China's underwater museum

The Southern Sea Number One is an 800-year old shipwreck that lies under 24 metres of water and 2 metres of sand and soil. In 2002, archeologists took out more than 6000 items from one small room on the ship, and they expect to find 60 000 to 80 000 more.

They wanted to lift it out of the water, but experts advized against it, for fear the boat might break. Instead of letting it all go to waist, the Guangdong provincial government has now allocated £10 million to building a five hall underwater museum to preserve the wreck. Construction work on the museum is well underway and it is expected to open to the public by the middle of next year. How cool is that! You get to see the wreck the way it has been for ages, with added atmosphere. I hope they will put a glass dome around so that you can see the fish swimming past.

It sometimes amazes me what people can accomplish nowadays. Not even two hundred years ago we were driving carts, now scientists are sending robots to Mars. For centuries thieves were looting King's graves for some quick cash, now we're building museums on the bottom of the sea. Another great feat is the relocation of the Egyptian temples at the Abu Simbel site. They were being threatened by the rise of the Nile, that would follow after the completion of the Aswan High Dam. One of the propositions was to build a museum around the temples and thus leave them underwater. Eventually, the entire site was cut into large blocks, dismantled and reassembled in a new location (65 m higher and 200 m back from the river). It just goes to show that if we put our minds to it, we can accomplish virtually anything. In most cases it's just the willingness to act that is missing.

Discovery of unique papyrus codex

The Gallo-Roman Museum in Tongeren has discovered in its collection the most complete book made of papyrus of North-Western Europe. It is a unique piece because it dates from the 10th century, during which time papyrus had been replaced by parchment (even in Egypt it wasn't used anymore).

The book had already been found in the 1930s together with fragments of Roman wood and leather. Because the item didn't look all that special and wasn't numbered (and thus not a part of an inventory) it stayed there until last year. Staff of the museum thought that it looked like papyrus, but they didn't think that was very likely since papyrus has hardly been preserved in Europe. Research done by an expert on the matter, professor Clarysse of the Catholic University of Louvain, confirmed their suspicions.

Given the importance of the find, preliminary investigations were done by the Royal Institute for the Study and Conservation of Belgium's Artistic Heritage, KIK-IRPA. At first it was thought the artefact stemmed from the Roman period. The KIK-IRPA however dated it between 880 and 990 AD. Further research is now needed to determine the contents of the book. The leaflets have been compressed through time to almost a solid block. The painstaking task of pealing them off must be undertaken. Apparently only one page can be "freed" per day.

Legia: forum for studies of the Iron Age in Belgium

Legia is a non-profit organization that should start its official activities today, with the intent of becoming a multidsciplinary forum for studies of the Iron Age. The aim is to further the knowledge of the peoples that inhabited Europe, and Flanders in particular, by becoming a place where scholars and researchers with different academic backgrounds can meet to share their knowledge and experience.

Although our ancestors have an interesting story to tell, a lot of research into our history before the arrival of the Romans hasn't been done. In the high school history class we are taught how the Greeks, Persians and Romans lived, but apart from Julius Caesar's Horum omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae (the Belgae were the bravest of all the inhabitants of Gaul) we know practically nothing about the Belgae (or Old Belgians). In order to change this, Legia will set up a open air laboratory for experimental archeology, where empirical programmes based on historical and scientific research, will be set up.

The project will be based on three pillars: information, education and recreation. The public will be informed at regular intervals by the website, presentations and publications in an easily understandable language. To keep the educational process fun, a historical journey will be prepared on the site by means of re-enactment and living history.