Recently three different finds were made (two with those handy metal detectors -- hooray for modern gizmos!) of interest to medieval enthusiasts:

• John Stevens, 42, from Hinckley, found a rare gold ring with a black diamond with his metal detector. The ring may date to the 11th century, and could be worth tens of thousands of pounds. Find out more (and see a nice pic) in the item by Jessica Salter at the Telegraph.
  
  
• Fork lift truck driver Andy Sales, from Deal, used a metal detector to uncover a gold pendant that may date back as far as the 5th century. The piece was made from the visogothic imitation of a Byzantine coin. Check out the photo and find out more in the piece by Gerry Warren at KentOnline.
  
  
• A unique Byzantine seal, four silver rings, and the ruins of a castle were among the items discovered by archaeologists near the Thracian sanctuary of Perperikon in Bulgaria. No photos, but intriguing information in the article by Elitsa Savova at Sophia Echo.

I know -- school's starting in some districts already, and vacation time is just about over. On the other hand, summer isn't officially over for another month. So let's have a look at one more Summer Reading recommendation, and see what the next few weeks bring.

Keeping with recent news, my latest recommendation is a book about the Templars by Sharan Newman. It's chock full of all sorts of information relating to those mysterious warrior monks, and not a bit of it's dry. In fact, it's actually a lot of fun to read. Find out more in this review.

Of course, you would expect to find bodies in a cemetery, but the number of corpses discovered in a medieval graveyard in central Berlin is staggering. Many of them were children, reinforcing the idea of their high mortality rate during the Middle Ages. The remains will be examined to determine gender, age at death, and possible disease before reburial at a different location. I look forward to the results of the examination; I suspect that plague, possibly an episode of the Black Death, could explain the overwhelming number of bodies.

Find out more about the excavation in the article at Spiegel Online.

You probably already know that the Templar Knights were an order of warrior monks established about the time of the First Crusade. And you may also know that the order was brought down in the 14th century by King Philip IV of France, with the reluctant assistance of Pope Clement V. The Templars' extensive lands and wealth were confiscated, and those few knights who were not executed fled to safe havens, some of them joining their rival order of the Hospitallers.

Now the Association of the Sovereign Order of the Temple of Christ, a Spanish group claiming to be 'heirs' of the Templars, are suing Pope Benedict XVI. You read that right. They're suing the pope, seeking more than $150 billion as recompense for the assets seized by Philip and Pope Clement back in the 1300s. They also want to restore the Templars' good name. Their chances of winning a financial settlement, as you might imagine, aren't very good, considering that there's no way to prove any real connection to an order that dissolved 700 years ago (especially not by blood, since the Templars were celibate). The Templars' good name, on the other hand, is already in the process of being restored, not just by scores of historical (and not so historical) authors, but by the recent release of documents by the Vatican revealing that Clement V had declared the Templars were not heretics, but had disbanded the order to preserve the peace with the powerful French king.

Find out more about the lawsuit in the article by Fiona Govan at the Telegraph, and check out the item at NPR, which includes an audio interview.