Archeologists dig for secrets in Mexico tunnel (AFP)

TEOTIHUACAN, Mexico (AFP) – Archeologists are unearthing a 2,000-year-old tunnel outside bustling modern day Mexico City searching for clues to one of the region's most influential former civilizations.

Heavy rains at the site of Teotihuacan, some 25 miles (40 kilometers) from the capital, accidentally provided the first sign of the tunnel's existence in 2003, when the water made a tiny hole in the ground.

Six years later, a team financed by Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) started digging at the site, which is one of the most visited in Mexico.

Teotihuacan arose as a new religious center around the time of Christ and became possibly the most influential city in pre-Hispanic North America at the time, with a population of 200,000 at its peak.

It is thought to have been abandoned in the seventh century due to economic, social and political problems.

Only around five percent of Teotihuacan has been excavated so far despite more than 100 years of exploration of the former city, which stretches over some 9.7 square miles (25 square kilometers).

Archeologists believe the tunnel will lead to three chambers, which may contain the remains of the leaders of the civilization and help explain their beliefs.

No monarch's tomb has ever been found at the site, which was already deserted when the Aztecs arrived in the area in the 1300s.

But the search for the tombs is not the only focus of investigations.

"It's not something we're obsessed with. We keep working and we're going to try to understand the tunnel on its own and the implications it has for Mesoamerican thought and religion," said archeologist Sergio Gomez.

Last August, digging down some 12 meters (yards), archeologists discovered the tunnel's opening in front of the Temple of Quetzacoatl, or the Plumed Serpent.

"It was very gratifying to be able to find the tunnel's entrance because that shows that the hypotheses were correct," Gomez said.

"We know that Teotihuacan was built as a replica of how they saw the cosmos, the universe. We imagine the tunnel to be a recreation of the underworld."

Some 30 archeologists, biologists and architects work daily under a small tent protecting the tunnel's opening, to the south of the imposing Pyramids of the Sun and Moon.

As some sieve through piles of stones and earth over wheelbarrows to pick out artifacts retrieved underground, archeologists descend three ladders down a hole several meters wide and 12 meters deep.

They believe that a deliberate effort was made to pile up stones and even pieces of a destroyed temple to block the tunnel, sometime between 200 and 300 AD.

Precious pieces are believed to have been thrown on to the pile as an offering by the elite.

The team has already removed some 300 metric tons of material, including 60,000 tiny fragments of materials such as jade, bone and ceramics.

Most were ornaments used by the elite, as well as beads and shells from both coasts of Mexico, Gomez said.

A small, remote-controlled robot -- the first to be used to explore Mexico's ruins -- took a camera inside a small opening before researchers finally entered the tunnel last November.

But they have advanced only seven meters through the tunnel which they believe, thanks to the help of radar technology, to be 120 meters long.

In the hot, damp underground chamber, small labels hang from the curved, rocky roof to show each meter excavated so far.

Archeologists say they can see tool marks in the ceiling which date from the time the tunnel was excavated in the rock.

Wearing mask and helmets as they chip away with small tools, they expect to reach the end of the tunnel in several years' time.

"It's very, very delicate and meticulous work. We have to record every type of change," said researcher Jorge Zavala.

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'Gay Caveman' Story Overblown, Archaeologists Say (LiveScience.com)

Archaeologists in Prague say they've uncovered a Stone-Age man buried in a position usually reserved for women — but media claims of a "gay caveman" may be exaggerated, according to some researchers. 

The skeleton, which dates back to about 2,500 to 2,800 B.C., was found in the outskirts of Prague. The culture the man belonged to (known as the Corded Ware culture for their pottery decorated with the impressions of twisted cord) was very finicky about grave rituals, reported Iranian news network Press TV, which visited the excavation site. According to the Czech news website Ceskapozice.cz, Corded Ware males were usually buried on their right sides with their heads facing east. This man, however, was buried on his left with his head facing west — a traditionally female position.

"We found one very specific grave of a man lying in the position of a woman, without gender specific grave goods, neither jewelry or weapons," lead archaeologist Kamila Remisova Vesinova of the Czech Archaeological Society told Press TV.

Not gay, not a caveman

Vesinova and her colleagues told reporters that the man may have belonged to a "third gender." This designation is for people who may be viewed as neither male nor female or some combination of both. In some cases, third-gender individuals are thought to be able to switch between male and female depending on circumstance. Modern examples include the Hijras of India and the Fa'afafine of Polynesia. [5 Myths About Gay People Debunked]

The skeleton has been trumpeted in the media as belonging to a "homosexual caveman," but some archaeologists are skeptical. For one thing, the complexity of the third-gender concept makes calling the skeleton "gay" an oversimplification, Kristina Killgrove, an anthropologist in at the University of North Carolina, wrote in her blog, Bone Girl.

"If this burial represents a transgendered individual (as well it could), that doesn't necessarily mean the person had a 'different sexual orientation' and certainly doesn't mean that he would have considered himself (or that his culture would have considered him) 'homosexual,'" Killgrove wrote.

(Transgender is defined as when gender identity doesn't match physical or genetic sex. Third gender is a broader term that covers a wide range of gender identities in a number of cultures, some of whom reject the male-female binary altogether.)

Archaeologist Monty Dobson of Drury University in Missouri agreed.

"The reality of this is going to be far more complicated than, 'This individual was gay,'" Dobson told LiveScience.

Not only is "gay" an oversimplification, "caveman" is flat-out inaccurate, said John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

"Corded-Ware burials are not 'caveman' in age," Hawks told LiveScience. "We're talking about pre-Bronze Age farmers."

Male or female?

Hawks said the third-gender claims are difficult to evaluate without a formal archaeological description.

"I haven't seen any evidence that really convinces me that the skeleton is male," he said. "It could be, but the photo is not convincing on that point, and I have not seen any claim of DNA testing."

It's tough to assign a sex to a skeleton with certainty, Dobson said. Archaeologists and anthropologists usually rely on bone measurements, particularly the size and shape of the pelvis. But these estimates aren't exact, Dobson said.

"There have been cases in the past where a gender was assigned and we have gone back to look and assigned the opposite gender," he said.

After confirming the gender, the second step would be to determine how many examples of gendered Corded Ware burials there are.

"Is this burial unique out of 20 burials or unique out of 20,000 burials?" Killgrove told LiveScience. "That makes a big difference in interpretation."

Both Killgrove and Dobson said that the grave's inhabitant could indeed be a third-gender individual. But there are other possibilities as well, they said. Many cultures buried shamans, or people thought to communicate with the spirit world, in unusual or gender-bending ways, Dobson said. But that burial pattern was related to the shaman's social status, not his or her sexuality.

Even if the skeleton is male, the case for a third gender requires more than a reversal of position and burial goods, Hawk said, pointing to work done by Rosemary Joyce, a University of California, Berkeley anthropologist who specializes in sex and gender in archaeology. In a blog post about the find, Joyce wrote that third-gender burials should follow their own pattern, not just a reversal of typical male-female patterns.

The find is intriguing, Dobson said, but there are many possible interpretations still on the table.

"This might be much ado about nothing, or it might be something that tells us something very interesting," Dobson said. "There simply isn't enough data right now to make that statement definitively."

You can follow LiveScience senior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas.

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Health Buzz: Fat Stigma Spreading Across World (U.S. News & World Report)

Study: Fat Stigma Spreading Across Globe

The 'fat stigma' is going global: Parts of the world that once viewed plumpness favorably now hold negative attitudes toward extra pounds, new research suggests. Anthropologists at Arizona State University asked 700 people in 10 countries or regions to answer true or false to statements like "Fat people are lazy" and "A big woman is a beautiful woman." The findings, they say, suggest that negative perceptions about overweight people are becoming a cultural norm. Fat stigma now exists everywhere, but is greatest in places that have traditionally considered larger bodies attractive, like Paraguay, American Samoa, and Puerto Rico, according to the study, published in the April issue of the journal Current Anthropology. "The change has come very, very fast in all these places," study author Alexandra Brewis, executive director of the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University, told The New York Times. "The next big question is whether it's going to create a lot of new suffering where suffering didn't exist before. It's important that we think about designing health messages around obesity that don't exacerbate the problem."

--Should Kids Be Warned About the Dangers of Obesity?

--Too Fat? No More Excuses

Can Blaming People for Being Fat Help Curb Obesity?

Stigma can be a powerful force in changing behavior, and the obese are the new scapegoats for a lot of our ills. In 2008, a letter published in the Lancet noted that the obese contribute more than their thinner compatriots to food scarcity and global warming, given that they eat more and require more transportation energy to move themselves around. While the authors' intent was probably not to make the obese feel worse, the media translations of the study turned up headlines such as "Fat People Cause Global Warming, Higher Food Prices" and "Scientists Blame Fat People for Global Warming."

You might think that the obese could use some blame. As obesity increasingly becomes the norm, maybe society has grown too accepting, U.S. News reports. Perhaps what is lacking is the same thing that helped smokers lose their butts: a healthy dose of social stigma. If only there were more shame in being fat, maybe more people would be motivated to lose weight. But in fact, researchers say, stigma does very little to motivate overweight or obese people to change.

Why, first, are we increasingly intolerant of the obese even as more of us are joining their ranks? "At the same time that weight has gone up, we've had an increased emphasis on the thin ideal in society," says Janet Latner, a psychologist who studies stigma at the University of Hawaii--Manoa in Honolulu. People also see family and friends lose weight and believe that body weight is completely under our control. [Read more: Can Blaming People for Being Fat Help Curb Obesity?]

--Today's Kids Are Fat. Why? They Eat More

--Top 10 Fat States: Where Obesity Rates Are Highest

The Obesity Epidemic Isn't Just About Willpower

Obesity, not so long ago an issue of personal struggle with fatty foods and bulging waistline, has of late become Public Health Enemy No. 1, blamed for almost a third of the rise in healthcare spending. Overeaters now find themselves in the same category as smokers or drug addicts, tainted with the aura of moral weakness and lack of willpower. This perspective has begun to spawn tough-love policies geared to prod people into thinness, writes U.S. News's Bernadine Healy. Discriminating against the chubby in social and even employment settings seems to be gaining on the politically correct scale. And levying a "sin tax" on sweet treats, starting with sugary sodas and fruit juices, has a growing following on Capitol Hill.

The sharpened focus on fatness isn't surprising: Overweight is far more pervasive than either smoking or addiction, affecting over 65 percent of the population, and true obesity has more than doubled since 1980, at a cost estimated at more than a hundred billion dollars a year. The obese have shorter lives and face more diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and cancer than the thin, not to speak of the psychological burden and often lowered self-esteem. But using blame and punishment to inspire willpower and discipline in citizens to curb their appetite, eat more fruits and vegetables, and exercise more is not likely to work. Why? Because it does not begin to take into account the biological complexity of obesity and the enormous biological differences among individuals that make weight loss a snap for some and a near impossibility for others. [Read more: The Obesity Epidemic Isn't Just About Willpower.]

--The Huge Health Toll Obesity Takes on Kids

--5 Lessons From the Nation's Obesity Report Card

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Sands, not lights, cover Gaza archaeology sites (Reuters)

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza (Reuters) – Five thousand years of fascinating history lie beneath the sands of the Gaza Strip, from blinded biblical hero Samson to British general Allenby.

The flat, sandy lands on the Mediterranean's southeastern shore have been ruled by Ancient Egyptians, Philistines, Romans, Byzantines and Crusaders.

Alexander the Great besieged the city. Emperor Hadrian visited. Mongols raided Gaza, and 1,400 years ago Islamic armies invaded. Gaza has been part of the Ottoman Empire, a camp for Napoleon and a First World War battleground.

But archaeology here does not flourish.

"The only way to preserve what we discover is to bury it until the proper tools are available," says Hassan Abu Halabyea of the Gaza ministry of Tourism and Archaeology.

"We lack the capability, the support and the proper materials needed to maintain this historical site or that. We bury it to preserve it from destruction," he says.

ONE-MAN MUSEUM

Waleed Al-Aqqad is an amateur archaeologist who has turned his house into a museum of ancient artifacts, cramming his rooms with old weapons and a collection of clay jars centuries old.

"This is a clay-made oil-fueled lighting tool that goes back to the Greek era of 93 A.D. This is another that was made during the Roman time in 293 A.D," he says.

"This is a spear from the Ottoman times," he beams.

Marble plaques, swords and coins decorate the walls and the courtyard of his home in Khan Younis, adorned with the sign: "Welcome to Aqqad's Cultural Museum."

The 54-year-old Palestinian has spent 30 years searching and digging, sometimes in risky areas near the fortified Israeli border. Israel ended its 38-year occupation of Gaza and pulled out in 2005, but still blockades the hostile enclave.

His antiquities display symbols of the Christian and Muslim civilizations that have marked the territory over 2,000 years, recovered from the sites of ancient churches and cemeteries.

"I undertook this work in order to preserve Palestinian history. I wanted to salvage it from being wasted or falsified. I tried to save whatever can be saved," explains Aqqad, displaying a rusty cannon he says he hid from Israeli troops.

SAINT HILARION

But one man's enthusiasm cannot do justice to what still lies buried in densely populated Gaza, where 1.5 million Palestinians have more on their minds than ancient history.

In Zawayda village, 15 kms (10 miles) from Gaza City, Abu Halabyea's ministry struggles to preserve the site of the Saint Hilarion monastery, battling lack of know-how and tools.

Located near the Nusseirat refugee camp in central Gaza Strip, it dates back to 329 AD when Hilarion returned from Egypt to Gaza after studying under Saint Anthony. It consists of several structures surrounded by an outer wall, including two churches, a burial site, a baptism hall and dining rooms.

First discovered in 1992, excavation work has gone slowly. At several points when digging stopped, the site had to be buried in sand for protection.

Work has been overseen by French experts who make seasonal trips to explore and supervise excavation, but they take their tools with them when they go home, says Abu Halabeya.

Fadel Al-A'utul, in charge of the French work, said two French archaeologists began visiting Gaza in the 1990s but had now shifted their attention to other Arab countries.

The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, and the Jerusalem-based Ecole Biblique et Archaeologique are helping to prepare for a proper museum in Gaza that would be funded by Switzerland, though no date has been finalized for a start up, Al-A'utul said.

In the meantime, Gaza students do what they can to keep archaeological work going. But life's realities get in the way.

Since its seizure by the armed Islamist movement Hamas in 2007, Gaza has paid a heavy price for the hostility its latest rulers display toward Israel, which Hamas refuses to recognize.

Ironically, Gaza today may seem closer to some form of independence than at any time in its history of invasion and occupation. But for the United Nations, Israel's tight control of land, air and sea access means it is still effectively an occupied territory -- a definition Israel strongly denies.

Islamist rocket and mortar strikes at Israeli land and towns are met with Israeli airstrikes and tank fire, in a never ending war of nerves that spilled over into all-out conflict in the winter of 2008-2009 and flared up again just last weekend.

It is hardly an inviting climate for the world's archaeological experts other than, perhaps, the mythical Indiana Jones. And it would not be Gaza if there were no heated disputes concerning the role of the Israelis.

Abu Halabeya accuses them of appropriating antiquities they discovered during the occupation of Gaza which he says are now housed in two museums in Israel, including the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum in Jerusalem which boasts a treasury of finds ranging from the Stone Age to the 18th Century.

"Ministry officials have met representatives of various international institutions and urged them to help in returning antiquities and archaeological items that were taken out of Gaza Strip," he says.

(Editing by Douglas Hamilton)

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About '1,000 relics' stolen during Egypt uprising (AFP)

MADRID (AFP) – Thieves stole around 1,000 relics from museums and archeological sites across Egypt since protests against the government broke out in January, Egypt's minister for antiquities Zahi Hawass said Sunday in a newspaper interview.

"We are investigating all the incidents to find the items. Up until now we have identified many culprits, criminals who were looking for gold or mummies and who lacked knowledge of the value of the items they stole," he told Spanish daily El Mundo.

"They were not organised, they lived near the archeological sites where the objects were kept. They would take advantage of the night to enter the archeological sites and pillage," he added.

"About 1,000 objects were stolen, none of them major items. There is an inventory of everything and it will be difficult for the items to leave the country."

The inventory of all the items that were stolen during the uprising and the weeks of unrest that followed will be given to UNESCO, the UN cultural agency, Hawass said.

The tomb of Hetep-ka at Saqqara and the tomb of Em-pi at Giza as well as the Egyptian museum in Cairo, which houses most of the King Tutankhamen collection, were among the places targeted by thieves, he added.

Hawass was named minister of antiquities last month. He had served as head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities and later became minister of state under ousted president Hosni Mubarak.

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Film claims discovery of nails from Jesus's cross (Reuters)

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Could two of the nails used to crucify Jesus have been discovered in a 2,000-year-old tomb in Jerusalem?

And could they have mysteriously disappeared for 20 years, only to turn up by chance in a Tel Aviv laboratory?

That is the premise of the new documentary film "The Nails of the Cross" by veteran investigator Simcha Jacobovici, which even before its release has prompted debate in the Holy Land.

The film follows three years of research during which Jacobovici presents his assertions -- some based on empirical data, others requiring much imagination and a leap of faith.

He hails the find as historic, but most experts and scholars contacted by Reuters dismissed his case as far-fetched, some calling it a publicity stunt.

Many ancient relics, including other nails supposedly traced back to the crucifixion, have been presented over the centuries as having a connection to Jesus. Many were deemed phony, while others were embraced as holy.

Jacobovici, who sparked debate with a previous film that claimed to reveal the lost tomb of Jesus, says this find differs from others because of its historical and archaeological context.

"What we are bringing to the world is the best archaeological argument ever made that two of the nails from the crucifixion of Jesus have been found," he said in an interview, wearing his trademark traditional knitted cap.

"Do I know 100 percent yes, these are them? I don't."

CONSPIRACY, SLIP-UP OR BASELESS?

The film begins by revisiting an ancient Jerusalem grave discovered in 1990 which was hailed by many at the time as the burial place of the Jewish high priest Caiaphas, who in the New Testament presides over the trial of Jesus.

The grave, along with a number of ossuaries, or bone boxes, was uncovered during construction work on a hillside a few kilometers south of the Old City. It has since been resealed.

Caiaphas is a major figure in the Gospels, having sent Jesus to the Romans and on to his death, and one of Jacobovici's assertions is that the high priest was not such a bad guy.

Two iron nails were found in the tomb, one on the ground and one actually inside an ossuary, and, according to the film, mysteriously disappeared shortly after. Jacobovici says he tracked them down to a laboratory in Tel Aviv of an anthropologist who is an expert on ancient bones.

And if they are indeed the same nails -- eaten away by rust and bent at the end, almost purposefully -- was their disappearance a conspiracy or a logistical slip-up?

No definite answer is offered.

Either way, Jacobovici shows why those nails could have been used in a crucifixion, which was a common practice two thousand years ago. He then offers his theory about why they may have been used in the most famous crucifixion in history.

"If you look at the whole story, historical, textual, archaeological, they all seem to point at these two nails being involved in a crucifixion," he said. "And since Caiaphas is only associated with Jesus's crucifixion, you put two and two together and they seem to imply that these are the nails."

The Israel Antiquities Authority, which oversaw the Jerusalem excavation, said in reaction to the film's release that it had never been proven beyond doubt that the tomb was the burial place of Caiaphas. It also said that nails are commonly found in tombs.

"There is no doubt that the talented director Simcha Jacobovici created an interesting film with a real archaeological find at its center, but the interpretation presented in it has no basis in archaeological findings or research," it said.

(Editing by Jonathan Lynn)

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Guards, guns secure Egypt's ancient treasures again (Reuters)

CAIRO (Reuters Life!) – Security has been tightened around Egypt's antiquities trove, the target of looters during mass protests, the country's top archaeologist said on Monday, adding he would now resume a quest to repatriate prized items.

Several Pharaonic-era treasures went missing when looters broke into the Egyptian Museum on January 28 at the height of clashes between police and protesters who eventually deposed President Hosni Mubarak.

Thieves also broke into a warehouse near the pyramids of Dahshour, 35 km (22 miles) south of Cairo, striking twice within the span of a few days and taking hundreds of items.

Some items have since been returned, and security has been reinstated around several tourist sites after the protests died down and a military council took over from Mubarak.

"We are now protecting the Egyptian monuments, we're putting security everywhere ... we are putting guards with guns everywhere," Zahi Hawass, the Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs, told Reuters. "People feel the stability now."

Last week, four Pharaonic items taken from the museum were returned to the palatial building in Tahrir Square, the center of the mass protests.

These included a gilded wooden statue of Tutankhamun, a gilded bronze and wood trumpet and a fan that belonged to the boy king and a small funerary figurine, or ushabti.

CONTROVERSIAL FIGURE

To date, 37 objects remain missing from the museum, Hawass said, adding the extent of the looting was minute considering the chaos that swept the city during the protests.

"If the police left New York city or any city in Germany or any other part of the world for a few hours, the locals could damage everything," he said. "Egypt's youth protected the museum from major looting and damage."

Hawass, a celebrity who styles himself on Indiana Jones, the fictional explorer played by Hollywood star Harrison Ford, is a controversial figure within Egypt and the international archaeological community.

He came under fire earlier this year over the looting of the museum after he played down the significance of the pieces stolen. He later admitted that eight valuable pieces from the era of Pharaohs Tutankhamun and Akhenaten were stolen, raising questions about why he had said otherwise.

Experts have suggested the thieves knew exactly what they were looking for.

Hawass, who was promoted to the level of minister of state during Mubarak's reshuffle after the uprising gathered pace, resigned early March after colleagues accused him of smuggling antiquities. Prime Minister Essam Sharaf reappointed him to his post a month later.

This week, he was named in a court case involving the Supreme Antiquities Council he heads. Local media said he had been sacked, and jailed, but Hawass said his lawyers had stopped all proceedings on Monday.

Hawass, who has spearheaded a long-running campaign to return Egyptian antiquities on display abroad, said that with the security now restored, he would resume efforts to return the bust of Queen Nefertiti, one of ancient Egypt's most replicated works, from Berlin.

The 3,400-year-old limestone sculpture, famed for its almond-shaped eyes and swan-like neck, has long stirred debate between Germany and Egypt over requests to return it.

"I am defending my country, I am defending antiquities and I will continue to do that," he said.

(Editing by Miral Fahmy)

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Rome's bloody, art-loving emperor Nero in new show (AFP)

ROME (AFP) – It's safe to say that the Emperor Nero -- the subject of a major new exhibition and archaeology trail that opened in the Roman Forum this week -- has always had something of an image problem.

He has gone down in the history books as the man who had his domineering mother Agrippina killed, kicked his pregnant wife Poppaea to death and -- as legend would have it -- played his lyre on a hill while Rome burnt below him.

The new exhibit "Nero", which runs until September 18, sets out to show that the murderous emperor was not all bad and was also a lavish patron of the arts and an innovative urban planner who re-fashioned large parts of ancient Rome.

"It's not an attempt at rehabilitating Nero. It helps to explain his merits, his qualities but also his failings, to give a fuller image," Italy's junior culture minister Francesco Maria Giro told reporters on a tour of the show.

"He was a man full of lights and shadows," Giro said, adding: "The exhibition is set out across the area where Nero conducted his public and private life," including the Roman Forum, the Palatine Hill and his Domus Aurea palace.

Nero became emperor at just 17 in 54 AD thanks to his mother and met his end in 68 AD after his legions and the Roman Senate rebelled against him. He fled Rome and stabbed himself in the throat before he could be arrested.

The victims of his rule included not only his mother and two wives, but also his rival Britannicus and his philosophical mentor Seneca who was accused of plotting to assassinate Nero and was ordered by the emperor to kill himself.

The characters of a life that reads like a cross between a horror film and a soap opera come to life in the exhibition, which begins with busts and portraits of Nero, Agrippina and Poppaea in the Roman Curia in the Forum.

The flavour of emperor's decadent rule is re-created with showings of the cult 1951 film "Quo Vadis?" starring Peter Ustinov as Nero projected inside the Temple of Romulus -- now the church of Saints Cosma and Damiano.

But the centrepiece of the trail is Nero's vast palace complex, the Domus Aurea, which was never completed and was destroyed by a fire after his death.

The palace "was an extremely complex structure" which occupied a vast chunk of ancient Rome, Rossella Rea, director of the Colosseum museum, told AFP.

"It was a complex of various palaces set in a very green landscape and rich in aquatic imagery. We have to remember that the place where the Flavian emperors had the Colosseum built was a large artificial lake," Rea said.

Even the name Colosseum comes from a "colossal" 35-metre high statue of the Sun God with Nero's features that stood on the site.

Visitors can also see for the first time the famous "Cenatio Rotunda" -- a revolving dining room in the palace complex that was discovered in 2009.

But access to the interior of the Domus Aurea itself is barred as the structure has been severely weakened by water leakage and is being restored.

Rea's tip for visitors is to leave plenty of time for the exhibition, spread across eight locations. The average time to complete the tour? Three hours.

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Egypt's antiquities chief to appeal jail term (AFP)

CAIRO (AFP) – A court in Egypt on Sunday sentenced minister for antiquities Zahi Hawass to a year in jail and removal from his post after he refused to implement a court decision, a judicial source told AFP.

Hawass, who was named minister of antiquities last month and was head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities and later minister of state under ousted president Hosni Mubarak, immediately said he would appeal.

The sentence will be suspended until the appeal ruling.

Sunday's sentence against Hawass -- known internationally as a leading Egyptologist -- came after a suit was filed against him in a land dispute while he was still the country's antiquities supremo.

In the ruling, Hawass was ordered to return the land to the plaintiff, but he allegedly refused to do so.

Hawass was sentenced to a year in prison, a fine of 10,000 Egyptian pounds (more than $1,600) in damages plus interest, and to be removed from his post.

He confirmed to reporters that he intended to appeal, and added that the court ruling had not targeted him "personally."

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Animal rights group gives royal couple "cruelty-free silk" gift (Reuters)

NEW DELHI (Reuters Life!) – Animal rights group PETA hopes its wedding gift to Kate Middleton and Prince William, a set of traditional wedding garments made of artificial silk, will help raise awareness of how cruel traditional versions of the fabric can be.

The future King of England and his bride-to-be have been sent a faux-silk sari and sherwani patterned jacket, worn by couples in traditional Indian weddings, by the Indian branch of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the group said on Monday.

"We hope Kate and William enjoy our cruelty-free gift as a symbol of compassion and love for each other and all creatures on their special day," said Poorva Joshipura, Chief Functionary of PETA India.

Around 1,500 silkworms are killed to produce 100 grams of silk, used in many traditional garments in India, the world's biggest consumer and second-largest producer of the fabric after China, a PETA release said.

Artifical silk is made from a blend of polyester, rayon and other man-made fibers. The traditional use of silkworms to make silk garments was criticised by Mahatma Gandhi.

Prince William, second in line to the throne, will marry University sweetheart Middleton in a ceremony on Friday that experts say could be watched by 2 billion people worldwide.

(Reporting by Henry Foy, editing by Elaine Lies)

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Congress measure against wolves seen as precedent (AP)

BILLINGS, Mont. – The White House is poised to accept a budget bill that includes an unprecedented end-run around Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in five Western states — the first time Congress has targeted a species protected under the 37-year-old law.

Lawmakers describe the provision in the spending bill as a necessary intervention in a wildlife dilemma that some say has spun out of control. Sixty-six wolves were reintroduced to the Northern Rockies from Canada in the mid-1990s; there are now at least 1,650.

But legal experts warn the administration's support of lifting protections for the animals opens the door to future meddling by lawmakers catering to anti-wildlife interests.

The endangered act has long been reviled by conservatives who see it as a hindrance to economic development. Now, the administration's support for the wolf provision signals that protections for even the most imperiled animals, fish and plants are negotiable given enough political pressure, experts said.

Officials in Montana and Idaho already are planning public hunts for the predators this fall, hoping to curb increasingly frequent wolf attacks on livestock and big game herds.

"The president could have used some political capital to influence this and he didn't," said Patrick Parenteau, a professor of environmental law from the Vermont Law School. "The message to the environmental community is, don't count on the administration to be there" for the protection of endangered species.

Environmentalists still count Obama as an ally on other issues, ranging from climate change and wilderness preservation to oil and gas exploration. Yet experts in wildlife law say that in the scramble to pass the budget, the administration is circumventing one of the country's bedrock environmental laws.

That's a bitter pill for conservationists, who hoped a Democratic White House would more aggressively protect a law many say was ignored under the Bush administration.

The next potential blow to the law already is looming. A 2012 budget request from the Department of Interior would impose a sharp spending cap on a program that allows citizens to petition for species to be listed as endangered.

Those petitions were used for the majority of the species added to the list over the last four decades.

"We are having the worst attack on the Endangered Species Act in 30 years while we have a Democratic Senate and a Democratic White House," said Kieran Suckling with the Center for Biological Diversity. "They are trying to shut citizens and scientists out of the endangered species process."

To date, the Obama administration has listed 59 species as endangered — a rate of about 30 a year, according to Suckling's group, which closely tracks endangered species issues.

That's up significantly from the Bush years, when the average was eight per year, but far behind the 65 species per year under the Clinton administration.

Western lawmakers who backed the budget bill rider said the wolf issue was unique and merited special intervention. Federal judges over the last decade had repeatedly blocked attempts to downgrade the legal status of an animal population most biologists agreed was thriving.

Meanwhile, wolf attacks have generated resentment among ranchers and sportsmen. Those groups are increasingly frustrated they have been unable to strike back against the predators.

J.B. Ruhl, an expert in the Endangered Species Act at Florida State University, warned against reading too much into the wolf provision, which was latched onto a must-pass bill needed to avert a government shutdown.

"It seems to me the planets had to be aligned just right to make this happen," Ruhl said. "There might be a wing of the Republican party that would love to see the Endangered Species Act reformed, but I don't think they are going to be able to ram that through anytime soon."

Support within the Obama administration for lifting wolf protections predates the budget negotiations. That stance mirrors the government's actions under the Bush administration, when officials first proposed lifting protections.

The White House referred questions to the office of Interior Sec. Ken Salazar.

Interior spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff refused to directly address the legislation. She said the agency views the Endangered Species Act as a "critical safety net" that has prevented the extinction of hundreds of imperiled species.

"It is our responsibility to continue implementing the law," she said.

Some critics of congressional intervention characterized the budget bill rider as Republican meddling on an issue best settled through open hearings. Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, accused the GOP of wanting to "kill wolves instead of cutting pork."

Democratic Sens. Ben Cardin of Maryland and Barbara Boxer of California also have spoken against the measure.

Yet it had a degree of bipartisan support heading into the budget negotiations. Montana's two Democratic senators, Jon Tester and Max Baucus, both took credit for getting the language into the budget bill.

"It was a little hard persuading Sen. Boxer and Sen. Cardin that we're not gutting the Endangered Species Act," Baucus said in an interview. "They don't have the same understanding of the wolf problem that we have."

Congress has stepped into divisive wildlife issues before, such as in the 1980s when it exempted from the endangered act a hydroelectric dam proposed by the Tennessee Valley Authority. The dam was constructed in an area inhabited by an endangered fish, the snail darter.

During the West Coast timber wars of the 1990s, Congress used a legislative rider to allow logging despite potential threats to the endangered spotted owl.

The case of wolves is different because lawmakers are directly targeting an endangered animal, not merely promoting economic development a species was thought to be impeding.

The Supreme Court made clear with a ruling in the snail darter case that legislative riders do not violate the U.S. Constitution, said Fred Cheever with the University of Denver's Sturm School of Law.

Still, Cheever said the intervention with wolves still represents a dangerous precedent because it is being used to negate rulings made by federal courts. That effectively eliminates the judicial branch's role in deciding what legal protections are needed to prevent a species from going extinct.

"It's a scary road to go down," Cheever said. "Everything is a bargaining chip, from bombers to baby care. Riders aren't limited to the Endangered Species Act."

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AP Interview: Branson says island may save lemurs (AP)

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Billionaire Richard Branson says he wants to use one of his private Caribbean islands to help save an endangered species of African primate.

The British entrepreneur plans to introduce lemurs to the undeveloped Moskito Island in the British Virgin Islands. Branson tells The Associated Press that he hopes to create a thriving population to help make up for the loss of their native habitat on the island of Madagascar.

Branson said Monday that he hopes to bring the first group of about 30 from zoos in the coming weeks. He calls it a radical idea and says he will try to address concerns of critics who fear the plan will hurt native lizard and bird populations.

Moskito is about 85 miles (135 kilometers) east of Puerto Rico.

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