Archaeologists have discovered evidence for a previously unknown ancient language on cuneiform tablets buried in the ruins of a 2800 year old Middle Eastern palace.
An Italian court has upheld an order for the seizure of a masterpiece of the J. Paul Getty Museum’s antiquities collection, finding that the bronze statue of a victorious athlete was illegally exported from Italy before the museum purchased it for $4 million in 1976.
The mystery surrounding the tomb of the last Inca emperor – and its reputed treasure – might be closer to being solved. Ms Estupinan, a researcher at the French Institute for Andean Studies (IFEA), says historical texts contain clues that indicate that the Inca emperor’s final resting place was in what is now Ecuadorean territory.
When military historian Dan Snow and a team of archaeologists unearthed a Second World War Spitfire from an Inishowen bog in County Donegal, it kicked off a remarkable, and often surprising, documentary journey to uncover traces of World War II in Northern Ireland.
Taking advantage of Egypt’s political upheaval, thieves are preying on the country’s ancient pharaonic heritage. Illegal digs near ancient temples and in isolated desert sites have swelled a staggering 100-fold over the past 16 months since a popular uprising toppled Hosni Mubarak’s 29-year regime and security fell apart in many areas as police simply stopped doing their jobs.
The oldest agricultural settlement ever found on a Mediterranean island has been discovered in Cyprus by a team of French archaeologists involving CNRS, the National Museum of Natural History, INRAP, EHESS and the University of Toulouse.
On a narrow beach of Virginia’s Eastern Shore, a humble pile of broken seashells is changing the timeline of history. Broken pottery mixed in with the shells may be the oldest ceramic of its type yet found in eastern North America, archaeologists said, perhaps 1,000 years older than expected. In addition, the site tells a story of biological diversity, sea-level rise, and a trade network between coastal natives and the mound-building peoples of the Ohio Valley.
It isn’t often that we hear anything about English archaeologist and Egyptologist Howard Carter other than this groundbreaking discovery of King Tut’s chamber on November 4, 1922, but he was also a talented artist, often painting hieroglyphics before photography was widespread.
Archaeologists excavate a lost kingdom buried beneath volcanic ash, which was destroyed when the Tambora volcano erupted in April of 1815, producing the largest eruption in recorded history.
Sports may have been all the rage for ancient Mesoamericans, scientists say after discovering a portion of a figurine of an athlete near Oaxaca, Mexico, that indicates the activity known as “the ballgame” was even more widespread than thought in Mesoamerica.
Researchers from the University of Otago in New Zealand working in remote Cambodian mountains are shedding new light on the lost history of an unidentified people by studying their enigmatic burial rituals, which included burial in log coffins and ceramic jars.
Stone carvers defy Taliban to return to the Bamiyan valley. Twelve young Afghans had gathered to take the first tentative steps back towards a stone-working tradition that once made their home famous, at a workshop in a cave gouged out as a monastery assembly hall more than 1,000 years ago.
The band was ready, the champagne was on hand, Time Team’s Tony Robinson was there to record the historic event, and the crowds gathered to watch as a half-size replica of Dover’s Bronze Age boat prepared to take to the water. The only problem was, it failed to float.
