Crossroads Roundup: Controversy Over Giza Pyramids Restoration, Ancient Board Games, and Pliny the Elder's Long-Lost Villa

Our favorite stories on art, archaeology, folklore, and more from this past week.

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The Pyramids of Giza. Photograph by Ricardo Liberato, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Pyramids of Giza are slated for restoration. Archaeologists aren’t happy about it.

This past week, Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, announced restorations for one of the pyramids of Giza—specifically, the Pyramid of Menkaure. The news was met with great anger from many archaeologists, some likening it to straightening the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

In a partnership between Japanese archaeologists and the Egyptian government, the plan is to use the original blocks scattered around the pyramid (which were believed to have fallen off during an earthquake within the past thousand years), and use them to rebuild the pyramid’s outer casing on all four sides.