Archaeology

Jul 12th, 2020 - Exclusive: discovery of two ancient mummies filmed for Channel 5 documentary She was the fabled queen of ancient Egypt , immortalised over thousands of years as a beautiful seductress. But, despite her fame, Cleopatra’s tomb is one of the great unsolved mysteries. Some believe she was buried in Alexandria, where she was born and ruled from her royal palace, a city decimated by the tsunami of 365AD. Others suggest her final resting place could be about 30 miles away, in the ancient temple of Taposiris Magna, built by her Ptolemaic ancestors on the Nile Delta. Now two mummies of high-status ... [Read More]

Jul 11th, 2020 - An Iron Age skeleton with his hands bound has been discovered by HS2 project archaeologists, who believe he may be a murder victim. The remains of the 2,000-year-old adult male were found face down at Wellwick Farm near Wendover in Buckinghamshire. Project archaeologist Dr Rachel Wood described the death as "a mystery" and hopes further analysis will shed light on the "potentially gruesome" find. A Stonehenge-style wooden formation and Roman burial have also been discovered. They are among a number of finds ranging from the Neolithic Age to the Medieval period unearthed ahead of construction ... [Read More]

Jul 10th, 2020 - The flint figurines were found in Kharaysin in Jordan’s Zarqa River valley An archeological dig in Israel uncovered a secret 'piggy bank' of 1,200-year-old gold coins. Archaeologists working on a dig in Jordan have uncovered depictions of humans dating back to 7500 B.C. that were likely used by a cult that dug up their dead. The flint figurines were found in Kharaysin in Jordan’s Zarqa River valley. The unusual artifacts were used “during mortuary rituals and remembrance ceremonies that included the extraction, manipulation, and reburial of human remains,” according to a statement ... [Read More]

Jul 9th, 2020 - String may have been invented between 160,000 and 120,000 years ago. People living on the Israeli coast 120,000 years ago strung ocher-painted seashells on flax string, according to a recent study in which archaeologists examined microscopic traces of wear inside naturally occurring holes in the shells. That may shed some light on when people first invented string—which hints at the invention of things like clothes, fishing nets, and maybe even seafaring. Seashells by the seashore Picking up seashells has been a human habit for almost as long as there have been humans. Archaeologists found ... [Read More]

Jul 6th, 2020 - Underwater caves in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula have yielded evidence of a prehistoric ochre mine, in a discovery that could explain why the region’s earliest inhabitants ventured so deeply inside this treacherous cave system. People living in the Yucatán Peninsula during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition (around 11,000 years ago) took part in subterranean ochre mining, according to new research published last week in Science Advances. Using stalactites as hammers, these resourceful Paleoindians chipped away at the limestone to gain access to the precious ochre, a natural earth ... [Read More]

Jun 30th, 2020 - The Gjellestad Ship was discovered in 2018 using ground-penetrating radar Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. The first excavation of a Viking ship in 100 years is underway in Norway. In a statement , the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) explained that the Museum of Cultural History at the University of Oslo is responsible for the excavation. The so-called Gjellestad Ship was discovered in 2018 by NIKU and Østfold County Council using ground-penetrating radar. The 66-foot vessel, which is located in a burial mound, is ... [Read More]

Jun 23rd, 2020 - Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. Divers in Italy have discovered a “sensational” shipwreck that officials say could be a 16th-century galleon. The wreck was found near Portofino off the coast of Northern Italy by professional divers Gabriele Succi and Edoardo Sbaraini of “Rasta Divers,” who noticed wooden remains on the seabed at a depth of 164 feet. The divers notified the authorities and took part in subsequent dives to explore the site with divers from the Superintendency of Archeology, Fine Arts and Landscape and Italy’s ... [Read More]

Jun 22nd, 2020 - The finding of a circle of trenches at a nearby ancient village also makes the site the largest prehistoric structure in Britain and possibly in Europe, one archaeologist said. LONDON — A new archaeological discovery at the site of an ancient village near Stonehenge promises to offer significant clues about life more than 4,500 years ago in the Neolithic period, and could even “write a whole new chapter in the story” of the celebrated structure’s landscape, experts say. The find also makes the site the largest prehistoric structure in Britain and possibly in Europe, according to ... [Read More]

Jun 22nd, 2020 - Archaeologists have discovered a major new prehistoric monument only a short distance away from Stonehenge. Fieldwork and analysis have revealed evidence for 20 or more massive, prehistoric shafts, measuring more than 10 metres in diameter and 5 metres deep. These shafts form a circle more than 2 kilometres in diameter and enclose an area greater than 3 square kilometres around the Durrington Walls henge, one of Britain's largest henge monuments, and the famous, smaller prehistoric circle at Woodhenge. What could be one of the largest prehistoric sites in the UK has been discovered near ... [Read More]

Jun 20th, 2020 - This 7,000-year-old stone circle tracked the summer solstice and the arrival of the annual monsoon season. It's also the oldest known astronomical site on Earth. For thousands of years, ancient societies all around the world erected massive stone circles, aligning them with the Sun and stars to mark the seasons. These early calendars foretold the coming of spring, summer, fall, and winter, helping civilizations track when to plant and harvest crops. They also served as ceremonial sites, both for celebration and sacrifice. These megaliths — large, prehistoric monuments made of stone — may ... [Read More]

Jun 20th, 2020 - Researchers say the arrowheads were likely used to hunt difficult-to-catch rainforest prey such as monkeys and squirrels. An international team of researchers have found a cache of immaculately preserved bone arrowheads in the cave of Fa-Hien Lena, deep in the heart of Sri Lanka’s rainforests. The find is evidence of the earliest use of bows and arrows anywhere outside of Africa, they say. The team, made up of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History (MPI-SHH) in Germany, Griffith University in Australia and the Department of Archaeology, Government of Sri ... [Read More]

Jun 17th, 2020 - A man buried at the heart of the 5000-year-old Newgrange passage tomb in Ireland was born from an incestuous union, DNA sequencing has revealed. The discovery suggests that the ruling elite in Stone Age Ireland married within their family, like some ancient Egyptian dynasties. Daniel Bradley and Lara Cassidy at Trinity College Dublin have been sequencing the genomes of ancient people. One of these genomes is of an adult male whose bones were found in the most elaborately decorated recess in the chamber at the heart of the Newgrange tomb in the Boyne Valley. This massive, 200,000-tonne ... [Read More]