Anger as Berlusconi Defends Il Duce (posted 9-12-03)

Richard Owen, writing in the Times (London) (September 12th, 2003):

The Jewish community and the Italian Left were yesterday united in fury after Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister, appeared to defend Benito Mussolini on the ground that he had"never killed anyone".

The remarks appeared in La Voce di Rimini in an article by Nicholas Farrell, a British journalist who lives in Predappio, where Mussolini was born and is buried.

The article said that Signor Berlusconi had been asked to compare Saddam Hussein with Mussolini. He had responded that"Mussolini never killed anyone. Mussolini used to send people on vacation in internal exile." His office said that the quotation had"not been confirmed".

Sandro Bondi, spokesman for Signor Berlusconi's party, said historians accepted that Mussolini's regime was not comparable with Nazism or communism.

Amos Luzzatto, head of the Italian Jewish communities, said Mussolini might not have built extermination camps, but contributed to creating them.

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Cleopatra's Dye Secret is Revealed (posted 9-12-03)

David Derbyshire and Roger Highfield, writing in the Daily Telegraph (London) (September 12th, 2003):

MORE than 500 years after the secret was lost, a British scientist claims to have rediscovered how the Romans created imperial purple - the colour that adorned the togas of emperors and the sails of Cleopatra's ship.

Imperial purple is one of the oldest dyes known to man. Derived from the murex mollusc, it became the monopoly of Roman emperors after Nero. However, the secret of how to make it is thought to have been lost in the sack of Constantinople in 1453.

John Edmonds, a retired engineer, says he rediscovered the secret after researching the fermentation of indigo pigments in woad. After his work was published in The Daily Telegraph, he was contacted by an Israeli historian trying to solve another mystery - how ancient Jews used a sky blue dye akin to imperial purple.

"I reasoned that imperial purple pigment would need to be dissolved by fermentation in the same way as indigo," Mr Edmonds told the British Association science festival yesterday.

Using a jar of cockles, a close relative of the murex mollusc, he fermented their pigment in a solution of water and wood ash. The purple pigment turned light green. When wool was placed in the dye, it went green but in contact with light, it turned purple.

"This method was well within the technology of the Iron Age and could easily be kept secret. This I submit was the most likely method used to dye the togas of the Roman emperors and the sails of Cleopatra's ship as she sailed to her doom with Mark Antony at the Battle of Actium," he said.

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Scholars Identify Biblical Tunnel (posted 9-12-03)

Fiona Harvey, writing in the Financial Times (London) (September 12th, 2003):

The Old Testament holds some tantalising secrets for archaeologists. While scholars disagree on the historical veracity of its stories and events, the grains of fact have led many to seek evidence to support Bible stories. Some have even searched for Noah's Ark, the tablets of the Ten Commandments, or King David's lost treasure, with little to show for their pains.

For one group of scientists, the search has been justified. A tunnel under ancient Jerusalem is confirmed in this week's Nature magazine as being the water channel mentioned in the Bible. The discovery tells ancient historians much about Iron Age technology.

The structure was built in the reign of King Hezekiah to bring water from the Gihon spring into the city of Jerusalem, in case of a siege by the Assyrians, and is one of the longest ancient water tunnels built without intermediate shafts. The Siloam tunnel was built, carbon dating confirms, around 700BC.

Based on their findings, the researchers believe that the biblical text describing the tunnel was an accurate record of its construction.

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Billionaire in Court Fight over 'Fake' Pharaoh (posted 6-17-03)

Amelia Gentleman, writing in the Guardian (London) (September 11th, 2003):

As the head of both Christie's and Gucci, and the owner of one of Europe's finest private art collections, Francois Pinault has always prided himself on having an eye for quality.

But a legal battle over the age and provenance of a black marble statue said to be of an Egyptian king, Sesostris III, has called his judgment into question and threatens the reputations of leading museum curators and historians.

Mr Pinault, a billionaire who has a reputation as France's most ruthless businessman, launched proceedings in the appeal court yesterday, claiming that the statue is a very expensive dud.

He and his wife, Maryvonne, bought it for pounds 540,000 through the French auction house Druout in November 1998, apparently in the spirit of last-minute home improvements, before a dinner party they were throwing that night for President Jacques Chirac.

The 57cm-high figure was on display in their dining room that evening and guests were told that the king's stern features were sculpted sometime between 1878 and 1843 BC.

In the next few weeks, however, doubts about the statue began to emerge. Mr Pinault received calls from art collectors around the world who said they had been offered the same item, but had rejected it because they were suspicious about its authenticity.

Mr Pinault's lawyer told the court:"Not only is the statuette not contemporaneous with Sesostris III, it is a fake and a modern one at that."

When he is not running his business empire - which, as well as Christie's and Gucci, embraces the Printemps department stores, a leading music and books chain, Fnac, the magazine Le Point, one of France's greatest red wines, Chateau Latour, several ski resorts and a first division French football club - Mr Pinault devotes himself to art.

His chateau outside Paris is filled with works by Mondrian, Miro, Pollack, Modigliano, Warhol, Picasso and Rothko. Three years ago he bought most of a small island on the Seine, the site of a former Renault car plant, and is transforming it at vast expense into a modern art museum to rival the Saatchi collection. It wil house the works he has been collecting since 1990.

"He is attached to his reputation as a serious collector," one of his associates told Le Parisien yesterday."He couldn't bear the idea that there might be doubts about any of the works acquired by him."

Mr Pinault's case has been hampered by the fact that one of the key experts on the era was the Egyptologist responsible for authenticating the statue for the 1998 auction, and he maintains it is genuine.

Two other art historians, affiliated to the Louvre, testified in earlier court hearings that the statue was made after the Pharaoh's death to commemorate him, dating the work around a century later.

But a young Egyptologist employed by Mr Pinault believes the statue is modern - arguing that it bears traces of having been worked on with modern tools. Luc Watrin believes that 20th century tomb-raiders stole the hunk of marble from a Sesostris III-era temple and carved the work themselves, between 50 and 100 years ago."This statuette is a crude copy of a royal effigy, incorporating numerous stylistic anomalies," he said.

Yesterday's court appeal seeks to overturn an earlier judgment against Mr Pinault, and aims to have the purchase annulled. The judgment is expected in a month.