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Florida treasure-hunting firm Odyssey Marine Exploration struck jackpots last week with huge announcements.

On top of two new shipwreck site finds, Odyssey will be in front of millions of people worldwide in a new prime time TV series on the Discovery Channel.

Odyssey filed admiralty arrests in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida on two shipwrecks sites in the English Channel. According to a company statement,

The sites both contain cannon and other artifacts which are believed to date from the Colonial period. Odyssey has conducted preliminary surveys but has not yet been able to confirm the identity of either site.

The company said the sites were in international waters and they were currently planning the excavation and conservation of each.

In news earlier in the week, Odyssey also announced that they would be seen in a 11-part High Definition (HD) series on the Discovery Channel to premiere in 2009.

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An alabaster head of Cleopatra and a Aphrodite mask believed to be Mark Antony’s have been found near Egypt’s Mediterranean city of Alexandria, according to Egypt’s antiquities chief Zahi Hawass.

Cleopatra was Queen of Egypt, and Mark Anthony a ruler of Rome after Caesar’s death. The pair were famous lovers and each committed suicide in 30 BC after Anthony lost a Roman civil war.

The statue of Aphrodite and a headless royal statue from the Ptolemaic dynasty, which ruled Egypt between 323 and 30 BC, were discovered by a joint Egyptian-Dominican Republic team of archeologists who were looking for Cleopatra’s tomb.

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For news today, find out how and where you can work on an archaeological dig site. Then read about Indiana Jones style Crystal Skulls. And finally, how old are chocolate drinks? They could be ancient! Let’s go to today’s links…

Dig Like an Archaeologist

If you’ve ever had the hankering to work on an archaeological dig, the only thing stopping you could be yourself.

For $25 a day, or thousands for a couple of weeks, you can participate in digs and learn a thing or two, according to an msnbc report.

But how do you get started? Read the rest

The ancient circle of Stonehenge was attacked by vandals during the middle of the night last week, taking a coin-sized piece of the monument away with them and leaving behind a 2.5-inch scratch.

Two men are responsible for the vandalism, accordion to English Heritage who protects and promote England’s historic environment.

AFP quoted an English Heritage spokesperson as saying,

“Thanks to the vigilance and quick action of the security team at Stonehenge, very minimal damage was caused.

A tiny chip was taken from the north side of the Heel Stone with a screwdriver and hammer, but as soon as the two men were spotted by security guards they escaped over the fence and drove off."

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In recent news, the boat remains of Civil War blockade runner Kate Dale may have been discovered in a river, a stolen Yemen statue has been found, and an old brewery site in Melbourne, Australia could bring forth some very interesting artifacts. Let’s get to the links…

Marine archaeologist Billy Ray Morris may have found Kate Dale, a Civil War blockade runner, at the bottom of Florida’s Hillsborough River. James McKay was the captain of 80 to 100 foot boat, and ran runs of cotton to Cuba for supplies.

According to the article, Hull of Civil War sloop likely found in Tampa river, McKay had a deal with the Union to go through the blockade.

That arrangement became too obvious, and Union troops were ordered to burn Morris’s boats, including the Kate Dale.

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Interesting news for the day include a planned return to the Beringia land bridge by famed archaeologist Jacques Cinq-Mars, and a new interactive Web site that lets visitors peruse the maritime history within the waters of Ohio’s Lake Erie. Let’s get to the links…

Nearly 20 years ago, Canadian archaeologist Jacques Cinq-Mars discovered a 28,000 year-old chipped mammoth bone.

What was unusual and stunning was that it appeared to be made into a harpoon point, and it was found in a cave above Bluefish River.

That’s within the "Beringia" area — known as the land bridge between Siberia and Alaska during the Pleistocene ice ages — where old theories hypothesized that humans used Beringia to migrate to the Americas just 13,000 years ago.

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In archaeological news today, Harrison Ford gets elected, there’s a new and interesting Stonehenge quiz by National Geographic, an ancient Egyptian display opens in Athens, and a bust with other artifacts were found in the Rhone river. Let’s get to the links…

"Indiana Jones" actor Harrison Ford has been elected to the Board of Directors of the Archaeological Institute of America. Ford commented on his real-world dedication to archaeology,

“Knowledge is power, and understanding the past can only help us in dealing with the present and the future.”

Harrison Ford’s latest movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, opens in U.S. theaters May 22.

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Rare gold coins discovered in a sunken steamship off the Louisiana coast have been put under the microscope of sorts, by coin experts.

The SS New York was a 165-foot side-wheel steamship that was found under some 60 feet of water in the Gulf of Mexico.

It carried within its hull coins made in old U.S. Mints of New Orleans, Charlotte, N.C., and Dahlonega, Ga. Mints that have not been in action for many years.

David Bowers, co-chairman of New York-based Stack’s Rare Coins and coin expert, said some of the coins are in uncirculated or mint condition and could be worth $50,000 to $100,000 each.

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Three archaeological/treasure news articles stand out with extra interest today. With the upcoming Indiana Jones movie, a timely article discusses some of the real differences between "movies" and archaeological reality.

Ironically, there’s an article about German researchers claiming to have found the remains of the palace of the Queen of Sheba — and an altar that may have held the Ark.

And finally, in another story, treasure hunters find two pieces of gem-stuffed gold jewelry on a shipwreck. Here are brief article descriptions and links…

"Indiana Jones managed to retrieve the trinket he was after in the opening moments of “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” He pretty much wrecked everything else in the ancient South American temple where the little gold idol had rested for millennia."

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The Namibian government is taking over the responsibility for the excavation of the 500-year old shipwreck diamond hunters found in the Atlantic, off the Namibia, African coast.

Last month geologists hunting for diamonds instead discovered a several hundred year old shipwreck filled with silver and gold coins, copper ingots, cannons and other valuable artifacts.

The Namdeb Diamond Corporation, a joint venture of the government of Namibia and the mining company De Beers, made the discovery during mining operations and had kept the find a secret until April 30.

Since the beginning, they have secured the site and artifacts.

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Tammy Bullock of Boulder, Colorado found a painting in the trash, decided to grab it, held it for 10 years, and almost tossed it when moving into a new home.

It’s a good thing she didn’t. Although she didn’t know what to do with it or how to sell it, she felt it could be worth something. She was right.

After watching a local TV news report, Bullock decided to contact WorthPoint.com, a site about antiques and collectibles that helps people identify said items and also connects them with other collectors interesting in buying and selling.

With the help of Thom Pattie, WorthPoint’s Chief Worthologist, the painting was identified as "Coin De Paris, Rue De Meaux," a work created by 20th century Japanese artist Takanori Oguiss.

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You might never have thought about or expected it, but taking your ring in for cleaning leaves some small silver, gold, or platinum nuggets behind for the jeweler.

Don’t worry, your jeweler isn’t chopping pieces off from your jewelry when making them all shiny again. Buffing and cleaning a ring results in minute amounts of silver, gold or platinum wearing away. It’s normal.

In fact, weighing your ring before and after a cleaning normally shows no difference unless a most sensitive scale is used.

But for the jeweler, those minute dust particles add up after months and months of cleanings.

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Odyssey Marine Exploration, a shipwreck treasure-hunting company based in Florida, has announced their first quarter 2008 earnings to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

By accounts, their legal battle with Spain over the 17-tons of silver coins found in a shipwreck of May of 2007 isn’t helping them. Not only must the legal bills be substantial, but the financial rewards of the treasure are in limbo until the situation is settled.

According to the financial numbers for Q1, Odyssey reported revenue of $.3 million compared to $2.2 million in the first quarter 2007.

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Geologists hunting for diamonds instead discovered a several hundred year old shipwreck filled with silver and gold coins, copper ingots, cannons and other valuable artifacts.

Namdeb Diamond Corporation, a joint venture of the government of Namibia and the mining company De Beers, made the discovery during mining operations in the Atlantic, off the Namibia, African coast.

The goal was to search for diamonds and not shipwrecks filled with treasure, so the discovery was made in what many would think was an unusual and unexpected way.

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Yesterday’s 5th anniversary of the looting of Iraq’s National Museum is a stark reminder that the casualties of war are not limited to human life. The museum is home to some of the world’s oldest artifacts, and many of them are now gone—pillaged by would-be treasure and quick profit seekers.

Some 15,000 artifacts were removed in just a few short days after Baghdad’s fall. The museum was broken into, safes opened, priceless pieces stolen and the building itself badly damaged. Easily the largest museum theft ever.

Fortunately, several thousand artifacts have at least been returned or recovered. According to a new book released by the by the University of Chicago’s Cultural Policy Center entitled "Antiquities Under Siege: Cultural Heritage Protection After the Iraq War," of the estimated 15,000 artifacts taken:

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Radiocarbon dating has marked the age of recently discovered Aboriginal tools found in Western Australia to 35,000 years old.

Archaeologists found the tools in a rock cave and believe further digging at the site could uncover artifacts as old as 45,000 years. Consultant archaeologist Neale Draper commented,

"Because we have a two-metre (six foot) deep archaeological deposit in this rock shelter dating from the recent past right back to that time, we have a very, very long record of people’s technology."

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Who would have thought a load of radiocarboned feces found in central Oregon would be key to laying a foundation of when humans first arrived in North America?

But it was indeed feces, of the fossilized variety, that leads to new evidence that North American’s arrived at least some 14,300 years ago—dispelling the common textbook date of origin of around 13,500 years ago.

Several weeks ago an article in Science magazine entitled “The Late Pleistocene Dispersal of Modern Humans in the Americas,” relayed evidence supporting the arrival of American thousands of years earlier as well.

With that and this latest evidence, scientists may have to rewrite those textbook theories of the migration people through the Beringia land bridge, where people were thought to have traveled through ice-free corridors as glaciers broke up.

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A rare letter written by President Abraham Lincoln in 1864 was expected to sell between $3 million to $5 million US dollars in a Sotheby’s auction today.

It met expectations and in fact broke a record for any presidential manuscript and any American manuscript ever auctioned. The final winning bid was $3,401,000.

The manuscript was Lincoln’s response to a "Children’s Petition to the President asking him to free all the little slave children in this country."

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A clay tablet inscribed around 700 BC had hidden its secrets from researchers for over 150 years, but now its cuneiform script is translated and known to describe an asteroid impact at Köfels, Austria that occurred way back in 3123 BC.

The tablet was found by Henry Layard in the remains of the library in the Assyrian Royal Palace at Nineveh, and was made by an Assyrian scribe who copied a Sumerian astronomer’s recorded notes. The tablet depicts astronomical drawings, known constellations and an object that was unknown. Taken in altogether, an intriguing and puzzling picture.

To decipher the cuneiform script on the clay tablet, modern software programs were used. The programs were sophisticated enough to go back in time to reconstruct the positioning of stars from ages gone by.

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The first archaeological dig in nearly fifty years has started at Stonehenge. British archaeologists are trying to unravel age-old secrets to the ancient stone circle. They believe Stonehenge was built around 2500 BC, but that’s simply an estimation.

The last site excavation of the site occurred in 1964, or 44 years ago. Video of that dig shows the Stonehenge area looking like a construction site. In this latest round, the excavation will last for a two-week period and performed in a more delicate manner. So delicate that visitors are not expected to know archaeologists were ever at the site once the dig is finished.

The goal of the dig? Archaeologists hope to uncover a more exacting date—a range within 25 years— of when Stonehenge was first built.

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The common belief is that the first people to America arrived some 13,500 years ago. A new theory led by anthropologists suggests otherwise. How much earlier? Perhaps 1,000-2,000 years.

Texas A&M University Professors Ted Goebel and Michael Waters and University of Utah Professor Dennis O’Rourke theorize migration through Alaska may have started as long ago as 15,000 years. They say their finding are supported by archaeological and more refined genetic evidence.

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A rare first edition fantasy novel "The Hobbit" was sold for 60,000 pounds (approximately $122,000 U.S.) at Bonhams’ auction house in London. The 1937 novel was signed by its author, J.R.R. Tolkien, and was written prior to the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

“The Hobbit” was originally penned for Tolkien’s children. A friend later convinced Tolkien to try to get it published. It was, but only 1,500 copies were originally printed. Those copies sold out immediately.

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A rare and ancient silver coin was uncovered in the main drainage channel of Jerusalem from the Second Temple Period. The Israel Antiquities Authority reported the find while carrying out an archaeological excavation in the Walls around Jerusalem National Park.

The silver shekel-denominated coin was said to be of the type used to pay the half shekel head-tax in the Second Temple period.

The excavations, directed by Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities Authority and Professor Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa, are being conducted on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, the Nature and Parks Authority and the ‘Ir David Foundation.

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Two metal detecting men uncovered 49 coins in a field that was once the site of a Roman encampment. The field is near Ugthorpe, UK and has been the source of at least two other finds.

The Roman coins, along with part of a brooch discovered, were declared treasure. Russell Willis, one of the men who found the coins and brooch commented,

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‘Archaeological News’ Added to HuntTreasure

A new Archaeological News section has been added to the HuntTreasure site. The top section contains the latest embedded archaeological news stories from around the world. The bottom section has archaeological headlines, excerpts and linked stories.

The embedded articles can be read by scrolling through the list, selecting a headline that interests you with a mouse click, and then reading it as it appears to the left. The linked stories toward the bottom page will actually jump you to the site where the article originated.

The stories from each of these sections are independent of each other - articles in one section will many times not be in the other section.

A word about these news articles … Because they are computer generated without human editing, there is the possibility that a few of the stories listed will not completely match the archaeological topic. Please just disregard them. We’ll continue to tweak and refine the area.

You can jump to the Archaeological News section on any page of the HuntTreasure site by simply clicking its menu found underneath the HuntTreasure banner.

For webmasters…

Webmasters, if you would like to add this news to your site, there is an "embed" button in the upper right corner. Clicking it will provide code to place the always updated content within your website.

Taking steps that could be considered more procedural in impact, U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday made several rulings in relationship to the Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. v. The Unidentified Shipwrecked Vessel (Spain) case.

As you may recall from past HuntTreasure.net articles, this series of events started in May of 2007, when the treasure hunting company Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. discovered approximately 17 tons of treasure. It consisted mostly of Colonial-era gold and silver coins, potentially worth up to an estimated 500 million dollars.

The situation became quite "combative", in a sense at one point. In October, the country of Spain officially and forcefully detained a ship belonging to Odyssey, and escorted it to a Spanish port. There police boarded the vessel, escorted the sailors off, and arrested the captain.

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The digging near Deutschneudorf, Germany at a site that is hoped to contain buried buried Nazi loot, including parts of the famed Amber Room, has stopped according to the Associated Press.

Up to the third day of drilling, which was yesterday, Feb. 28, eleven holes at two different locations had been dug. (See photos of the dig.) Currently, there has been no evidence of any Nazi treasure. And further, there are now expectations that the search could take weeks in the digging aspects alone.

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Digging for the suspected looted Nazi treasure in Deutschneudorf, Germany has begun. Treasure hunters in Germany hope to find parts of the fabled Amber Room along with stockpiles of stolen gold and other artifacts the Nazis hid toward the end of World War II.

The Amber Room was built from 1701-1709 in Prussia and was beautifully created by German and Russian craftsmen with amber panels that were backed with gold leafs and mirrors. Its incredible beauty was so great it was sometimes called the "Eight Wonder of the World".

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Deutschneudorf, Germany — Treasure hunters in Germany may have found the fabled Amber Room treasure, according to Spiegel Online. The Amber Room was built from 1701-1709 in Prussia and was beautifully created by German and Russian craftsmen with amber panels that were backed with gold leafs and mirrors.

The chamber was given to Russian Czar Peter the Great in 1716 by Prussia’s King Friedrich Wilhelm I to deepen their alliance.

During the early invasion of Russia in World War II, Germany looted the Amber Room. It was taken apart, moved and eventually disappeared toward the end of the war. Since then, only mystery has surrounded its fate - some believing it was destroyed while others believed it to be hidden.

The mystery, or at least part of it, has perhaps been solved. An underground cavern was detected that may have two tons of gold and leads to the speculation of the presence of the Amber Room.

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