that ''it moves you like little else to bring back to life someone who sought immortality 4,000 years ago.'' The mission is being conducted by the Centre of Egyptology Francesco Ballerini (CEFB) in the Egyptian city best known for the Valley of the Kings and in the area corresponding to the temple of the Pharaoh Amenhotep II, who reigned during the 18th dynasty (1427-1401 B.C.).

9 janvier

• Battle lines drawn to protect views of old London
  The Art Newspaper, Royaume-Uni
  Preservationists square off with urban planners and developers over building skyscrapers near heritage sites like the Tower of London

• Reward Offered for Jewel Box Taken From Museum
  ABC, Etats-Unis
  The Oakland Museum of California offered a $12,000 reward Wednesday for the safe recovery of a stolen gold-encrusted jewel box — the latest in a series of thefts involving Gold Rush-era artifacts across the region.

• United States returns Toledo Museum of Art's smuggled sixth century BC vase to Italy
  Art Daily
  The United States on Tuesday returned to Italy a ceramic water vase from the sixth century BC that had been sold to an Ohio museum in 1982 by art dealers using falsified documents.

• Découverte d'une photo originale du bombardement d'Hiroshima
  Le Monde, France
  La photo était connue, elle se trouvait dans les manuels d'histoire. Mais c'est la première fois qu'un original de ce cliché en noir et blanc pris environ trente minutes après l'explosion atomique sur Hiroshima, le 6 août 1945, et à dix kilomètres à l'est de l'hypocentre est découvert. On y voit le champignon atomique s'élever en deux parties distinctes.

• Man Accused Of Vandalizing 1929 Picasso Surrenders
  The Huffington Post, Etats-Unis
  A man accused of vandalizing a 1929 Pablo Picasso painting in an act caught on cellphone video surrendered Tuesday to federal marshals at the U.S.-Mexico border.

• Field Museum Sea Predator Fossil: Scientist Unearths 'T-Rex Of The Sea'
  The Huffington Post, Etats-Unis
  A Field Museum scientist in Chicago has unearthed the fossil of a monster-like sea predator that was at the top of the maritime food chain roughly 244 million years ago.

8 janvier

• 'Exceptional' find of Roman statues linked to poet Ovid
  BBC, Royaume-Uni
  Archaeologists in Italy say they have discovered what they've called a "very important" series of statues dating back to the Roman era.

• Iraqi archaeologists unearth sixty-six gold coins that are at least 1,400 years old
  Art Daily
  Iraqi archaeologists have found 66 gold coins that are at least 1,400 years old, officials said on Monday, adding that they hope to put them on display in Baghdad's National Museum.

• Stolen Matisse turns up in Britain; to be returned to Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm
  Art Daily
  A Matisse painting stolen 25 years ago from the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm has turned up in Britain, where a dealer had hoped to sell it on behalf of an elderly Polish client, it emerged on Monday.

7 janvier

• Titian painting rediscovered in depths of National Gallery
  The Guardian, Royaume-Uni
  Portrait of Girolamo Fracastoro, the doctor who named syphilis, adds to gallery's remarkable collection of works by artist.

• Medieval graffiti sheds light on Norfolk churches
  BBC, Royaume-Uni
  Research into Norfolk's medieval churches has discovered that many are covered in graffiti more than 500 years old.

• Baroque painting by Sir James Thornhill at the Old Royal Naval College undergoes restoration
  Art Daily
  Conservator Francesco Rosellini, originally from Florence in Italy, works on restoring the West Wall baroque painting by Sir James Thornhill entitled "The Golden Age Returned" in the Painted Hall at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, London.

• Roman theatre discovered in Kent
  The Guardian, Royaume-Uni
  Conservator Francesco Rosellini, originally from Florence in Italy, works on restoring the West Wall baroque painting by Sir James Thornhill entitled "The Golden Age Returned" in the Painted Hall at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, London.

• Archaeologists unearth more than 300 prehistoric clay figurines in Greece
  Heritage Daily
  Archaeologists from the University of Southampton studying a Neolithic archaeological site in central Greece have helped unearth over 300 clay figurines, one of the highest density for such finds in south-eastern Europe.

4 janvier

• Archaeologists Unearth Agricultural Suburb at Ancient City of Petra
  Sci-News, Etats-Unis
  An agricultural suburb and other finds unearthed at Petra by archaeologists from the Brown University Petra Archaeological Project suggest that extensive terrace farming and dam construction in the ancient desert city began some 2,000 years ago, not during the Iron Age as had been previously hypothesized.

• La tête d’Henri IV authentifiée par l’ADN : quand la science reconstitue les filiations historiques
  Le Journal des Arts, France
  Les récentes études menées sur la tête d’Henri IV ont mis en évidence ses correspondances génétiques avec le sang de Louis XVI : elles font de ces reliques des témoins fiables de l’histoire des Bourbons, et confirment la part grandissante que prend la science dans la reconstitution de l’histoire.

3 janvier

• Le temple de Tel-Motza révèle les croyances anciennes du royaume de Juda
  Le Journal des Arts, France
  La découverte récente d'un temple non judaïque et vieux de 2 750 ans sur le site archéologique de Tel-Motza éclaire les archéologues sur les cultes célébrés dans le royaume antique de Juda, une période encore mal connue de l'histoire du Proche-Orient ancien.

1 janvier

• Architectural appeal remains as Italy's deconsecrated churches rise again
  The Guardian, Royaume-Uni
  Photographer Andrea Di Martino's project The Mass is Ended documents how old churches in Italy have found new uses.

• Warning over commercialising heritage sites
  South China Morning Post, Chine
  China is the only country to have had at least one site inscribed into Unesco's World Heritage List each year over the past decade, but analysts warn that an official obsession with such listings for economic gain could compromise the nation's heritage conservation efforts.

mise à jour : 04.03.2013