Footnotes

Mes Aynak, a 1400 year-old Buddhist monastary will give way to a Copper mine

• A Chinese mining company has been granted a 30 year lease to mine copper from one of the world's largest untapped reserves in Afghanistan, but the mining will damage the 1400 year-old Mes Aynak complex. Archaeologists have been given 3 years to salvage the site, while a proper excavation would take closer to 10 years. The US military is chipping in $1 million for the salvage.
• Donn Zaretsky runs down the coverage of the settlement of the Brandeis-Rose Art museum deaccession lawsuit.
• The difficult task of conserving Ur in Iraq.
• Request denied: Italy asked if the Louvre might give up the Mona Lisa for a temporary exhibition, but the move would cause "incalculable damage" and was not worth risking.
• Cultural heritage preservation Houston style: an original 1967 model of AstroWorld has been saved for future generations and been purchased from Craigslist, the engineering firm which purchased the model plans to donate it to the Houston Public Library.
• Truth is an absolute defense: David Grann, author of a terrific piece on art authentication last year for the New Yorker has been sued by one of the subjects of the piece, art-authenticator Peter Paul Biro. 
• The AV Club reviews Chasing Aphrodite.
• The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam will close for 6 months for security upgrades and renovations.
• Eight Old Master paintings will be repatriated to the Netherlands.
• The University of Sydney decided the considerable sum a donated Picasso could bring by a sale outweighs the value in keeping and displaying the painting.