From the International Herald Tribune: Volunteer archeologists unearth an ancient tomb in Italy.

The Etruscan tomb was hidden in such a remote corner of Tuscany that Andrea Marcocci, the archeology student who had identified it about a decade ago, was not very worried that anyone else would stumble upon it.

Then, earlier this year, woodsmen began to clear brush in the area, and Marcocci – who had felt the tomb had been safe as long as it was hidden in a forest – realized he had to act.

“I became worried that what’s supposed to be the patrimony of mankind would become the patrimony of an individual,” he said.

Armed with a permit from archeological authorities – in Italy anything found underground belongs to the state – he and a handful of volunteers began to dig.

What they found last week was a complete surprise: a more than 2000-year-old tomb with a cache of almost perfectly preserved ceramic and bronze funerary objects, including cremation urns for more than two dozen people. [continue]