370000 Dollar Ring Lost, Reward for Treasure Hunters

A man by the name of Robert Gismondi was eating at a Daytona Beach restaurant when he accidentally dropped his $370k Ring off the pier. He said he was reaching into his pocket to answer his phone when he pulled his hand out the ring slipped off, and made a splash in the water below. Gismondi is offering a reward in the THOUSANDS for finding his ring. You might have to contend with his insurance agency, but I would act quick as they are probably slow to act.
Ok, so for you treasure hunter divers out there lets go over some clues to help you find that treasure:
-Location is: Main Street Pier in Daytona Beach
-Band is said to be white gold.
-Diamond is large orange color.
-Pier worker was told where it dropped. (With a little questioning and detective work you may want to find out where on the pier it fell at to narrow your search)
As I see it the ring could either be washed out with the current, or more likely buried in the sand around the pier. Either way I would wait for calm weather as diving under piers is extremely dangerous and the water will be more clear to help find the ring. So what are you waiting for!?

10000 Ancient Roman Coin Aged 1700 Discovered in Near Shrewsbury

What a lucky day for a guy who just started a hobby of metal detecting for a month. UK Dailymail reported that Nick Davies found this amazing haul of 10,000 Roman coins on his first ever treasure hunt. The stunning collection of coins, most of which were found inside the broken brown pot, was uncovered by Nick during a search of land in the Shrewsbury area - just a month after he took up the hobby of metal detecting. Experts say the coins have spent an estimated 1,700 years underground.

The silver and bronze 'nummi' coins, dating from between 240AD and 320AD, were discovered in a farmer's field near Shrewsbury, in Shropshire, last month. His amazing find is one of the largest collections of Roman coins ever discovered in Shropshire. And the haul could be put on display at Shrewsbury's new £10million heritage centre, it was revealed today. It is also the biggest collection of Roman coins to be found in Britain this year. Nick, from Ford, Shropshire, said he never expected to find anything on his first treasure hunt - especially anything of any value.

He recalled the discovery and described it as 'fantastically exciting'.

Nick said: "The top of the pot had been broken in the ground and a large number of the coins spread in the area. All of these were recovered during the excavation with the help of a metal detector." "This added at least another 300 coins to the total - it's fantastically exciting. I never expected to find such treasure on my first outing with the detector."

The coins have now been sent to the British Museum for detailed examination, before a report is sent to the coroner.Experts are expected to spend several months cleaning and separating the coins, which have fused together. They will also give them further identification before sending them to the coroner. A treasure trove inquest is then expected to take place next year. Peter Reavill, finds liaison officer from the Portable Antiquities Scheme, records archaeological finds made by the public in England and Wales, He said the coins were probably payment to a farmer or community at the end of a harvest.

Speaking to the Shropshire Star, Mr Reavill said the coins appear to date from the period 320AD to 340AD, late in the reign of Constantine I.

Mr Reavill said: “There seems to be a minimum of 10,000 coins, the majority of which are corroded together in the pot.

“The coins are all bronze, and some of them have been silver washed. They are known as nummi and were common during the 4th century AD.

“The top of the pot had been broken in the ground and a large number of the coins spread in the area. All of these were recovered during the excavation with the help of a metal detector. This added at least another 300 coins to the total.

“It is likely that the hoard represents a person or communities wealth, possibly as a payment for a harvest. Why it was not collected by the owner is a mystery, but one that we can share and enjoy 1,700 years after the fact.”

However, Mr Reavill declined to put a figure on either the value of the coins or the pot until the findings of the inquest are known, but he described the discovery as a 'large and important' find.

Mr Reavill said the exact location of the find could not be revealed for security reasons.-www.dailymail.co.uk

2000yo Iron Age Materials Should Return to Anglesey

Ancient artefacts, more than 2,000 years old, should be brought back to Anglesey (Wales) claims an island politician. A large hoard of Iron Age materials were discovered in Llyn Cerrig Bach, Llanfair-yn-Neubwll, in 1942. The items are currently kept in Cardiff, but local councillor Gwilym O Jones believes the treasure troves should brought back and displayed at Llangefni's Oriel Môn. And the council agrees, explaining they are currently in talks on that very subject.

Cllr Jones said: "I understand why the treasures were taken down to the National Museum in Cardiff. At the time there was nowhere secure enough on Anglesey to keep them. But that has changed in recent years. I feel that now is the time to campaign to bring the treasures back. I'm not talking about bringing them back permanently, but I feel they should here for part of the year, say through the summer months. I think many people would be interested in seeing them."

Anglesey County Council's head of museums, archives and culture, Pat West, said: "We have a good working relationship with the National Museum and are in negotiations with them about holding a short term exhibition of the artefact found at Llyn Cerrig Bach. "As yet we have no set date for an exhibition but it would be in the next two to three years."

Chariots, weapons, tools and decorated metalwork items were cast from a causeway or island into Llyn Cerrig Bach between 300 BCE and 100 CE. They were discovered in 1942 by William Roberts as the airfield was being extended to accommodate the US air force bomber, The Flying Fortress. The site was investigated by Sir Cyril Fox, the then keeper of archaeology at the National Museum of Wales in 1946.-www.theonlinemail.co.uk

Austrian Archaeologists Discovered Babylonian Seal in Egypt

Austrian archaeologists have found a Babylonian seal in Egypt that confirms contact between the Babylonians and the Hyksos during the second millennium B.C.

Irene Forstner-Müller, the head of the Austrian Archaeological Institute’s (ÖAI) branch office in Cairo, said today (Thurs) the find had occurred at the site of the ancient town of Avaris near what is today the city of Tell el-Dab’a in the eastern Nile delta.

The Hyksos conquered Egypt and reigned there from 1640 to 1530 B.C.

She said a recently-discovered cuneiform tablet had led archaeologists to suspect there had been contact between the Babylonians and the Hyksos.

Forstner-Müller added that Manfred Bietak had begun archaeological research on the period of Hyksos dominance at the remains of a Hyksos palace at Avaris in 1966.

She said ÖAI would open a museum at the Avaris site that the Egyptian government and sponsors would fund to make the seal and other objects accessible to tourists.

Forstner-Müller added Avaris would remain ÖAI’s main project site in Egypt but that ÖAI and the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) were working together at a site at Philae/Aswan and ÖAI and Berlin’s Humboldt University were working together at another in Luxor/Asasif.

Ephesos, Turkey, remained the site of ÖAI’s so-called "flagship" project since it had been important historically from the Copper Age to the time of the Ottoman Empire, she said.--- ustriantimes.at

2000-year-old American Indian Masterpieces Can Be Observed in Cleveland in 2010

"Art of the American Indians: The Thaw Collection", a major traveling exhibition, developed by the Fenimore Art Museum, making its debut at the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) in March 2010, explores Native North American art from the Eastern Woodlands to the Northwest through more than 140 masterpieces spanning 2,000 years. The exhibition provides visitors with a broad understanding and appreciation of the aesthetic accomplishments and cultural heritage of this country’s first peoples. "Art of the American Indians" opens at CMA on March 7, 2010 and runs through May 30 before traveling to Minneapolis , Indianapolis and San Francisco.

The objects in the exhibition are drawn from 'The Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection of Native North American Art', which was carefully assembled over the past two decades by Eugene V. Thaw, one of the art world’s most distinguished connoisseurs and collectors of art. This is the first time this collection is being treated as an exhibition and several key objects will only be seen at the Cleveland venue.

“This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to see an extraordinary range of Native North American works of the highest quality, each piece a paragon of creativity and artistic excellence,” said Sue Bergh, associate curator of Pre-Columbian and Native North American art, CMA. “In Gene Thaw’s own words, ‘Indian material culture stands rightfully with ancient art masterpieces of Asia and Europe as their equivalent.’ We are delighted to offer visitors this opportunity to more deeply examine this fascinating dimension of the American experience and history.”

The works in "Art of the American Indians" are organized by geographic regions, moving from the ancient ivories and ingenious modern masks of the Arctic to the astonishingly beautiful and dramatic arts of the Pacific Northwest , which form one of the pillars of the Thaw Collection. The basketry of Native weavers appears in a section devoted to California and the adjacent Great Basin , home of Louisa Keyser (also known as Dat So La Lee), a renowned Washoe basket weaver and one of the most celebrated Native artists. Beacon Lights, Keyser’s most famous creation, will be a centerpiece of the exhibition.

The abstract art of the culturally complex Southwest will be shown in both its ancient and modern manifestations. From the Plains come outstanding examples of the colorful beaded, feathered, and painted works for which the region is most famous. Finally are the Eastern Woodlands, including the Great Lakes , and their visually quieter and more contemplative arts, which are another of the collection’s great strengths.

The majority of the 120 piece collection dates to the 19th-century, but archaeological and contemporary works also are included to demonstrate the continued vitality of Native North American cultures. Twenty CMA objects will also appear at the Cleveland venue.

Exhibition highlights include:
• Shaman's Mask, Tlingit people, Northwest Coast – A magnificently malevolent mask that directly manifests a powerful spirit being who helped a shaman intermediate between the worlds of matter and spirit: an octopus, signaled by sucker disks on the cheeks and the peaked, beak-like mouth.

• Crane Mask, Yup'ik people, Arctic – This mask, one of the finest that survives, is part of a nearly identical female-male pair that danced together. Each crane strains forward and flutters its wings protectively around a figure on its breast, one a sick shaman and the other perhaps a helper coming to the shaman’s aid. (Cleveland only.)

• Painted Drum, Pawnee people, Plains – Throwing lightning from its beak, a thunderbird dives from black clouds into a threatening yellow sky as a flock of swallows, the storm’s harbingers, scatters like wind-blown leaves. Beneath, in a small center of calm, a man offers a pipe upward. (Cleveland only.)

• Basket, Louisa Keyser (Dat So La Lee), Washoe – A national treasure made by one of the most legendary basket-makers in North America. (Cleveland only.)

. "Art of the American Indians: The Thaw Collection". is organized by the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown , N.Y. The Cleveland Museum of Art is generously funded by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture. The Ohio Arts Council helped fund this exhibition with state tax dollars to encourage economic growth, educational excellence, and cultural enrichment for all Ohioans.---www.artdaily.org

1910 Soda and Beer Bottles Discovered at Construction Sites

Two construction sites less than a mile apart in Auburn have yielded historical finds.
Digging up the Placer County Courthouse parking lot, a construction crew discovered a two-foot- deep hole that recently yielded several dirt-encrusted bottles dating back to 1852.
Last week, a sharp-eyed backhoe operator saw glass glinting in the light of a mound of dirt at the city’s Central Square Streetscape project. That yielded a sizable stash of soda and beer bottles buried around 1910.
Cliff Kennedy, a Penryn historical artifact expert, is now working with the county Museums Division to research the past of the newly found collection of bottles. They’ll shed more light on both Auburn’s Gold Rush days and, with the Central Square find, the A.W. Kenison bottling business.
“Auburn is the endurance capital but it’s also a city of bottles,” Kennedy said.
The Kenison plant, located next to the now-long-gone Auburn Opera House on Central Square, was at the center of the bottle business from the 1890s well into the 1910s. A.W. Kenison, who also served as opera house manager, died at age 49 in 1904. The business continued on, selling soda as well as beer to parched foothills throats through about 1916.
The courthouse bottles were found in a hole that was once at the bottom of a privy. The first permanent courthouse was built over it in 1853, replacing several houses that were located on the knoll. They sat undisturbed until workers resurfacing the front courthouse parking lot discovered them.
The half-dozen bottles from the courthouse are made in Philadelphia. They were shipped empty around Cape Horn to California, where they were filled with soda or beer either in Sacramento or San Francisco. From there, they made their way to the gold fields.
The privy hole also yielded a broken clay pipe, a lock plate for a trunk, a serrated beam for a scale, a spice bottle base and a chamber pot remnant.
“This stuff is exciting because it dates from Auburn’s infancy,” Kennedy said.
Herb Yue, a bottle collector whose family roots in Auburn date back to the late Gold Rush period, said a good specimen of a bottle like the ones from the county courthouse recently sold for $56.
Bottle finds – particularly from digs in dirt that once made a privy – happen every few years in Auburn. This time, the city and county are the ones that have taken possession of a notable discovery. Melanie Barton, museums administrator, said the city may display theirs at the Civic Center and the county is also looking at some way to share the find. The city collection numbers about 20 bottles.
Yue said that the historic locations where they were found adds to their historical value.
“It’s neat to hang onto a piece of history that a gold miner probably held in his hand,” Yue said. “If they could talk, you know, what stories they could tell.”