Two Roman nails dating back 2000 years, found in the burial cave of the Jewish high priest who handed Jesus over to the Romans, may be linked to the crucifixion, an Israeli filmmaker has claimed.

The gnarled bits of iron, which measure around three inches (eight centimeters) each, were shown to reporters in Jerusalem on Tuesday at the premier of a television documentary series examining the question of whether they could have been the nails used to crucify Jesus.

Italy's culture minister Tuesday announced a major new restoration project for the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, following international outrage over the collapse of a house and a wall at the site.

"In an archaeological area of this size, the urgency never goes away but the restoration starts tomorrow," Giancarlo Galan said at a news conference.

Americans on Tuesday mark the 150th anniversary of the start of the U.S. Civil War, a bloody conflict that historians say still deeply influences the United States.

"The Civil War is one of the most significant events in American history in terms of the way the American nation was defined," said William Link, a historian at the University of Florida.

Grotesque heads, an American brothel and a life-sized headless horse star in a new Venice exhibition drawn from French billionaire fashion tycoon Francois Pinault's personal collection.

"In Praise of Doubt" is the latest contemporary art exhibition at the Punta della Dogana gallery, a former Venetian Republic Customs House at the center of the lagoon on the Grand Canal, just across from Piazza San Marco.

Tucked in the mist-covered slopes of Mount Makiling, the Philippines' premier public school for the arts is busy molding the country's future cultural ambassadors.

The gifted scholars embark on a rigorous 12-hour daily routine of academic study, music, dance, theatre, visual arts and creative writing at the state-funded Philippine High School for the Arts.

Thousands of Peruvians on the edge of Lima are a world away from the capital's prosperity, with little hope they will share the fruit of a decade of growth, despite promises from presidential candidates.

Hundreds of homes sit atop a former rubbish dump in the slum of Cantagallo, which has a clear view across the rapidly developing capital and lies only a mile (some two kilometers) from the presidential palace.

Archeologists are unearthing a 2,000-year-old tunnel outside bustling modern day Mexico City searching for clues to one of the region's most influential former civilizations.

Heavy rains at the site of Teotihuacan, some 25 miles (40 kilometers) from the capital, accidentally provided the first sign of the tunnel's existence in 2003, when the water made a tiny hole in the ground.

First it was Claude Monet. Now it's Edouard Manet's turn to get the blockbuster treatment in the city where he was born, lived, worked and died.

"Manet: The Man who Invented Modern Art" opened to the public on Tuesday at the Musee d'Orsay, where it is sure to pull in big crowds through to its scheduled final day on July 3.

A clay tablet over 3,000 years old that is considered Europe's oldest readable text has been found in an ancient refuse pit in southern Greece, a US-based researcher claimed on Tuesday.

The tablet, an apparent financial record from a long-lost Mycenaean town, is about a century older than previous discoveries, said Michael Cosmopoulos, an archaeology professor at the University of Missouri-St Louis.

One of India's best-known spiritual leaders, famous for his apparent miracles and long list of influential followers, is on life support in a southern hospital, officials said Tuesday.

Satya Sai Baba, 85, who has devotees in more than 100 countries, was admitted to a hospital funded by his organization in the town of Puttaparthi with lung and chest congestion on March 28.