N E W S L E T T E R
Volume XXXI, Number 2. May 2009 Editor: Joan L. Gretz
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What’s Happening
Around the Museum . .
. . .
Justice Really Can Be Blind - Randy Carson, an alternate IVCDMS board member and an El Centro
and IVC teacher, sent me an interesting article by Richard Crawford that
appeared in the April 23 San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper. It details a
shooting battle and fire that occurred in 1877 between a party of Cupeno Indians and some area settlers and the subsequent
trial. I have excerpted the article.
(The
following notice appeared in the San Diego Union on August 18, 1877.)
“There has been some
trouble with Pablo’s band of Indians in Agua Caliente Township…a party of
Indians, numbering 20 or 25, appeared with the purpose of driving off Chatham
Helm and other settlers. A house owned by Helm was set on fire and burned and
an Indian named Francisco was shot and killed.”
The four Helm brothers settled in the back country of San Diego
in the late 1860s. Their plots were on
poor land offering little water but the area was home to about 75 Cupeno Indians led by a chief named Pablo. The group lived
downstream from the eldest Helm brother and they found themselves at his mercy
for the majority of their water supply. A severe drought in 1877 led to further
problems between the two entities. A group of about 25 Indians decided to talk
with Helm about their water problem but the confrontation soon turned deadly
when a three day siege commenced featuring guns and bows and arrows. While news
accounts exaggerated the battle, it is true that one Indian named Francisco was
shot and killed and one of the settler’s homes was torched. The settlers formed an inquest jury the day
after the shooting and after interviewing the single witness, an Indian named
Juan, returned a verdict in minutes saying that “the deceased came to his death
by a gunshot wound being inflicted by some party unknown”.
This verdict was in spite of Juan’s testimony that the Indians
approached Helm saying “We are friends and don’t want to fight” and further
that Helm’s response was “I want to kill an Indian today”. Juan then stated that when Francisco moved
toward the house, Helm shot him dead. After Helm was vindicated of the shooting
he started proceedings to have three of the native participants arrested for
arson. As is often the case, there was
conflicting testimony…the Helm brothers and their friends gave an elaborate
account of the arson while the Indians’ recounting brought forth a cause and
effect story of the fire’s following the settlers shooting spree against the
Indians. The single day of testimony in
Justice Court allowed the presiding justice to declare that “the guilt of the three
Indians accused of the arson was fully established by the three competent
witnesses (all settlers)”. The Indians
consequently were jailed in San Diego.
Twelve years later another settler named Bill Fain located an Indian
witness who testified to the intentional shooting of Francisco by Chat Helm.
Fain, the elected regional constable, arrested Helm but the case was dropped
before coming to trial. So goes history
in our part of the wild, wild West!!!
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UNIVERSITY RETURNS CULTURAL ARTIFACTS
(Excerpted from the Imperial Valley Press, March 11, 2009;
article by Nicolas Taborek)
Artifacts from an ancient Mexican culture are heading home after
more than 50 years as property of the University of California, Berkeley. Eighty boxes of archaeological objects from
the prehistoric city of Cuicuilco in Mexico’s Central
Valley made a stop at the Mexican Consulate in Calexico on their way to Mexico
City. Baja California archaeologists and Pablo Jesus Arnaud Carreno,
the local Mexican consul, facilitated the return of the ceramic figurines and
tools that date from between 800 B.C. and 100 B.C. Cuicuilco was one
of the main urban centers of the Preclassical period
in Mesoamerica. Its cultural development
was part of the transition from a simple agricultural society to a more complex
social, political and economic structure. The items included in the collection
were discovered during excavations in the area in 1957. The artifacts were
accompanied by test results, notes, maps and drawings from the original
dig. It is planned to have the objects
studied by specialists at the National Institute of Anthropology and History in
Baja California according to Julia Bendimez
Patterson, director of the institute.
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Pregnant Turtle Fossil Found
(from
an article published by the Associated Press)
Paleontologists say that a 75 million year old turtle fossil
uncovered in southern Utah has a clutch of eggs inside, making it the first
prehistoric pregnant turtle found in the United States. At least three eggs are
visible from the outside of the fossil and CT scan images are being studied in
search of others inside.
GREEN BLING (Excerpts from an article by Stephan Reebs, Natural History magazine, October 2008)
When agriculture arose about 11,000 years ago in the Middle
East, fields weren’t the only green things cropping up. People’s accessories were growing greener
too, according to a comprehensive study of a group of stone beads, the bling of yestermillennia, unearthed
at eight dig sites in Israel.
The sites are between 8,200 and 13,000 years old. Of the 221 beads found there, 89 beads or 40%
are made of green stone including malachite, turquoise and fluorapatite. The collections mark the first substantial
appearance of stone beads, green ones in particular, anywhere in the
archaeological record. In the
hunter-gatherer societies that preceded the dawn of agriculture, beads
(typically of antler, bone, tooth, ivory, or shell) were white, yellow, brown,
red or black with only a few examples of green soapstone.
The minerals used to fashion the green beads discovered in
Israel came from as far away as northern Syria and Saudi Arabia. Thus, people must have gone to great lengths
to obtain stones of the latest color. It
is proposed that with the advent of agriculture, the color of young leaves came
to symbolize fertility and good health.
So, green beads were probably used as fertility charms and amulets
against the evil eye.
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CABAZON TRIBE GETS STOLEN ARTIFACTS RETURNED (Article by Associated Press)
From Palm Springs – The FBI returned stolen pottery, hand-woven baskets and other
artifacts to an American Indian tribe recently, three and a half years after
they were stolen from a museum in the southern California desert.
The 17 pieces were taken in early 2005 from the Cabazon Band of
Mission Indians Cultural Museum in Indio said retired FBI Special Agent Joseph
Stuart who investigated the theft.
Steven Farmer of Indio pleaded guilty to receiving stolen property in
connection with the thefts and was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison.
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13,000-Year Old Stone Tool Cache in Colorado Shows Evidence of
Camel, Horse Butchering
(Article
from University of Colorado at Boulder News Center, February 25, 2009)
A biochemical analysis of a rare Clovis-era stone tool cache
recently unearthed within the city limits of Boulder, Colorado indicates some
of the implements were used to butcher ice-age camels and horses that roamed
North American until their extinction about 13,000 years ago, according to a
University of Colorado study. The study
is the first to identify protein residue from extinct camels on North American
stone tools and only the second to identify horse protein residue on a
Clovis-age tool. The Clovis culture is believed by many archaeologists to
coincide with the time the first Americans arrived on the continent from Asia
via the Bering Land Bridge about 13,000 to 13,500 years ago.
Named the Mahaffy Cache after Boulder
resident and landowner Patrick Mahaffy, the
collection is one of only two Clovis caches that have been analyzed for protein
residue from ice-age mammals. In
addition to the camel and horse residue, a third item from the cache is the
first Clovis tool ever to test positive for sheep while a fourth specimen
tested positive for bear. The Mahaffy cache consists
of 83 stone implements ranging from salad plate-sized, elegantly crafted
bifacial knives and a unique tool resembling a double-bitted axe to small
blades and flint scraps. Discovered in
May 2008 by a landscaping crew working on the property, the cache was unearthed
with a shovel under about 18 inches of soil and was packed tightly into a hole
about the size of a large shoebox. It
appeared to have been untouched for thousands of years. The artifacts were
buried in coarse, sandy sediment overlain by dark, clay-like soil and appear to
have been stored at the edge of an ancient stream. It was posited that someone
gathered together some of their most spectacular tools and other scraps and
stuck them all into a small hole, fully expecting to come back at a later date
to retrieve them. Much of the stone used
to craft the tools originated in Colorado’s Western Slope and perhaps as far
north as southern Wyoming. One of the
tools, an oval-shaped bifacial knife that had been sharpened all the way
around, is almost exactly the same shape, size and width of an obsidian knife
found in a cache known as the Fenn Cache from south
of Yellowstone Park.
PRESIDENT OBAMA TO ENCOURAGE TRIBAL REPRESENTATION AT UNITED
NATIONS
President Barack Obama
is considering a petition that would allow representative from each tribal
nation located within the United States to have a seat at the United Nations as
full voting members…a decision that has taken the world by surprise.
The plan would allow each indigenous Red Indian Nation,
currently referred to as “tribes” or “bands”, to have a voice in international
decisions regarding global peace and policy at UN headquarters in New York City
and once and for all join the community of the world’s nations. The
qualifications for membership in the UN stipulate that a nation must have its
own language, its own land, and its own culture or way of life.
Watch for further developments on this issue and look for the
petition circulating within your community.
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THE DEBATE GOES ON . . . WERE PEOPLE IN AMERICA 14,000 YEARS
AGO?
(From an article by Maggie Fox, Reuters, April 2008)
DNA from ancient human feces found in a cave in Oregon provides
biological verification that people were in North America 14,000 years
ago. The findings, published in the
journal Science, add to growing evidence that people were living in the
Americas earlier than the once widely accepted date of 13,000 years ago, based
on bones from the so-called Clovis culture in southwestern United States.
In with the dried-out samples of excrement, known as coprolites,
are sinew and plant fiber threads, hide, basketry, cords, rope, wooden pegs and
animal bones. The dates of the
coprolites are more than 1,000 years earlier than currently accepted dates for
the Clovis-complex, researchers wrote.
Dennis Jenkins, a senior archaeologist at the University of Oregon,
found the dried-out samples in caves known as the Paisley Caves, about 220
miles southeast of Eugene, Oregon on the eastern side of the Cascade Mountain
range. The issue of when humans first
arrived in the Americas is contentious.
Most experts agree that they migrated from Siberia over a land bridge
that once existed in what is now the Bering Straits between Alaska and
Russia. The best evidence of this travel
theory eminates from the Clovis culture.
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NEW NEANDERTHAL EVIDENCE GIVES FOOD FOR THOUGHT . . .
(Excerpts from National Geographic, October 2008; This is
just a tease to have you read the entire article!)
In March 1994 some spelunkers exploring an extensive cave system
in northern Spain poked their lights into a small side gallery and noticed two
human mandibles jutting out of the sandy soil. The cave, called El Sidron, lay in the midst of a remote upland forest of
chestnut and oak trees in the province of Asturias, just south of the Bay of
Biscay. Suspecting that the jawbones
might date back as far as the Spanish Civil War, when Republican partisans used
El Sidron to hide from Franco’s soldiers, the cavers
immediately notified the local Guardia Civil.
But when police investigators inspected the gallery, they discovered the
remains of a much larger and older tragedy.
Within days, law enforcement officials had shoveled out some 140
bones, and a local judge ordered the remains sent to the national forensic
pathology institute in Madrid. By the
time scientists finished their analysis (it took the better part of six years),
Spain had its earliest cold case file.
The bones from El Sidron were not Republican soldiers,
but the fossilized remains of a group of Neanderthals who lived, and perhaps
died violently, approximately 43,000 years ago.
The locale places them at one of the most important geographical
intersections of prehistory, and the date puts them squarely at the center of
one of the most enduring mysteries in all of human evolution.
The Neanderthals, our closest prehistoric relatives, dominated
Eurasia for the better part of 200,000 years.
During that time, they poked their famously protruding noses into every
corner of Europe and beyond. Scientists
estimate that even at the height of the Neanderthal occupation of western
Europe, their total number probably never exceeded 15,000. (Now read National Geographic, 10/2008, p 38
for the rest!)
Recommended Reading . . . While recovering from recent surgery, I managed to read
selectively through a large cache of periodicals that were stashed beside my
bed waiting for just such an opportunity.
If you don’t have a similar pile of reading material handy at home, a
visit to your local library will probably provide you with some of these
resources and, hopefully, you just might find them as fascinating a read as I
did . . .
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, September 2008, p 127; article by Peter Gwin
Lost Tribes of the Green Sahara…How a dinosaur hunter uncovered the Sahara
Desert’s strangest Stone Age graveyard.
Archaeologist unearthed the 6,000 year-old bones of a woman buried at a
site called Gobero in northern Niger. The crew located over 200 graves near a
vanished lake in the Sahara that hints of a once fertile land. Artifacts found with and/or near the burials
disclose painted ceramic patterns from both the Kiffian
and Tenerian cultures that flourished in these areas
more than 1,000 years apart. The Kiffian lived 10,000 to 8,000 years ago and other than a
few fishing tools (harpoons and hooks) carved from animal bones, they left
little physical evidence of how they lived. Pottery sherds
different from those of the Tenerian are found in the
same locales. The Tenerian
culture thrived 6,500 to 4,500 years ago and their graves disclose a myriad of
grave goods including tools crafted from green volcanic rocks and pendants
carved from hippo ivory.
SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE, April 2009, p 49; article by Donavan
Webster
The Dino Wars. . .Across the West and the Great Plains of America, prospectors –
and poachers – are excavating fossils in a cash-fueled free-for-all that often
pits them against the scientists and the law.
Larry Shackelford, a special agent with the BLM in Salt Lake City,
says, “Newly harvested fossils are
flooding the market. Can we run down
each one and check where it came from?
The answer is NO. We just don’t
have the manpower.” To snare poachers, federal agents are charged with policing
prospectors across some 500 million acres.
Nobody knows how much fossil material is being taken off public lands
and smuggled out to other areas, nor do they know the scale of what’s being
lost. Dinosaur skeletons fetch millions at auctions, while local rock shops
offer more affordable finds. Since the
book and movie Jurassic Park were
released, fossil collecting has gone into overdrive.
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, December 2008, p 60, article by Karen E.
Lange
The Stolen Past…This selection elucidates the wide spread looting that imperils
the Holy Land’s sacred sites. About 2000
archaeological sites pepper the West Bank of Israel that is subdivided into a
patchwork of parcels, some controlled by Israel, some by Palestine and some
jointly. Legal and physical obstacles
hamper police, leaving sites and artifacts vulnerable to looters. While some major sites remain unharmed, in
many places the scale of the destruction is almost industrial. Looters attack ancient sites with backhoes
and small bulldozers, scraping away the top layer of earth across areas the
size of several football fields. Then,
guided by metal detectors, they sink shafts to extract anything of value. Among
the rock-hewn tombs that honeycomb the hills, grave robbers methodically clean
out centuries old chambers, dumping the bones and hauling off the limestone
ossuaries. Few job opportunities in this area, inadequate law enforcement by
both Palestinian and Israeli authorities that leave archaeological sites
unprotected, and the demand for artifacts within the tourist market have
created the perfect setting for looting.
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, December 2008, p 34; article by Tom Mueller
The Holy Land’s Visionary Builder: HEROD…This article opens with a color photo of King
Herod’s three-tiered palace which cascades down the north face of Masada, the
work of a king long reviled as a villain but today recognized as a master
architect. With Roman techniques and
unique ambition, he created audacious masterpieces of stunning beauty. More
than two millennia after Herod’s death, great stones that supported his
magnificent Second Temple complex still stand in Jerusalem. Each day the plaza at the Western Wall fills
with Jews whose prayers include hopes for a restoration of the temple. Eight miles south of Jerusalem where the last
stunted olive trees and stony cornfields fade into the naked badlands of the Judaean desert, a hill rises abruptly, a steep cone sliced
off at the top. This is Herodium, one of the grand architectural creations of Herod
the Great who raised this low knoll into a towering memorial of snowy, polished
white limestone. In 2007, Israeli archaeologist Ehud Netzer
and his team discovered the tomb of Herod in a dramatic setting halfway up the
300-foot tall mound at Herodium, halfway between his
summit fortress and the sprawling grounds of his desert retreat below.
A
Few Impressions of My Sojourn to Shoshone and Death Valley, California
by Rich Ryan, El Centro
My friend Arnie and I drove to Shoshone, CA on the weekend of February
6th to attend the Sierra Club’s California-Nevada Wilderness and
Desert Committees meeting (http://www.desertreport.org/). The get-together is held annually at the
Flower building in Shoshone, a small town located at the southeastern edge of
Death Valley National Park and close to the Nevada state line. Since there are only about ten buildings
along Route 127 running through Shoshone, the town is easy to find.
Unfortunately we discovered that it’s also easy to miss because that’s almost
what we did. “Was that the place?” That
was the question as we went hurrying through and then turning around. Most attendees at the meeting camped out in
the parking lots surrounding the Flower building. Some slept in their cars. However, one woman remarked that a Prius is too cramped for both husband and wife to rest
comfortably. Most of those Sierra Club folks were fairly hardy however. We were disappointed when it rained somewhat
heavily on Friday night and most of Saturday and noticed that there was some
complaining about the presence of mud and the absence of sun even from a number
of the diehard club members.
The two dozen club
members who had requested space on the agenda set the topics for the
session. Protecting the wilderness and
open spaces in the high and low deserts was the focus. As interesting as the desert reports were, I
had come primarily to see Death Valley (http://www.nps.gov/deva). We managed a quick two-hour trip on Saturday
morning before the meeting began.
Ignoring the rain as best we could, we drove west on Route 178,
designated as Badwater Road, to a spot at the Ashford
Mill ruins. The mountains and the
mineral coloring featured on the rocks and hills stood out beautifully in the
gray weather. Fortunately there was very
little traffic so we could take our time and enjoy the sights. We wanted to
ensure our attendance at the opening sessions, so we left our self-guided sight
seeing tour and returned to Shoshone.
The town is located at about 1600 feet, a change from our sea-level
status in El Centro. On Saturday night a
brilliant moon peeked through the clouds as the temperature dropped
significantly. We were thankful to be
lodging at the spartan but friendly Shoshone Inn
rather than in a drafty rain-soaked tent.
The formal meeting broke
up shortly after noon on Sunday but the planned group hike was canceled since
continued rain still threatened. Arnie and I headed back to Death
Valley National Park. This time we
traveled north to Death Valley Junction and west on Route 190 into the park’s
center at Furnace Creek. Luck was with
us as we were rewarded with a sunny day causing the mountains surrounding Death
Valley to simply glow. The rain that had
made our Saturday soggy filtered down as snow on the Amaragosa
and Panamint Ranges. Visibility was
forever in all directions. We were
presented with California at its best and for a moment I even imagined I was Huell Howser conducting a
television travel log. The vistas from
the Zabriskie Point overlook alone was worth the 7.5
hours drive from El Centro. I had
purchased a Cannon 880 digital Elf specifically for this trip and was able to
take some beautiful photos. Zabriskie Point overlooks badlands of black and beige with
hills and valleys that appear as connected, rounded skeletal structures absent
of vegetation.
Wherever we went in
Death Valley, we encountered German, Japanese, French and Russian visitors who
seemed spellbound by the unusual scenery, photographing and chatting with us,
among themselves and with the tourists from the other countries.
At the park
headquarters we perused the exhibits and obtained the National Park Service’s
Death Valley visitor’s map and the vehicle sticker. We incurred no charge since I had just
obtained an America the Beautiful National Parks and Lands Pass. The pass costs $10 for seniors and remains
effective until one expires. It allows
free entry into all NPS sites nationwide and provides discounts on campgrounds
as well. The pass can be purchased at
any BLM office.
We had lunch at the
Furnace Creek Ranch Forty-Niner Café and toured the
borax mining machinery in the rear of the borax museum. With the date groves, golf course and
surrounding mountains the ranch is reminiscent of a less glitzy Palm Springs. Later in the day, we walked up the Harmony
Borax Works interpretive trail where Chinese laborers mined the borax salts
from the desert floor and huge 20-mule teams carted out tons of the
mineral. The sun began to break under
clouds lining the Panamint Range to the west and the facing mountains reflected
an orange stripe running horizontally for miles along the mountain’s brownish
face.
Death Valley
Impressions (continued from the previous page)
But it was from the
terrace of the classy Furnace Creek Inn ($340 for a standard view) that we saw
a spectacular sunset over the snowy Panamint Range. We had hoped to drive south on Badwater Road from Furnace Creek and perhaps take a short
hike around the Artists’ Palette area, but this road was washed out due
to Saturday’s rains. The view from the
Furnace Creek Inn’s terrace made up for that disappointment.
On Monday morning we
began our trip home, driving south through the beautiful and lightly used
Mojave Desert National Preserve (http://www.nps.gov/moja/). What had been falling as heavy rain earlier
turned to snow at 3400 feet. (We were
confident of having the exact altitude reading by referring to Arnie’s GPS.) The
snow lasted for some time, whitening the many Joshua trees and yuccas dotting
the desert. We experienced rain through
most of the desert road trip but it began to diminish just south of Palo Verde.
Our reward for enduring the precipitation should be a good desert flowers year.
I look forward to
returning to Death Valley during the winter months so that I can take advantage
of the many hiking opportunities available in the park. We are fortunate indeed to have one of this
planet’s most dramatic locations within a half day’s drive of the Imperial
Valley. We should all remain cognizant
of our responsibility to enjoy and protect our beautifully scenic desert lands
whenever we visit.
Increases for the Historic Preservation Fund Included in
President Obama’s FY 2010 Budget
Recently published information tells us that President Barack Obama’s budget for fiscal
year 2010 was released on May 7, 2009 and includes increases for the Historic
Preservation Fund. The Department of Interior is funded at $12 billion that
includes $77.675 million for the Historic Preservation Fund and $20 million for
the Save America’s Treasures Program.
The funding level for the states is $46.5 million, an increase of $4.315
million over FY09. The Tribes are funded
at $8 million, a $1.052 increase from FY09.
Preserve America had been zeroed out in FY09 and found new support in
the FY10 budget at $3.175 million. In
all the increase in funding in FY10 for the Historic Preservation Fund over
FY09 levels is an increase of $8.691 million.
Meanwhile, the Historic Preservation Caucus, chaired by
Representative Russ Carnahan (D-MO) and Michael Turner (R-OH), has sent a
request to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and
Related Agencies that is signed by 83 members of the House. For the SHPOs, the
request is $55 million of which $5 million is specifically designated for
records digitization grants. The request
for the Tribes is $30 million, $30 million for Save America’s Treasures, and
$10 million for Preserve America. The
total of this request is $125 million for historic preservation!
The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment
and Related Agencies is hoping to mark up the House bill during the first or
second week following the Memorial Day recess.
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HAVE YOU HEARD OF IDA, THE MISSING LINK ???
Scientists have discovered the oldest and most complete fossil
of a human ancestor.
An incredible 95% complete fossil of a 47 million year old human
ancestor has been discovered and, after two years of secret study, an
international team of scientists has revealed it to the world. The fossil’s remarkable state of preservation
allows an unprecedented glimpse into early man evolution. Discovered in Messel
Pit, Germany, it represents the moment before anthropoid primates - the group
that would later evolve into humans, apes and monkeys – began to split from
lemurs and other prosimian primates. This groundbreaking discovery fills a
critical gap in human and primate evolution.
Jarn Humun of the Natural History Museum,
University of Oslo, Norway uncovered the fossil through a chance encounter with
a fossil dealer in Hamburg, Germany.
Immediately recognizing its significance, he procured it for his museum. He learned it had been hidden for 25 years in
a private collection.
The fossil’s analysis has revealed its age. Named “Ida” by the scientific team, she lived
in the early Middle Eocene during a critical period in evolutionary history
when, after the extinction of the dinosaurs, mammals first began to thrive on the
planet. The Earth was beginning to take the shape that we recognize today –
with the Himalayas forming, and early horses, bats, whales and many other fauna
and flora evolving.
A cast of the specimen will be on display in the “Extreme
Mammals” exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History in New York
soon. A new Book, The Link, tells the full
story of Ida’s discovery and its impact on the scientific world.
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Don’t Build a Pyramid in Your Backyard…You May End Up in Court!
In the November 2008 issue of National Geographic, information
was shared that Egypt is irked.
It seems that more folks go to Las Vegas, home of a phony pyramid and
other ersatz Egyptiana, than visit the awe-inspiring
Nile landmarks. The country wants to copyright its treasures, thus requiring
anyone who wishes to create a fake replica to secure a permit and to pay a fee
prior to proceeding with construction.
“The funds generated will help to preserve these monuments,” says Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s chief
archaeologist. Lawyers say that the pyramids are too old to protect. But new buildings are in luck. Since 1990, U.S. law has extended copyright
protection from architectural plans to the structures themselves.
More on:
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