I love, love, love archeology, always have. As a child I peered at books on Roman, Greek, Syrian and Egyptian history for hours and hours. So it's always a joy to see that there are still things to be left discovered.

New Pyramid Found In Egypt.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/h...723477.stm
Photo article of five pics.

Archaeologists in Egypt say they have discovered another pyramid - the country's 118th so far - from the sands at Saqqara, just south of the capital Cairo. All that remains of the pyramid is a square-shaped structure. The site is already known as one of the most famous burial grounds for rulers of ancient Egypt. A senior Egyptian official said the 16ft-high (five-metre) remains originally stood about three times that height. In the coming weeks, experts expect to enter the burial chamber. The 4,300-year-old monument probably belonged to the queen mother of King Teti, the founder of Egypt's Sixth Dynasty, several hundred years after the building of the famed Great Pyramids of Giza. But they say King Teti's resting place - which lies next to the previously found pyramids of his two wives - is likely to have been looted by tomb raiders a long time ago.

Celtic Treasure Found in Maastricht.
http://www.blikopnieuws.n...icht/86697
Just in Dutch, that link

It's reported that archeologists have found one of the biggest Celtic gold- and silver treasures ever in Maastricht, an old Roman settlement in the south of The Netherlands, probably from one century after Christ.
More info will be given by the city on thursday.

Can't wait to find out more about this.

I can only find a link to a Dutch news site;
http://www.volkskrant.nl/...Maastricht

A Dutch newspaper says 109 coins were found in October, 39 gold, the rest silver, in a field in Maastricht. They are from 100 years before Christ.

They are supposedly from a Germanic tribe called The Eburons, that had connections to the celts. The Dutch link has lots of background info I am too lazy to run through Babelfish for ya.





Yahoo picked up the story!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/a...ic_coins_2



AMSTERDAM, Netherlands – A hobbyist with a metal detector struck both gold and silver when he uncovered an important cache of ancient Celtic coins in a cornfield in the southern Dutch city of Maastricht.

"It's exciting, like a little boy's dream," Paul Curfs, 47, said Thursday after the spectacular find was made public.

Archaeologists say the trove of 39 gold and 70 silver coins was minted in the middle of the first century B.C. as the future Roman ruler Julius Caesar led a campaign against Celtic tribes in the area.

Curfs said he was walking with his detector this spring and was about to go home when he suddenly got a strong signal on his earphones and uncovered the first coin.

"It was golden and had a little horse on it — I had no idea what I had found," he said.

After posting a photo of the coin on a Web forum, he was told it was a rare find. The following day he went back and found another coin.

"It looked totally different — silver, and saucer-shaped," he said. Curfs notified the city of his find, and he and several other hobbyists helped in locating the rest of the coins, in cooperation with archaeologists.

Nico Roymans, the archaeologist who led the academic investigation of the find, believes the gold coins in the cache were minted by a tribe called the Eburones that Caesar claimed to have wiped out in 53 B.C. after they conspired with other groups in an attack that killed 6,000 Roman soldiers.

The Eburones "put up strong resistance to Caesar's journeys of conquest," Roymans said.

The silver coins were made by tribes further to the north — possible evidence of cooperation against Caesar, he said.

Both coin types have triple spirals on the front, a common Celtic symbol.

The two other known caches of Eburones coins have been found in neighboring Belgium and Germany.

Maastricht city spokeswoman Carla Wetzels said the value of the coins is not known — their worth is primarily historical. The Belgian cache of similar size was estimated at around 175,000 euros ($220,000).

The farmer who owned the land agreed to sell his interest to the city for an undisclosed sum.

Curfs, a teacher at a nearby junior college, continues to own the 11 coins he found, but has lent them to the City of Maastricht on a long-term basis. The coins will go on display at the Centre Ceramique museum in Maastricht this weekend.

Curfs said he considers his metal detector habit a meditative hobby and not an obsession.

"I have advice for anybody hoping to get rich like this," Curfs said. "Forget it."
[Edited 11/14/08 7:40am]

HamsterHuey said:

That's really cool, even more cool is that my wife and I fell in love in Maastricht...

amazing news!

...i wonder what they'll find in that pyramid...


i need to go to Egypt.

RenHoek said:

The beer, huh?

It's the most UN-Dutch city you'l find in The Netherlands, besides Amsterdam, but for entirely different reasons.

sammij said:

Probably old Egyptian graffity, reading something like; "Youssouf Was Here, thanks for the gold!"

HamsterHuey said:

I am very curious about the Celtic hoard, though. They are pretty mysterious about it, so it's OR just lame gold stuff or something pretty exciting.

And I looove Celtic art, so I hope for some nifty jewelry.

HamsterHuey said:

Beer had nothing to do with it, we visited these caverns there, old stone quarry that stretch for miles beneath the hills there. Pretty cool stuff when you see the murals that were drawn there by the miners, hundreds of years ago...

Cavern = cold & dark = me hugging her = 9+ years of marriage & 2 kids. The moral is, "When you see the caverns in Maastricht, take a warm jacket!!!"

I love this stuff!

sag10 said:

Same here. We'l hear more about the Celtic treasure tomorrow!

sag10 said:

Me too

This is fascinating.

Maybe they found the Arc of the Covenant. Hmmmmm.

MIGUELGOMEZ said:

Are you having a Harrison Ford relapse?

MIGUELGOMEZ said:

First they have to find the map room.

TMPletz said:

wasn't that a great story!!!

Geeks!

Well, geeks r us, anyways. I always looooove the first hour of Stargate (the MOVIE), with the find of the gate.

HamsterHuey said:

I've watched every episode of SG-1 right here on this very PC... LOVE that show...!

RenHoek said:

Of, course, SG-1 totally SUCKS, which is why I emphasised MOVIE. That weird bald guy freaks me outl he always makes me think of very weird drag queens and hey; isn't that McGyver? Those two already made me lose any hard-on I might have had for the series, but the Daniel guy in the series is just BAD.

The only one I really, really liked was the blonde. I am too lazy to look it up.

And weird enough; I adored Stargate Atlantis. But SG-1 can sod off.

HamsterHuey said:

to each his own... I lurved 'em both... Atlantis was GREAT too!

I have always found this stuff interesting. Anything to do with finding stuff from the past,dinosaur bones,the frozen complete mammoth they found,that lady that was found frozen in the mountains. All neat stuuf!

HamsterHuey said:

Doh!!!!!

The Dutch treasure!

HamsterHuey said:

Very !

EmeraldSkies said:

I can't believe they are 2100 years old.

HamsterHuey said:

They look really good for being that old!