Archaeology

May 7th, 2024 - Archaeologists in Croatia have discovered a 2,500-year-old metal helmet within an Illyrian burial mound that may have been a votive offering or part of a cult practice.  The helmet was unearthed in a stone structure within a burial mound at the Gomile archaeological site. It dates to sometime between the end of the sixth century B.C. and the beginning of the fourth century B.C., Hrvoje Potrebica , an archaeology professor at the University of Zagreb who is leading the excavation, told Live ... [Read More]

May 7th, 2024 - Archaeologists in England have discovered several Roman ruins buried next to a cathedral in Exeter.  The structures, which were built between A.D. 50 and 75, include a street and wooden buildings that were once part of a Roman legionary fortress, according to a statement . The construction itself was likely part of a "long barrack building," John Allan , a cathedral archaeologist with the University of Exeter, said in the statement. Romans built the fortress around the same time as a ... [Read More]

May 6th, 2024 - Around 3,500 years ago, ancient Egypt underwent a transformation. Thanks to the efforts of Thutmose III —sometimes called Thutmose the Great—the civilization expanded from a kingdom to an empire. Thutmose secured more territory than any other Egyptian pharaoh, marching his armies across the Sinai Peninsula to the Middle East. Now, archaeologists have found rare evidence of the ruler's military campaigns: an ancient "rest house" that may have temporarily housed his troops. The ... [Read More]

May 6th, 2024 - An ancient necropolis discovered near Naples, Italy was used to bury the dead about 2,800 years ago, around the time the city of Rome was founded about 100 miles (161 kilometers) to the northwest. The discovery gives researchers a rare insight into the Iron Age cultures that existed before the Roman domination of the region. The astonishing finds near the town of Amorosi, about 30 miles (48 km) northeast of Naples, include 88 burials in "pit tombs" of both men and women. The men were typically ... [Read More]

May 4th, 2024 - A precise new dating of archaeological sites in Jerusalem supports some of the key historical events described in the Bible, including the settling of the city, a major earthquake and its eventual destruction by the Babylonians, according to a new study.  The research gives an unprecedented chronology of the ancient city that sheds light on its development, said Elisabetta Boaretto , a professor of archaeological sciences at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, and the ... [Read More]

May 3rd, 2024 - In 1924, two years after British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered Tutankhamun's tomb, an exhibition in London promised to immerse visitors in a "complete replica" of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh's final resting place. Working off of published photographs and drawings of the tomb, artist William Aumonier spent eight months painstakingly recreating such artifacts as an ornate throne, a wooden bed and a statue of the boy king, who reigned in the 14th century B.C.E. Though the display wasn't ... [Read More]

May 3rd, 2024 - Our world is riddled with fascinating, perilous, but beautiful holes into the quiet depths of the crust. To explore a cave is to meet with awe – a calm, almost alien world, far removed from the babble and busyness of the world above ground. One of the most spectacular known cave networks in the world is the Saint-Marcel Cave in France. The entrance area has been occupied by humans for millennia, dating back to the Middle Palaeolithic. But there's a lot more to it than the entrance. The ... [Read More]

May 3rd, 2024 - Archaeologists investigating a submerged prehistoric settlement have found that it surprisingly managed to survive a period of climate instability that occurred around 8,200 years ago. The village, dubbed Habonim North, now lies below the Mediterranean Sea off the Carmel Coast of Israel, at a depth of around 8 to 10 feet below the surface. Prior to the latest research, almost nothing was known about the settlement aside from its location. But now a team of experts involving researchers from the ... [Read More]

May 2nd, 2024 - A Neanderthal skull that was crushed to bits 75,000 years ago has been pieced back together and used to recreate the face of a wise-looking archaic woman with dark, flowing hair.  Archaeologists painstakingly pieced together the skull of the individual, who researchers have named Shanidar Z, from hundreds of flattened bone fragments discovered inside Shanidar Cave in Iraqi Kurdistan in 2018. Her skull is believed to have been crushed shortly after her death, possibly by rockfall, and then ... [Read More]

May 2nd, 2024 - Archaeologists have discovered 800-year-old trash discarded by medieval residents of York, England. Unearthed beneath a bridge in the city's center, the animal bones and pieces of glazed pottery occupied large drainage ditches dating to the 13th and 14th centuries. Researchers from York Archaeology were excavating around the Queen Street Bridge , which is set to be demolished ahead of renovations to a nearby railway station. The site had been buried for about 150 years. "This is an area that ... [Read More]

May 1st, 2024 - A rare sword nicknamed ''Excalibur'' from the Spanish city of Valencia is 1,000 years old, meaning it was last wielded when much of Spain was controlled by Muslim rulers, new research reveals.  The 18-inch-long (46 centimeters) iron sword was found in an upright position inside a grave in 1994, leading its finder to call it "Excalibur" after the legendary sword of King Arthur , who, according to medieval folklore, pulled an upright sword out of a stone and then ascended the throne of ... [Read More]

Apr 30th, 2024 - The ruins of a Roman villa near Mount Vesuvius, discovered under the remnants of another villa built above it many years later, may have been where Augustus, the first Roman emperor, drew his last breath, archaeologists say. The earlier villa, which excavations suggest was inhabited before the first century A.D., seems to have been destroyed in the devastating eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79 , and the later villa was built there in the second century. Researchers at the University of ... [Read More]

Apr 25th, 2024 - In the ancient Maya kingdom of K'anwitznal—a lowland city located in present-day Guatemala—dead royals weren't always treated with reverence, archaeologists say. New research, published last week in the journal Antiquity , suggests some former rulers' treasure-filled tombs were raided and their corpses were burned, with the remains thrown unceremoniously into a new pyramid as part of a symbolic—and likely public—political ritual. "The finding of the burnt royal human ... [Read More]

Apr 15th, 2024 - Archaeologists have uncovered a mysterious prehistoric monument in what has been described as an "unprecedented" discovery. The ancient structure emerged during excavations carried out by the French National Institute of Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP) in the commune of Marliens, eastern France, which lies about nine miles southeast of the city of Dijon. Excavations at the site have revealed a series of human occupations spanning thousands of years from the Neolithic period (or New ... [Read More]

Mar 25th, 2024 - Colorful paintings of daily life in ancient Egypt have been discovered in a tomb dating back more than 4,300 years. The tomb, known as a mastaba, was found in the pyramid necropolis of Dahshur, about 25 miles south of Cairo, during a recent Egyptian-German archaeological mission. Dahshur is the southernmost of the great pyramid necropolises of the Old Kingdom in the vicinity of the ancient capital of Memphis. The main attractions there are two large pyramids of King Sneferu: the so-called Bent ... [Read More]

Mar 15th, 2024 - Researchers have discovered 10 shipwrecks , including one estimated to be more than 5,000 years old, off the coast of Greece, along with scattered ancient artifacts from around the globe. Using Homer's "Iliad" as a guide, an underwater archaeological team made the discoveries during a four-year survey off the coast of Kasos, a small island in the Aegean Sea, the Greek Ministry of Culture announced  Wednesday. During the underwater missions, teams found the remains of 10 doomed ships, ... [Read More]