Theft from Burgess Shale

A tourist from Belgium paid a price for going where he wasn’t supposed to go and attempting to steal an ancient artifact by putting it into a sock and stuffing it into a backpack. An alert hiking guide at the world-famous Burgess Shale Formation in Canada’s Yoho National Park spotted the tourist in a restricted area and alerted wardens. The tourist was collecting fossils illegally near the Walcott Quarry of the Burgess Shale, a fossil field with some artifacts more than 500 million years old. Wardens dug through the tourist’s backpack and discovered the trilobite fossil.

The Walcott Quarry of the Burgess Shale.

He was charged with removing a fossil with the intention of selling or trafficking the ancient artifact. A British Columbia provincial court fined him $4,000. Authorities say “a fairly active” black market exists for fossils from the Burgess Shale with values ranging from $300 or $400 for common trilobite fossils. Larger and rarer fossils can sell for $ 10,000 or more.

The Burgess Shale Formation is located in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia. It is one of the world's most celebrated fossil fields and is listed as a UNESCO world heritage site. It is famous for the exceptional preservation of the soft parts of its fossils. At 508 million years (Middle Cambrian) old, it is one of the earliest fossil beds containing soft-part imprints.

Burgess Shale contains the best record we have of Cambrian animal fossils. It reveals creatures originating from the Cambrian explosion, an evolutionary burst of animal origins dating 545 to 525 million years ago.

During this period, life was restricted to the world's oceans. The land was barren, uninhabited, and subject to mudslides which periodically rolled into the seas and buried marine organisms. At Burgess, sediment was deposited in a deep-water basin adjacent to an enormous algal reef with a vertical escarpment several hundred meters high.

The Burgess Shale fossils have been called the world’s most significant fossil discovery because of their great age, their diversity and the detail of their preservation.

Iron Age money

In the Early Bronze Age, ancient people used bronze objects as an early form of money. Researchers suggest that a consistent similarity in shape and weight, along with the fact that the objects often occurred in hoards, are signs of their use as an early form of standardized currency. Standardized currency is a requirement for trade, a cornerstone of human development.

Stash of late medieval coins discovered in Hungary

Újlengyel is a Hungarian village about 31 miles (50 km) southeast of Budapest. The oldest coin is a silver denarius of Roman emperor Lucius Verus, who ruled from A.D.161 to A.D. 169. The newest coins date to Louis II, who ruled Hungary and Bohemia from 1516 to 1526. The hoard consists of nearly 7,000 silver coins and four gold coins. The four gold coins were issued during the reign of Matthias I, the king of Hungary from 1458 to 1490. Hungarians may have buried the hoard during an attack from the Ottoman Empire in 1526.

The Ottoman Empire, led by Suleiman the Magnificent, defeated Hungary and its allies in the Battle of Mohács on Aug. 29, 1526; this marked the end of the Hungarian monarchy.

Cape Lefkada

A restored fresco from Pompeii that many believe depicts Sappho.

Cape Lefkada features a towering white cliff jutting into the sea, and has inspired many ancient myths. Lovers and tragic figures throughout the ages are said to have thrown themselves from the craggy heights. The death of Sappho is the best known. According to legend, Sappho died after throwing herself from the Cape, forlorn after a beautiful sea god named Phaon rejected her love. Some versions of the myth of Aphrodite and Adonis end with the goddess of love jumping off its heights after hearing of her lover’s death. Due to her status as a goddess, she did not die, and landed in the water unharmed.

Huge Israel hoard

Israel officials seized a huge hoard of artifacts, which span the 1st millennium B.C. through the 11th century A.D., during raids at three sites in central Israel. Among the thousands of items are coins from the Seleucid Empire, which ruled Israel between 312 and 63 B.C.; Roman-era oil lamps; and stone statuettes of gods. Among the artifacts recovered are pieces of pottery, including rare vases made in Greece and Italy during the fifth and sixth centuries B.C. The items were usually found in tombs and were extremely precious.

Sanctuary of Apollo at Frangkissa

Archaeologists excavating near ancient Tamassos have located one of the most important sanctuaries discovered in Cyprus to date, more than 125 years after its exact position was lost. The Sanctuary of Apollo at Frangkissa was subject to a dig in 1885. Only a small part of the finds from 1885 have remained in Cyprus.

Analysis of the finds shows that the area had been occupied since the Iron Age and was used throughout the Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic periods.

Theodosius Hoard

In 2019, 16 gold solidi, most of them minted by Theodosius II (408 – 450 AD), the third longest ruling Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, popularly known today as Byzantium, were discovered by archaeologists excavating the ruins of ancient Marcianopolis in Bulgaria’s Devnya. Marcianopolis (Marcianople) was a major Roman and Early Byzantine city.

The gold coins from the early decades of the Eastern Roman Empire were probably hidden during the invasion of Attila’s Huns in the middle of the 5th century AD. In 447 AD, the Huns clashed with the forces of the Eastern Roman Empire in the Battle of the Utus River.

11th century Hoard found in Sluszkow

About 6,500 silver coins dated to the 11th and 12th centuries AD were found in the village of Sluszkow in central Poland. The hoard was buried alongside golden wedding bands, rings and bits of silver and lead.

One of the rings bears an inscription in Cyrillic, which reads: "Lord, help your maid Maria." The woman may have been a Ruthenian princess. The wife of King Bolesław Wrymouth was a Ruthenian princess named Zbysława. Her sister was named Maria, who was married to Piotr Włostowic.

Stunning 800 year old gold from 'Nanhai I'

Two exquisite gold necklaces found in an 800-year-old shipwreck have been put on display in the Guangdong Museum, China, along with other artifacts from the Song Dynasty. The Nanhai I is a Chinese merchant ship which sank off the south China coast during the Southern Song Dynasty between 1127 and 1279. It was first discovered by a joint Chinese-British diving expedition in 1987.

'The Route of the Sea: Nanhai I shipwreck and Maritime Trade in the Southern Song Dynasty' is being presented at the Guangdong Museum

The entire shipwreck was lifted off of the seabed on December 21, 2007 and transferred into the specially-built Guangdong Maritime Silk Road Museum on Hailing Island, Guangdong.

12th century abbot's grave

Remains were found beneath the ruins of Furness Abbey when emergency repairs were made to the abbey at Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria. Cracks appeared in the ‘mouldered walls.’ They were caused by medieval wooden foundations rotting away. Structural engineers found an unknown grave. Medieval jewellery and a silver and gilt crozier, a senior abbot’s staff of office was found.

Furness Abbey is a former Catholic monastery that dates back to 1123 and was once the second-wealthiest and most powerful Cistercian monastery in the UK. Whoever was buried here had been placed in the presbytery – the most prestigious position in the abbey, usually reserved for those held in greatest esteem.

Massive ancient hoard found in French looter's home

A French treasure hunter who claimed to have dug up 14,154 Roman coins in a Belgian field has been accused of being one of the greatest archaeological looters in European history. In France, metal detectors are only allowed to be used for scientific research, but in Dutch-speaking Flanders they can be used for personal searches. A raid by French officials on the man’s house revealed an astonishing hoard of 27,400 objects. There were bracelets and necklaces dating from the bronze and iron age, Roman brooches known as fibulae, Merovingian and Renaissance belt buckles, parts of statues and Roman and Gallic coins – all of which are said to have been illegally unearthed in France.

A hollow copper Roman dodecahedron was recovered, of which there are only a hundred known copies. Their use remains an archaeological enigma. The looter, who is awaiting trial, had been exploiting the difference between French law and Flemish regulations to amass his cache. He faces huge fines and prison time for his many thefts.