Dozens of amphorae of a type more frequently found in British waters have been discovered at an ancient shipwreck site off the coast of Sicily. The wreck is between 2,100 and 1,900 years old and contains a large proportion of Richborough 527 type amphorae, a vessel named after its type site of Richborough, Kent, in […]
Archaeologists have discovered the burial chamber of Idy, a priestess and governor’s daughter, hidden in a shaft of her father’s tomb in the necropolis of Asyut. Among the significant grave goods, her burial chamber contains two nested coffins made of imported wood elaborately painted with images and texts for the afterlife. The tomb of Djefaihapi
A skeleton discovered in a Gallo-Roman cemetery in Pommerœul, Belgium, has been revealed to be a composite of Late Neolithic bones from multiple individuals and a Roman-era cranium. Researchers found that the composite skeleton was put together during the Neolithic era in a burial that was then reworked 2,500 years later with a new cranium
An excavation in a children’s playground adjacent to the Roman military camp at Haltern am See, northern Germany, has uncovered the remains of a hobnailed boot, a glass game piece and evidence of the camp’s wood-earth defensive wall. Archaeologists with the Westphalia-Lippe Regional Association (LWL) began excavating the site this summer accompanying construction work on
A rare knife handle in the shape of a gladiator found by divers in 1997 has been donated to English Heritage and will go on public display for the first time next year. The copper alloy figure was discovered near Corbridge Roman Town in Northumberland on Hadrian’s Wall and is in pristine condition, preserved in
An excavation in the ancient city of Hadrianopolis in the Black Sea Region of northern Turkey has uncovered an amulet depicting the prophetic king Solomon on horseback driving a spear into a demon. Based on the stratigraphy of the archaeological context, the amulet dates to the 5th century. [Karabuk University Faculty of Letters, Department of
Italian authorities have seized an exceptional group of Etruscan urns, sarcophagi and funerary objects looted from a single tomb in Città della Pieve, a town near Perugia in the central Italian region of Umbria. The objects include eight stone urns, two sarcophagi and a rich set of more than 50 funerary goods dating to the
The mummified remains of a sabre-toothed cat cub has been recovered in an exceptional state of preservation from the permafrost of Siberia. Radiocarbon dating found the cub lived and died 35,500 to 37,000 years ago. Paleontologist Alexey Lopatin found the cub while looking for mammoth tusks on the Badyarikha River in the Republic of Sakha
Sugarloaf Mound, the last remaining Mississippian earthwork in St. Louis, Missouri, has been transferred to the Osage Nation. The culmination of three years of difficult negotiations, as part of the land transfer agreement the City of St. Louis will make its first public statement acknowledging Osage sovereignty and the nation’s ancestral rights to its sacred sites.
A new study by researchers at the University of Zurich published in the journal Communications Psychology has found that the scream-like sounds of the Aztec skull whistle have a terrifying effect on human listeners today, reflected in their brain activity. Aztec skull whistles were petite (3-5 cm) clay skulls with tubular stems often found at
