Archaeology

Nov 7th, 2025 - It's quick and easy to access Live Science Plus, simply enter your email below. We'll send you a confirmation and sign you up for our daily newsletter, keeping you up to date with the latest science news. Excavations at a Roman fort in England north of Hadrian's Wall have revealed a unique engraved gemstone depicting a grape-harvesting scene from Roman mythology — imagery that's rarely found in northeast Europe. The red stone was likely originally set in a signet ring and used by a Roman ... [Read More]

Nov 6th, 2025 - Archaeologists have discovered evidence of an ancient religious practice in northern Israel in addition to a wine press dating back roughly 5,000 years — one of the oldest ever uncovered in the country, according to the the  Israel Antiquities Authority . The wine press, which is likewise the earliest relic of wine production in Israel, was found during an excavation at the archaeological site Tel Megiddo, said the agency, which noted that the work was conducted ahead of the planned ... [Read More]

Nov 6th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google Modern humans carry traces of Denisovan DNA inherited from multiple genetically distinct groups. A new paleogenomic study pulls those threads together and shows when, where, and how that ancestry ebbed and flowed across Eurasia over the last 40,000 years. Experts at Max Planck Society assembled published ancient genomes from across the continent and systematically scanned for DNA segments inherited from Denisovans in both ancient and present-day people. By following these ... [Read More]

Nov 5th, 2025 - New research comparing stone tools found at sites across the US and on Japan's northernmost island suggests a different timeline and mode of travel for the first humans to arrive in North America The first people to migrate to North America may have sailed from north-east Asia around 20,000 years ago. Experts have argued that prehistoric people in Hokkaido, Japan, used similar stone tools to those later found in North America, and suggest that seafarers may have travelled to the continent ... [Read More]

Nov 4th, 2025 - It's quick and easy to access Live Science Plus, simply enter your email below. We'll send you a confirmation and sign you up for our daily newsletter, keeping you up to date with the latest science news. QUICK FACTS Milestone: Staircase to King Tut's tomb uncovered When: Nov. 4, 1922 Where: Valley of the Kings, Egypt Who: An archaeological team led by Howard Carter On a sunny morning, Egyptian workers were clearing the sands at the Valley of the Kings, when they uncovered the hint of stone ... [Read More]

Nov 4th, 2025 - Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. . I n 1922, British archaeologist Howard Carter and his team stumbled across a descending staircase amid rubble and debris near the 12th century B.C. tomb of King Ramses VI in Luxor, Egypt. On this day—Nov. 4, 1922—103 years ago, they had discovered the tomb of King Tutankhamun. Later that same month, on Nov. 26, Carter and another egyptologist named Lord Carnarvon, who bankrolled the search, would enter the surprisingly intact inner ... [Read More]

Nov 4th, 2025 - Thousands of visitors streamed through the Grand Egyptian Museum on Tuesday as almost the entire collection of King Tutankhamun's treasures — over 4,500 artefacts — was displayed together for the first time since the young pharaoh's tomb was discovered in 1922. Curated and conserved over nearly two decades, the collection was unveiled to the public two days after the museum's lavish opening ceremony on Saturday.  In a vast, dimly lit main hall spanning four levels, visitors ... [Read More]

Nov 3rd, 2025 - A 12-meter-wide burial mound has no body, but plenty of mystery Construction crews weren't expecting to make headlines when they broke ground near the village of Wolkertshofen in Bavaria. The project was just a new water retention basin, and a standard one at that. But because the area had a history of ancient settlements, archaeologists were on-site to keep an eye out. At first, they turned up a few pottery shards. Then they hit something far more unusual. Beneath the topsoil, workers ... [Read More]

Oct 30th, 2025 - For the first time since the boy king's tomb was discovered in 1922, all the items will stored in one place, a museum director told NBC News. GIZA, Egypt — They're the crown jewels of the Grand Egyptian Museum — two galleries devoted to the ancient pharaoh Tutankhamun . Showcasing more than 5,300 objects from the young king's tomb, including his iconic death mask and glittering royal regalia, the new section of the vast museum here on the outskirts of Cairo is expected to draw ... [Read More]

Oct 5th, 2025 - CAIRO (AP) — Egyptian antiquities officials on Sunday said a Pharaonic painting has disappeared from the famed Saqqara necropolis just outside of Cairo, becoming the latest artifact to disappear in a country known for its rich history. Mohamed Ismail, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the limestone painting was in the tomb of Khentika in the Saqqara necropolis. The mastaba tomb, which housed the painting, was found in the 1950s, and hasn't opened since 2019, he ... [Read More]

Oct 4th, 2025 - One of the largest tombs in Egypt 's Valley of the Kings reopened to visitors after more than 20 years of renovation. The huge tomb of Amenhotep III, who ruled ancient Egypt between 1390 B.C. and 1350 B.C., is carved into the hillside on the west bank of the Nile River near the southern Egyptian city of Luxor. It was discovered in 1799 by two people, and its contents were looted, including the sarcophagus, Egyptian antiquities authorities said. It has been under a Japanese-led, three-phased ... [Read More]

Sep 26th, 2025 - You can now listen to Fox News articles! Egyptian archaeologists recently uncovered a hidden harbor at an ancient temple connected to Cleopatra VII – an unexpected find for historians.  The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced the discovery of the harbor on Sept. 18. It was found at the Temple of Taposiris Magna, about 30 miles west of Alexandria. The temple, built in the Ptolemaic era, was dedicated to Osiris, the Egyptian god of the afterlife. Though the temple ... [Read More]

Sep 23rd, 2025 - It all used to be so simple. The story of how we – that is Homo sapiens , today's humans – emerged from Africa and spread across what's become Europe and Asia was a neat, straightforward narrative. It began around 50,000 years ago when our brains experienced a lightbulb moment of advancing cognition and creativity, stimulating our ancestors to journey beyond our cradle continent. When they reached Eurasia, around 40–30,000 years ago, they encountered another group of humans, a ... [Read More]

Sep 22nd, 2025 - Hundreds of coins depicting Cleopatra VII, an Egyptian pharaoh who was a lover of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, have been discovered at Taposiris Magna, a temple site from ancient Egypt . On top of that, the same team recently found a submerged port on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt and say that it's possible that her tomb could be located underwater near the port. Both finds are part of "Cleopatra's Final Secret," a new documentary that premieres on the National Geographic channel Sept. 25 ... [Read More]

Sep 21st, 2025 - The ancient Egyptians took a number of measures to safeguard the pyramids. But did they ever resort to booby traps? The answer, Egyptologists told Live Science, is an emphatic no. "No, they didn't use booby traps in the pyramids, but they could make it damn difficult to get in!" Reg Clark , an independent scholar and Egyptologist who has written extensively about ancient Egyptian tomb security, told Live Science in an email. It's not clear where the idea of booby traps inside Egypt's pyramids ... [Read More]

Sep 18th, 2025 - The 14,000-year-old smoked mummies in Southeast Asia are rewriting burial history By the time the ancient Egyptians were wrapping their dead in linens and sealing them in golden tombs, a very different kind of preservation was already widespread across tropical Southeast Asia. Thousands of years earlier, hunter-gatherers there had discovered a way to cheat decay, not with desert air, but with fire and smoke. Now, an international team of archaeologists has traced that practice back more than ... [Read More]