Archaeologists have developed a new method of dating ancient ceramic artifacts by measuring their moisture content.

The technique involves measuring the mass of a sample and then heating it to around 500C in a furnace. This removes the water that has combined with it over its lifetime.

The sample is then weighed in a “super-accurate” device, known as a microbalance, to determine the precise rate at which the material will combine with water over time.

Using the time law, it is possible to extrapolate the data to calculate the time it will take to regain the mass lost on heating – revealing the sample’s age.

A Swiss art gallery has surrendered 251 ancient artifacts worth $2.7 million, most of them illegally excavated in Italy.

Raffaele Mancino of the Carabinieri art squad said the objects were returned by brothers who run the gallery in Geneva. The police said this was the successful end of an operation they codenamed “Phoenix.”

The returned objects were illegally excavated in Etruscan tombs in central Italy, as well as burial sites in the southern part of the country, according to a Culture Ministry news release.

Germany, Belgium and Britain have returned hundreds of priceless artifacts back to Greece.

…the oldest a 5th century coin, Greek Culture Ministry officials said Tuesday. Among the items retuned from Germany included 96 copper and ceramic pots and vessels, dating from the 3rd or 4th century BC from Thessaly, in northern Greece.

Officials said the items were seized by customs authorities at Nuremberg, Germany in 2007 in a truck arriving from Greece.

South Korean and U.S. officials are working together to excavate the remains of American soldiers killed during Korean War.

In Hwacheon, there was a bloody battle in June 1951 between U.S. forces of the 7th and 24th army divisions of the U.S. 9th Corps and Chinese troops backing North Korea, it said. 

The joint recovery team has found a collection of bone fragments and belongings in its latest work, it said. 

It will take at least six months to fully identify the bones, said Jay Silverstein, an archaeologist working with the Hawaii-based JPAC.

Two medieval frescoes looted from a tomb near Naples in 1982 and recovered in a raid have been returned to Italy.

Speaking alongside the head of the Carabinieri Police Unit for the Protection of the Cultural Heritage, General Gianni Nistri, De Caro said the frescoes were probably the most important pieces of recently recovered art. They originally adorned the walls of one of the famous tufa chambers called Fornelle at Calvi south of Monte Cassino, site of the Ancient Roman city of Cales.

The particularly ornate chamber – many of whose frescoes are still missing – is believed to have been the tomb of 11th-century Count Pandolfo and his wife Countess Gualferada.