new zealand 51

Rongo Wirepa was Taita’s captain and talismanic tighthead prop who played in Wellington club rugby throughout the latter 1950s and the 1960s. He never played for Wellington, but was a Māori All Black in 1960 and 1964. During his career Taita were always competitive and showed flashes of being a top level side, with several...

Luísa Cunha, the Portuguese conceptual artist whose whispering sound installations and language-based works made her one of her country’s most influential contemporary artists, died on Monday of cancer at Lisbon’s Hospital de São José. She was 77.  Over a career that began in the early 1990s, Cunha built a body of work that quietly transformed ordinary words into immersive works of art. Using whispered recordings, brief commands and fragments of conversation, she invited viewers to reconsider how language shapes space, memory and human relationships. Though she worked across photography, drawing, video, objects and performance, Cunha became best known for her “sound sculptures,” minimalist installations in which recorded voices filled galleries with intimate phrases that shifted in meaning through repetition. Rather than relying on spectacle, her works rewarded careful attention, using language itself as both material and subje...

An archaeological dig in western Thailand turned up a pair of gold rings in the vicinity of human bones. As reported by the Associated Press , one of the rings bears script that reads “pusarakhitasa,” which means “the one protected by Pushya.” Written in Bhrami, an ancient Indian system of writing, the allusion to Pushya refers to “one of the most auspicious zodiac signs in Indian astronomy,” according to the Thai government’s Fine Arts Department. The other gold ring is bare. Experts have theorized that the rings, discovered at the Don Yai archaeological site about 80 miles southwest of Bangkok, were owned by a merchant of the ancient Indian caste known as the Vaishyas. They were found as part of a dig that followed the discovery of ancient bronze drums nearby. “The site was dated to a late prehistoric era in Thailand, a period of human settlement also known as the Iron Age, established to be around 1,500 to 2,500 years ago,” according to the AP. O...

Visitors Oriental-Rongotai beat Paremata-Plimmerton in a hard fought fixture in windy conditions at Ngati Toa Domain on Saturday in their opening match of the championship rounds in Wellington. This was the first round of the 2026 Jubilee Cup and was between sixth placed qualifier Paremata-Plimmerton and seventh Oriental-Rongotai. This meant that, while the winner would...

Archaeologists working in Egypt’s Western Desert have uncovered a well-preserved Byzantine-era city at the Dakhla Oasis, reports Heritage Daily . According to the country’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, the discovery provides important insights into daily life when Egypt was part of the Byzantine Empire.   Excavation of the fourth-century settlement, conducted at the Ain Al-Sabil archaeological site by a mission from Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), revealed a street grid, residential and religious buildings, and fortifications. The find also included coins, pottery fragments, and tools. According to Hisham el-Leithy, secretary general of the SCA, the city was built around wide north-south roads intersected by east-west streets, creating open public spaces. At its heart, a fourth-century Christian basilica overlooking one of the city’s main thoroughfares, while two watchtowers guarded its outskirts. Among the residential building...

Above: The reaction of the HOBM and Petone players say it all – trytime for the Eagles. Their win over Petone earned them a week off, but it transpires that all teams will have this week off. More below. Photo: Tane Nathan (Kinetic Images). Welcome to a new week in community rugby, perhaps just not...