Source:Times OnlineDalya Alberge, Arts CorrespondentSome say that its 45 mysterious symbols are the words of a 4,000-year-old poem, or perhaps a sacred text. Others contest that they are a magical inscription, a piece of ancient music or the world's oldest example of punctuation.But now an American scholar believes that the markings on the Phaistos Disc, one of archaeology's most famous unsolved my...

Source: Today's ZamanA series of DNA analyses conducted on ancient wheat samples have led scientists to conclude that the oldest known wheat was grown in Çatalhöyük, a Neolithic settlement in southern Anatolia.Professor Mahinur Akkaya from the Middle East Technical University's (ODTÜ) department of chemistry says the world's oldest wheat found so far comes from Çatalhöyük, this according to...

Source: The University of ManchesterUniversity of Manchester researchers have revealed how women, as well as men, held positions of power in ancient Greece by right of birth.Women were thought to have had little power in ancient Greece, unless they married a powerful man and were able to influence him. But a team of researchers testing ancient DNA from a high status, male-dominated cemetery at Myce...

Source: Archaeological Institute of America"Indiana Jones" shows his commitment to real archaeology.After years of being identified on screen as the legendary archaeologist "Indiana Jones," actor Harrison Ford has won election to the Board of Directors of the Archaeological Institute of America. With his Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull set to hit U.S. movie theaters on May 22, th...

Source: AP via Yahoo! NewsBy MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press Writer Tue May 13, 7:57 PM ETJERUSALEM - One of the most important Dead Sea scrolls is going on display in Jerusalem this week — more than four decades after it was last seen by the public. The 24-foot scroll with the text of the Bible's Book of Isaiah had been in a dark, temperature-controlled room at the Israel Museum since 1967. It...