They are intended to ensure significant artefacts are not lost to the public and will instead be able to go on display in museums. The move follows the growth in popularity of metal detecting. – BBC

“Researchers excavating a Byzantine church in northern Israel have uncovered a second- or third-century altar to Greek pastoral god Pan. Incorporated into a church wall, the basalt pillar sheds light on the intertwined nature of early Christianity and pagan beliefs.” – Smithsonian Magazine

“For the second time this year, the Tate is cutting jobs — 120 of them, or about 12 percent of the institution’s overall workforce. The staffing reduction comes as the museum faces an expected loss of £56 million ($75.3 million) in self-generated income due to closures for almost half of 2020.” Earlier this year, 295 staffers were made redundant across the Tate’s four branches in London, Liverpool, and Cornwall. – Artnet

The Artemio Franchi stadium, designed by Pier Luigi Nervi in 1930, is regularly featured in architecture textbooks and is even on a page in Italy’s passport. But the seats are uncomfortable, some of them are exposed to rain, and there’s no place for revenue-generating shops or eateries. The team’s owner, with the fans on his side, wants to tear it down and build a new one; preservationists are aghast; the culture ministry in Rome will be the referee. – The New York Times

Certainly, images of the Prophet of Islam have been far, far less common than those of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary and other Christian figures, and Muslim culture, especially in the Arab world, has tended to disapprove of pictures of any human or animal. Yet miniatures and manuscript illuminations featuring Muhammad did start appearing in the late Middle Ages in the Persianate world, and a calligraphic equivalent in Arabic was developed as well. – The Conversation

“The National Roman Museum recently received the piece of stone, which was inscribed in black marker, ‘To Sam, love Jess, Rome 2017.’ ‘I feel terrible for not only stealing this item from its rightful place, but writing on it,’ said the note accompanying the item. ‘It was a big mistake on my part and only now, as an adult, do I realize just how thoughtless and despicable it was.'” – Artnet

A long period of relative peace, prosperity, and globalisation after the Cold War had lulled the museum field into complacency not only about its financial viability, but also about its relevance and credibility. The Covid-19 crisis—which coincided with a painful reckoning with the intertwined legacies of colonialism and racial injustice—has accelerated a push to adapt and innovate, in six principal ways. – The Art Newspaper

“Once a thriving international trade hub, the archeological site of Hegra (also known as Mada’in Saleh) has been left practically undisturbed for almost 2,000 years. … Hegra was the second city of the Nabataean kingdom, but Hegra does much more than simply play second fiddle to Petra: it could hold the key to unlocking the secrets of an almost-forgotten ancient civilization.” – Smithsonian Magazine

Hailed as “the Sistine Chapel of the ancients”, archaeologists have found tens of thousands of paintings of animals and humans created up to 12,500 years ago across cliff faces that stretch across nearly eight miles in Colombia. – The Guardian

“The resurgence over the past two decades of artists working in the grand manner suggests that the energies inherent to this style didn’t disappear but were merely redirected: into cinema like that of Cecil B. DeMille; into cycles of narrative painting such as the African American history paintings of Jacob Lawrence; and even into political spectacle, lingering on in the rallies of President Trump. And now they are coalescing again into a coherent artistic form, with multiple offshoots and variations, including the works of Titus Kaphar and Kehinde Wiley.” – Washington Post

And, just as quickly as we all learned about it, the monolith in the Utah desert is gone. “The Bureau of Land Management said it would not be investigating the disappearance because ‘crimes involving private property’ are managed by the local sheriff’s office. The San Juan and Grand County Sheriff’s Offices did not immediately respond to requests for comment.” – The New York Times

It’s not just the sexualized, weirdly tiny Mary Wollstonecraft; it’s not just the naked Medusa in the park; it’s not just that rather iffy sculpture of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Sojourner Truth all sitting down to plan universal suffrage. No. It’s the arc of public art for its entire history – and we do mean history in this case. “Two millennia of European and American history could be told through a genealogy of equestrian monuments to men, from Marcus Aurelius to Gattamelata, from Confederate generals to Kehinde Wiley’s exhilarating riposte, Rumors of War (2019). (And that’s just one genre!) One reason Wiley’s monument succeeds is that it has a heroic model to subvert. But women have no such models.” – Hyperallergic

Rowan Atkinson is not happy with the proposed tower or its boosters’ claims that it will make London, exhausted from the battle with COVID-19, feel better. “Its outdated futurism resembles nothing more than the fantasies of a third-world dictator.” – The Guardian (UK)

Perhaps, as one museum director claims, we’re “at a moment for complete reimagination of museums,” but it’s a painful one with the pandemic shutdowns mixing with a long overdue racial reckoning. “Museums are caught in a disheartening dilemma: They’re facing growing calls for diversity, equity, and inclusion, but without the funding they need they’re more likely to close than to be able to meet those demands.” – The Atlantic

Jocelyn Bell Burnell discovered a new type of star – the pulsar – when she was in grad school. A Nobel Prize for its discovery went to her male PhD supervisor. Now her portrait is going into the Royal Society at its headquarters in London. “‘I’m sure that will upset a few fellows,’ she said, chuckling, when told by the Guardian of her position at the top of the grand staircase. ‘It is really prominent I must say, I’m surprised at that.'” – The Guardian (UK)

McCracken’s son says maybe. “He was inspired by the idea of alien visitors leaving objects that resembled his work, or that his work resembled. This discovery of a monolith piece — that’s very much in line with his artistic vision.” – The New York Times

Ideas about statues change as society changes. As this happens, different groups contest the meanings behind the sculptures, leading to disagreement about whether they should be kept or taken down. But while ideologies can change, causing this iconoclash, communities retain their collective memories about something, whether they are good or bad. – The Conversation

“No museum has been able to escape the impact of the pandemic, from long periods of closure decimating revenues, to the continuous landslide of the exhibitions calendar. But in periods of crisis, there can also be opportunity. One idea that came up repeatedly throughout [the Louvre Abu Dhabi and NYU Abu Dhabi’s ‘Reframing Museums’ symposium ] was that many of these problems were identified years ago. But now, there is a real urgency to solve them. Here are three key takeaways for the industry from the discussions.” – Artnet

As one of the judges said of this costly procedure, the law has “to fall on someone“, as “obviously it did not fall on the forger“. – The Art Newspaper

Wildlife officials spotted the “unusual” object while counting sheep during a flyover in a remote south-eastern area of the US state. They said the structure had been planted in the ground between red rock. There was no indication who installed the monolith, which was about 10 to 12ft (3.6m) tall. – BBC

“These artefacts belong to me, because I am African and Congolese. But also because I am a descendant of Ntumba Mvemba, one of the royal families that founded the Kingdom of Kongo in 1390. … People have to understand that if someone stole their heritage they would react as I am now. Many of my ancestors died protecting these items: they were beheaded. … Their pain is inside me.” – The Guardian

Mwazulu Diyabanza and three accomplices were found not guilty of attempted theft by a judge at Marseille’s High Court over a July 30 incident in which the four men took a ceremonial ivory spear from its perch in the city’s Museum of African, Oceanic, and Amerindian Arts, carried the object to the museum’s courtyard, denounced the “plunder” of African art by European colonials during the 19th and 20th centuries, and awaited the arrival of the police. – Artnet

“The Met is our Home Depot of the soul. It has just about whatever you want, and it has a lot of it, very largely the harvest of past donations, en masse, of the collections of major benefactors—a New York tradition that, per a bequest in 1969, entitled the banker Robert Lehman to require the construction of a whole new wing, devoted to his gifts. (That was annoying, but the art was worth it.)” – The New Yorker

The PMA reopened on September 6 after almost six months of closure. In August, the museum laid off 85 of its employees; an additional 42 workers accepted voluntary separation agreements. The decision to reduce staff was announced two days before the outcome of a union vote at the museum in which 89% of workers voted “yes.” The August layoffs followed a reduction of over 20% of the museum’s workforce (100 employees) in June through a combination of furloughs and voluntary separation agreements.  – Hyperallergic

Someone stole half of the artwork in Nottingham, even though the bike was not rideable and seemingly not an attractive target. It’s not the first time the art was hit: “The council had protected the mural with clear plastic sheeting, but it was also targeted with spray paint at least twice.” – The Guardian (UK)

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Not bad: “Four previously unknown drawings by John Constable have been discovered hidden among a jumble of letters, poems, jokes and even dried leaves accumulated in a family scrapbook made over the course of the late 18th and 19th centuries.” – The Guardian (UK)

The newly developed (for Britain’s second lockdown) Artists’ Walk has more than 115 artists signed up so far – meant for London, yes, but including artists as far away as Wales. One artist: “It’s a great idea and affords people a different experience during their daily walks. … It does mean that those who would be reluctant to set foot in a gallery can still view contemporary art, and others can get their fix.” – The Guardian (UK)

And at a retirement home, at that. “With the 31-acre community as her canvas and its 500 residents and staff members as her medium, [Elizabeth] Turk envisioned ‘a wild garden on steroids” for a moving-art installation.” – The New York Times

Limited public funding is harming African artists, says Ndebele superstar painter Esther Mahlangu. She sees how many young people want to learn at the school she’s set up, but she adds, “there should be more support for artists from governments. They need to promote African art and culture around the world. That would be a very good thing. That way it won’t vanish.” – The Guardian (UK)