The prototype illustrates the use 3D Virtual Worlds and Artificial Intelligence in the domain of Cultural Heritage.The aim of the project is to recreate the ancient city of Uruk from the period around 3000 B.C. in the Virtual World of Second Life letting history students experience how it looked like and how its citizens behaved in the past. The prototype currently features 4 autonomous agents re-enacting the daily life cycle of 2 fisherman families. The recreation of the city and agent behaviors are being modeled under supervision of subject matter experts and based on the results of archaeological excavations and available historical data.

Much of what we know of the people and cultures of early Mesopotamia comes from the material uncovered in the Royal Cemetery at Ur by Sir Leonard Woolley in 1922. Inhabited from about 5500 BCE, Ur was finally abandoned around 400 BCE because of difficulties with its water supply. In between, Ur was a politically and economically powerful center on the Euphrates, particularly during the 3rd millennium BCE, with easy access to the Persian Gulf and long-distance sea trade. Queen Puabi probably reigned prior to the time of the First Dynasty of Ur. Her remains were uncovered in burial PG 800 along with a diverse group of objects includes items from her dressing table, such as her cosmetics. Her name and title are known from the short inscription on one of three cylinder seals found on her person. In early Mesopotamia, women, even elite women, were generally described in relation to their husbands. The fact that Puabi is identified without the mention of her husband may indicate that she was queen in her own right. Read more about Queen Puabi on Iraq's Ancient Past website at http://www.penn.museum/sites/iraq/?pa... In this video, the Penn Museum exhibit team, Conservator Lynn Grant, and Near East Section Keeper Katy Blanchard assemble Queen Puabi as she may have appeared 5,000 years ago.

On September 24, 2007, it was announced that a team of Egyptian archaeologists led by Zahi Hawass, discovered eight baskets of 3,000 year old doum fruit in the treasury of Tutankhamun's tomb. Doum comes from a type of palm tree native to the Nile Valley. The doum fruit are traditionally offered at funerals. Fifty clay pots bearing Tutankhamun's official seal were also discovered. According to Dr Hawas, the containers probably contained money that were destined to travel with the pharaoh to the afterlife. He said the containers will soon be opened. The objects were originally discovered, but not opened or removed from the tomb, by Howard Carter. King Tutankhamun still rests in his tomb in the Valley of the Kings, in a temperature-controlled glass case. On November 4, 2007, 85 years to the day since Howard Carter's discovery, the actual face of the 19-year-old pharaoh was put on view in his underground tomb at Luxor, when the linen-wrapped mummy was removed from its golden sarcophagus for display in a climate-controlled glass box. This was done to prevent the heightened rate of decomposition caused by the humidity and warmth from tourists visiting the tomb. Tutankhamun body has been shown in public form the 1st time in more than 3,000 years. This short clip was taken from BBC News 30th October 2007.

Archaeology is a destructive process in which accurate and detailed recording of a site is imperative. As a site is exposed, documentation is required in order to recreate and understand the site in context. We have developed a 3D modeling pipeline that can assist archaeologists in the documentation effort by building rich, geometrically and photometrically accurate 3D models of the site. The modeling effort begins with data acquisition (images, range scans, GIS data, and video) and ends with the use of a sophisticated visualization tool that can be used by researchers to explore and understand the site. The pipeline includes new methods for shadow-based registration of 2D images and temporal change detection. Our multimodal augmented reality system allows users wearing head-tracked, see-through, head-worn displays to visualize the site model and associated archaeological artifacts, and to interact with them using speech and gesture. (Authors: Peter Allen, Steven Feiner, Alejandro Troccoli, Hrvoje Benko, Edward Ishak, Ben Smith, Columbia University. Please visit http://www.edwardishak.com for more information.)

15 archaeologists all on a mountain. my! what crazy things we get into! From http://www.youtube.com/user/triskaidekiphobic For more on Achill to get involved.. go to http://www.achill-fieldschool.com

This is a reconstruction I produced for the complex settlement site at Old Scatness, Shetland. It was produced as part of my undergraduate dissertation project at the University of Bradford, UK. For more information about the work and 3D visualisation in general, check out my blog at www.archaeofx.com

Short video taken on the first day the New Acropolis Museum opened for the public.

Peruvian archaeologists discover an intact mummy of the Wari civilization in a tomb in Lima. The Wari people lived and ruled in what is now Peru for some 500 years, between 600 AD and 1100 AD. Their capital was near modern-day Ayacucho, in the Andes, but they traveled widely and are known for their extensive network of roads.

Archaeologists have discovered a gold necklace over four thousand years old. It is the oldest gold artifact discovered in the Americas yet. Here's more on the story. Archaeologists have just discovered an ancient golden artifact in Peru. The necklace was found near Lake Titicaca on Monday. Using Radiocarbon dating, scientists estimate the necklace was made around 2100 B.C. Anthropologist Mark Aldenderfer of the University of Arizona and colleagues discovered the necklace next to an adult skull in a burial pit at Jiskairumoko. Jiskairumoko is a small hamlet settled by hunter-gathers from 3300 to 1500 BC. Archaeologists from Peru's National Culture Institue say the necklace could be even older than that. [Eugenia Cevallos, Archaeologist]: Male