"This week, archaeologists from Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced the recovery of more than 250 sarcophagi, 150 bronze statues and a variety of other antiquities from the site. The remarkably well-preserved objects in the necropolis are still in good — and sometimes colorful — condition." - Smithsonian Magazine
"The 600-year-old Orloj, ... one of Prague's most famous landmarks, is at the centre of an embarrassing row amid claims that an artist endowed it with likenesses of his friends and acquaintances in an expensive restoration project, possibly as a joke." - The Guardian
On Wednesday night, 21-year-old Brian Hernandez broke into the museum, went up to display cases and started smashing. He told the guard who intercepted him that he did it because "he was mad at his girl"; the guard told him to sit down until the police came, and he did. - NBC News
Institutional bureaucrats, not billionaires, have the power to constrain the possibilities for aesthetic development in the present. The figure of the contemporary artist we know today is an invention of the bureaucrats. - Tablet
Paint names developed their own poetic style and, like a certain tradition of lyric poetry they make reference to nature to express mood or atmosphere. Werner’s Nomenclature of Colour (first published in 1814) constructs a system or taxonomy for the classification of colour... - Public Domain Review
"Dating from between 600 CE–900 CE, Xiol" — near Mérida on the northern Yucatán Peninsula — "is comprised of 12 structures, including a main ceremonial center with a cenote, or a deep-water well. Two additional structures surrounding the ceremonial center likely served as elite residences." - ARTnews
The ruins of the Bronze Age settlement, which include a palace and a large industrial and goods-storage complex as well as other structures and over 100 cuneiform tablets, are at Kemune in the Mosul reservoir in Iraq, where a drought led to a major draw-down of water. - Newsweek
The case that led to the arrest of the Louvre's former director has spread to the US: the Manhattan D.A. office has impounded five items in the Met's Egyptian collection that are connected to two dealers in Europe who are now charged with criminal conspiracy, fraud, and money laundering. - Artnet
"Amid war with Russia, the city’s challenge is to integrate tens of thousands of residents displaced from fighting in eastern Ukraine without sacrificing Lviv's aesthetics or derailing its efforts to become a sustainable, livable European city." - The New York Times
"It is almost five years since President Emmanuel Macron announced his revolutionary plan to return African heritage to the continent. … But following Macron's historic declaration, the French government’s position on the restitution of cultural property is 'confused'." - The Art Newspaper
Last week, Jean-Luc Martinez, ousted as the museum's director last year, was indicted for complicity with the trafficking of stolen Egyptian antiquities purchased by the Louvre Abu Dhabi. Now the Louvre "has decided to bring a civil action before the jurisdiction in charge," though it's not saying against whom. - Artnet
"Each of the five branches of the US military (the air force, army, coast guard, marines and navy) has its own collection, curator and exhibition schedule. Most of the works in these collections do not show violence ... (but rather) enlisted soldiers' day-to-day routines." - The Art Newspaper
“That’s unheard of. It used to be a gentleman’s sport done by gentleman for gentleman. Now these gentleman and gentlewomen of the trade are getting hand-cuffed. People who have wings of museums named after them aren’t accustomed to being handcuffed and that has had an impact.” - The Guardian
"The preservation project calls for some of the capsules to allow for real-life living in a separate locale. Those in museums will be refinished by the Kurokawa architectural office, which went over the original designs to figure out how each box could be detached with minimal damage." - AP
"Think of planet Earth, there are people destroying it," he proclaimed as security guards dragged him away. Don't worry: the painting's fine, and the protective glass in front of it has been cleaned. - CNN
