Kentuck and Ohio in archaeological dispute

Here's some nearly local news for us: a boulder carved with a face, a house, and some names, has been recovered from the Ohio River after being submerged for 87 years. It's from Portsmouth, Ohio, and was probably a navigation marker along the shore there, from back in the early days of the city's settlement. Its existence was recorded by the late 1800s, and there are names of some of the early residents carved onto it.

For reasons that are beyond me, the government of Kentucky is claiming ownership of it, since it had sunk into the river (most of which is inside Kentucky's borders). Now, as much as I like the state of Kentucky, I've got to stand up against that attitude, here. It was, apparently, carved by residents of Portsmouth, Ohio, it stood on the Ohio banks (actually, the story doesn't say that, but I'm guessing, from the background information--if it had been on the Kentucky shore this whole time, that puts a different light on it!), and it was only lost to the waves around 1920. Since when does falling into the water mean the government of another state gets to claim permanent ownership, even after it's pulled back out?

The attitude of wanting government control by default is a nasty one. Or even, in this case, outright government possession by default! Even worse. Heaven help me if I find an arrowhead on the Ohio River banks!

Incan Suspension Bridges

An interesting story on Incan rope suspension bridges. (From the NY Times, so free registration might be required.) It says that these jumped canyons up to 150' wide, which was wider than masonry bridges could leap with a single arch at the time.

King Herod's tomb found

They've probably discovered the tomb of King Herod, near Jerusalem. This was the Herod (there were lots of them...) who reigned from about 37 to 4 BC and who was king when Jesus was born.

They found it on the artificial hill built for his palace, Herodium (say, that name sounds familiar...), which was long suspected to be its site. But previous searches hadn't turned up the tomb itself. The tomb was desecrated, probably not long after Herod died, maybe during one of the anti-Roman revolts, when the palace was occupied by the rebels.

The site has a long history after Herod. It was occupied twice during the various revolts, and it was used in the early Middle Ages, from the 5th century to the 7th century. First as a monastery, then as a leper colony.

Really interesting!