Islamic State blew up the ancient temple of Baal Shamin in the Unesco-listed Syrian city of Palmyra, the country’s antiquities chief has said. [...]

Baal Shamin was built in 17AD and it was expanded under the reign of Roman emperor Hadrian in 130AD. Known as the Pearl of the Desert, Palmyra, which means City of Palms, is a well-preserved oasis 130 miles north-east of Damascus. — theguardian.com

Isil militants have beheaded one of Syria’s most respected archaeologists and an expert on the ancient Roman city of Palmyra. Khaled Al-Asaad, who was director of antiquities at the Unesco World Heritage Site from 1963 to 2003, was murdered on 18 August and his body tied to an ancient column within the 2,000-year-old archaeological site.

According to Abdulkarim, Al-Asaad was [...] killed for refusing to help Isil find antiquities that were hidden before the invasion of Palmyra. — theartnewspaper.com

[Andrew] Tallon, 46, wasn't the first to realize that laser scanners could be used to deconstruct Gothic architecture. But he was the first to use the scans to get inside medieval builders' heads.

"Every building moves," he says. "It heaves itself out of shape when foundations move, when the sun heats up on one side." How the building moves reveals its original design and the choices that the master builder had to make when construction didn't go as planned... — National Geographic

The site is located in Kaesong, the old imperial capital of medieval Korea, now a small industrial city located in North Korea, just north of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) dividing the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). [...]

“There were wars of nerves between South and North scholars due to differences in methodologies, but we were in a same boat on the achievement of this excavation.” — qz.com

Archeologists have unearthed a massive tomb complex in a southwest suburb in Beijing, according to the Beijing Institute of Cultural Heritage on Monday.

They said the complex is a rare discovery given its size, time span and location.

The 70 hectare archeological site consists of 129 tombs built over 1,100 years, spanning from the East Han Dynasty (25-220) to Tang Dynasty (618-907) and Liao (907-1125). — chinadaily.com.cn

The remains of a nearly 1,600-year-old basilica that was discovered at the beginning of last year under Lake İznik in the northwestern province of Bursa is now set to become an underwater museum. 

The underwater museum project, approved by the Culture and Tourism Ministry, will be carried out by the Bursa Metropolitan Municipality, the sponsor of the project. [...]

The discovery of the basilica was named as one of top 10 discoveries of 2014 by the Ar-chaeological Institute of America. — hurriyetdailynews.com

The US Army is looking to recruit the next generation of “Monuments Men and Women” to help preserve sites and cultural property in combat zones and to advise troops on heritage. [...] It is turning to museum directors, archaeologists and preservationists to fill these posts. [...]

With extremist groups such as Islamic State using the destruction of cultural heritage as a tool of war, such expertise is needed more than ever. — theartnewspaper.com

In 1963, a man in the Nevşehir Province of Turkey knocked down a wall of his home. Behind it, he discovered a mysterious room and soon discovered an intricate tunnel system with additional cave-like rooms. What he had discovered was the ancient Derinkuyu underground city in Turkey — sunnyskyz

While the civil war in Syria has killed tens of thousands of people, it has also destroyed countless of the country's ancient treasures. Now a number of Syrians are trying to save what artifacts they can -- and are risking their lives to do so. — spiegel.de

Rome may be a mecca for Medieval art, but it isn’t every day that conservationists there discover a trove of long-lost frescoes dating to the 1240s. That’s what happened a few years ago in the Gothic Hall of Santi Quattro Coronati convent, after a restoration project funded by ARCUS began in 1996. This summer, for the first time ever, those artworks can be seen by the public [...] [The frescoes] reveal how cardinals’ palaces were “places from which to launch very clear political messages.” — Hyperallergic

Leading British archaeologist and member of the House of Lords, Colin Renfrew, says the destruction of historic mosques in Mosul, northern Iraq, by Islamic state militants (Isis) “is a disaster for the cultural heritage of Iraq, and indeed of Islam”. The Prophet Jirjis mosque and shrine in Mosul was destroyed on 27 July, according to unconfirmed press reports. The 14th-century mosque was the latest in a series of holy sites targeted by the jihadist group. — theartnewspaper.com

Any definitive insight into the formative stages of Roman architectural hubris lies irretrievable beneath layers of the city’s repeated renovations through the time of caesars, popes and the Renaissance [...] Now, at excavations 11 miles east of Rome’s city center, archaeologists think they are catching a glimpse of Roman tastes in monumental architecture much earlier than previously thought, about 300 years before the Colosseum. — nytimes.com

Doors recently opened at PALÄON, the Research and Experience Center Schöningen Spears at the edge of the tiny German town of Schöningen and its opencast lignite mine. The center sits at the site of the world-famous Schöningen Spears archaeological find – the oldest preserved hunting weapons ever discovered.

PALÄON was designed by Swiss firm Holzer Kobler Architekturen in collaboration with pbr AG and landscape architects Topotek1. — bustler.net

The director of the Madrid heritage department, Jaime Ignacio Muñoz of the Popular Party, explained to EL PAÍS that Apple had been instructed to change the flooring of the basement so as to “symbolically” trace the outline of these newly discovered walls.

The walls themselves will then be covered up again so the floor of the new store can be placed on top. The actual original foundations of the hospital will not be visible. — elpais.com

Eighteen feet below one of Rome’s most-trafficked junctions is a 900-seat arts center dating back to the second-century reign of Emperor Hadrian, Italian archaeologists have announced.

The discovery, widely seen as the most important in Rome in 80 years, came as a result of digging for the city’s third subway line. Archeologists spent the last five years excavating two halls of the structure under the Piazza Venezia, which is believed to be an arts center, or auditorium, built by Hadrian. — artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com