ancient artifacts

eBay may turn household junk into online treasure, but archaeologists held their breaths in horrified anticipation when the site first launched over a decade ago thinking that the illegal artifacts market would surely explode in a frenzy of looting.

Now the same archaeologists conclude that the online auction site has had a very different impact on their field. Looting ancient sites turns out to be less profitable than just churning out the fakes and hawking them on eBay.

If your son was captain of the high school football team around 2,000 years ago, the mantle in your living room might look something like this: blue ribbon, gold medal, championship trophy, severed head from the opposing team on a string. Historians, archaeologists, scientists, and people with interesting hobbies have long known that the ancient South American culture responsible for the Nazca Lines in the highlands of Peru collected human heads as trophies.

Museums arent just for ancient artifacts—theyre also for blogs, wikis and podcasts. The Dana Centre at Londons Science Museum electrifies itself this week with a festival of do-it-yourself media. Researchers and artists will lead workshops (BYO laptop) showing novices how to mix their own digital music or use open-source publishing tools. Attendees will learn more about their newfound power at evening lectures on copyright protection, online communities and the like. Please, someone buy a ticket to London so that you can report back on what Robotic Feral Public Authoring is. —Lauren Aaronson