Katyn massacre 70 years on

70 years since the Katyn massacre
Russian and Polish Prime Ministers, Vladimir Putin and Donald Tusk, met, today, at the site of the execution of 20,000 Polish officers in Smolensk, Russia, to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre. It is the first time that Russia has marked the anniversary. Until 1990, when Gorbachev admitted Soviet responsibility, Russia blamed the massacre on Germany. Could this year’s unprecedented joint ceremony be a sign of improved relations between Russia and Poland?
The BBC reports.
Video footage of the ceremony is also available on the website of the BBC.

First edition of the works of St Augustine for sale
An annotated edition of St Augustine’s complete works edited by Erasmus is due to be auctioned by Sotheby’s in Paris on May 18th. The 10-volume edition was printed in Basle, Switzerland, between 1527 and 1529 and is meticulously annotated from 1532, two years after Henry’s VIII break with the Roman Catholic Church. The identity of the annotator is unknown and the majority of the annotations have not been studied academically. The volumes are estimated to fetch between €200,000 and €300,000 (£177,000-£266,000).
Mark Brown reports in The Guardian.

Global culture officials meet in Cairo to demand return of ancient treasures to their countries of origin
Representatives from 20 different countries are meeting in Cairo, today, to discuss how to recover ancient treasures which they claim have been stolen and displayed overseas. The two-day conference is organised by Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities headed by Zahi Hawass. Attendees include representatives from Peru, Greece, Italy and China. Greece, for example, demands that the Parthenon Marbles are given back by the British Museum; officials in Peru demand the return of Inca treasures from Yale University.
The BBC reports.

The first urban society in the Middle East
Science Daily reports on the latest research by a team of archaeologists from the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute which has uncovered new evidence about a prehistoric society believed to be one of the world’s first urban civilizations in the ancient Middle East. The mound of Tell Zeidan in the Euphrates River Valley near Raqqa, Syria, has not been built upon or excavated for 6,000 years. However, recent excavations suggest that a society rich in trade, copper metallurgy and pottery production and one of the first to develop social classes according to power and wealth, existed on the site between 4,000 and 6,000 BC.