Tickets to visit ruins buried by Mount Vesuvius, seen by 4 million this summer, to be capped at 20,000 a day
Pompeii plans to limit visitor numbers to 20,000 a day and introduce personalised tickets from next week in an effort to cope with overtourism and protect the world heritage site, officials said.
This summer, a record 4 million people visited the remains of the ancient Roman city, buried under ash and rock after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79.
Continue reading...Archaeologists draw on laser mapping to find city they have named Valeriana, thought to have been founded pre-AD150
After swapping machetes and binoculars for computer screens and laser mapping, a team of researchers have stumbled on a lost Maya city of temple pyramids, enclosed plazas and a reservoir, all of which had been hidden for centuries by the Mexican jungle.
The discovery in the south-eastern Mexican state of Campeche came about after Luke Auld-Thomas, an anthropologist at Northern Arizona University, began wondering whether non-archaeological uses of the state-of-the-art laser mapping known as lidar could help shed light on the Maya world.
Continue reading...Researchers say skeleton retrieved from well is likely to be that of man ‘cast headfirst’ into it by besiegers of castle
In 1197, an ancient saga relates, a body was flung into a well by the besiegers of Sverresborg castle outside Nidaros, now the central Norwegian city of Trondheim. More than 800 years later, scientists think they may have found him.
“We can never be 100% sure that the remains in the well are those of the man described in the saga,” said Michael Martin of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, a co-author of the study published in the journal iScience.
Continue reading...Paintings include one depicting a scantily clad Phaedra, mythological queen of Athens, and her stepson Hippolytus
A tiny house featuring erotic frescoes is the latest discovery in the ruins of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. Experts say the exquisitely decorated abode, called the House of Phaedra after the mythological queen of Athens, sheds light on the changing architectural styles in the first century AD but is also further proof that the residents of Pompeii had an appetite for sensual art.
The vividly coloured wall paintings include one depicting a sexual encounter between a satyr and a nymph on a bed and one of a scantily clad Phaedra and her stepson Hippolytus, whom, according to Greek legend, she accused of rape after he spurned her advances. Another fresco features gods presumed to be Venus and Adonis.
Continue reading...£4.3m hoard acquired for the nation by South West Heritage Trust will be displayed at British Museum next month
It began with a speculative trip to a soggy field in south-west England by a seven-strong band of metal detectorists more intent on figuring out how to use some new kit rather than unearthing anything of great historical importance.
But the friends came upon an astonishing hoard of coins – 2,584 silver pennies – from the time of the Norman conquest, which has been valued at £4.3m, making it the highest-value treasure find ever in England.
Continue reading...Researchers hope to uncover how people died and how diseases have developed over 1,000 years
Deep beneath the streets of Paris, the dead are having their last word. They are recounting 1,000 years of death in the city: how many are buried in the labyrinth of tunnels that make up Les Catacombes, what killed them and how the diseases that may have led to their demise have developed over the centuries.
In the first ever scientific study of the site, a team of archeologists, anthropologists, biologists and doctors is examining some of the skeletons of an estimated 5-6 million people whose bones were literally dumped down quarry shafts at the end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th.
Continue reading...Researchers urge caution after Jordan tomb excavation and say new clues about Nabataean culture may lie elsewhere
For one of the most famous ancient sites on the planet, there is a surprising amount about the city of Petra – and the Nabataean people who built it – that we don’t know for sure.
What exactly were their origins? How did their society operate? And why did they hand-carve such spectacular monuments into the reddish rock of the Jordanian desert?
Continue reading...Archaeologists say site near Seddin once had surprisingly densely populated community of farmers and traders
Archaeologists digging at the site of a bronze age kingdom in northern Germany have uncovered remains of what they say was a surprisingly densely populated community of farmers and traders whose lives were upended by climate change.
Traces of eight large houses have been laid bare in the sandy soil outside the village of Seddin, about 95 miles (150km) north-west of Berlin, near the spectacular “triple grave” of King Hinz, remembered as a kindly ruler, who was laid to rest, purportedly in a golden coffin, next to his wife and a loyal servant.
Continue reading...Port of London authority to reopen scheme with waiting list, after surge in popularity of exploring riverbank for treasure
Whether fuelled by social media or prompted by the Covid lockdowns, the years between 2019 and 2022 saw a huge surge in interest in mudlarking on the foreshore of the River Thames in London.
The practice of exploring the riverbank for archaeology is permitted only with a permit from the Port of London authority (PLA), which owns much of the shoreline. But so dramatic was the growth in demand for permits – from 200 applications in 2018-19 to more than 5,000 three years later – that the port suspended the scheme in 2022 to “protect the integrity and archaeology of the foreshore”.
Continue reading...Newly discovered figures dating back to 200BCE nearly double the number of known geoglyphs at enigmatic site
Archaeologists using artificial intelligence (AI) have discovered hundreds of new geoglyphs depicting parrots, cats, monkeys, killer whales and even decapitated heads near the Nazca Lines in Peru, in a find that nearly doubles the number of known figures at the enigmatic 2,000-year-old archaeological site.
A team from the Japanese University of Yamagata’s Nazca Institute, in collaboration with IBM Research, discovered 303 previously unknown geoglyphs of humans and animals – all smaller in size than the vast geometric patterns that date from AD200-700 and stretch across more than 400 sq km of the Nazca plateau.
Continue reading...Enclosure older than Salisbury monument found under late novelist’s garden is given heritage protection
When the author Thomas Hardy was writing Tess of the D’Urbervilles in 1891, he chose to set the novel’s dramatic conclusion at Stonehenge, where Tess sleeps on one of the stones the night before she is arrested for murder.
What the author did not know, as he wrote in the study of his home, Max Gate in Dorchester, was that he was sitting right in the heart of a large henge-like enclosure that was even older than the famous monument on Salisbury Plain.
Continue reading...Excavators in Belgium find 15 limbs and seven equine skeletons at site of decisive 1815 battle against Napoleon
The carnage and horror of the battle of Waterloo have been laid bare in an excavation by military veterans and archaeologists that has uncovered amputated limbs and the remains of horses which were shot to be put out of their misery.
At least 20,000 men – and possibly many more – were killed in the epic 1815 battle when the British military officer the Duke of Wellington and a European alliance defeated Napoleon’s French forces in a decisive and bloody encounter that determined the power balance in Europe for nearly a century.
Continue reading...New archaeological research adds to view that siege may have been quicker and more efficient than was thought
The Roman siege of Jewish rebels in Masada, one of the founding myths of modern Israel, may have been far quicker and more efficient and brutal than it has been traditionally represented as, according to new archaeological research.
The end of the AD72-73 Jewish Revolt is conventionally depicted as a heroic last stand against the might of Rome by a handful of rebels who eventually killed themselves rather than be overwhelmed by the emperor Vespasian’s forces.
Continue reading...Lidded vessel is star object in rich Galloway Hoard and came from silver mine in what is now Iran
It is a star object of the Galloway Hoard, the richest collection of Viking-age objects ever found in Britain or Ireland, buried in AD900 and unearthed in a field in Scotland. Now a lidded silver vessel has been identified as being of west Asian origin, transported halfway around the world more than 1,000 years ago.
When it emerged from the ground a decade ago, the vessel was still wrapped in its ancient textiles, whose survival is extremely rare. Its surface could be seen only through X-ray scans. Since then, the textiles have been partially removed and preserved and the vessel has had laser cleaning to remove green corrosion over much of its silver surface. It has also undergone scientific analysis.
Continue reading...The family watched the rare 3,500-year-old jar, believed used for wine or oil, being restored at the Hecht Museum
Smashing a rare museum artefact dating back thousands of years would probably earn you a lifetime ban at the very least.
But a four-year-old who accidentally toppled a jar from the bronze age, leaving it broken into pieces, was welcomed back to the Hecht Museum in Haifa, Israel, a week after the unfortunate incident.
Continue reading...Instead of chastising family over breakage, director of the Hecht Museum invites them back
A rare bronze age jar – its history stretching back at least 3,500 years – had long graced the entrance of the Hecht Museum in Haifa, Israel, offering visitors a closeup look at an intact artefact believed to predate the biblical King David and King Solomon.
That is, until it was accidentally smashed by a four-year-old earlier this week.
Continue reading...New examination supports claim remains are of Teodomiro, a key figure in establishing Camino de Santiago pilgrimage
Scientists believe a set of ancient bones discovered in north-west Spain almost 70 years ago are those of the bishop whose devotion to St James the Apostle paved the way for the Camino de Santiago path taken by countless footsore pilgrims over the past 12 centuries.
According to historical sources and oral tradition, Bishop Teodomiro of Iria Flavia discovered the remains of St James – who was martyred in Jerusalem between the years AD41 and 44 – in an abandoned cemetery in what is now the Galician city of Santiago de Compostela. Teodomiro is said to have received the revelation in the early ninth century after days of fasting and meditation – and with a little help from a visionary local hermit.
Continue reading...Site in Pembrokeshire suggests area was more militarised than previously thought, says expert who made discovery
A previously unknown Roman fort discovered in Pembrokeshire in Wales overturns assumptions that the area’s indigenous Celtic tribe was on peaceful terms with the Roman invaders.
The site, which has excited archaeologists, had been hidden until now beneath an enormous, overgrown field. It explains why the land had been unsuccessful for farming: the farmer kept hitting stone.
Continue reading...Archaeologists say wide open mouth of woman who died about 3,500 years ago may be caused by rare, immediate form of rigor mortis
She looks uncannily like The Scream painting by Edvard Munch, but just why an ancient Egyptian mummy has such a startling expression has long puzzled researchers. Now they say they may have the answer – suggesting the woman died crying out in agony.
The woman is thought to have been buried about 3,500 years ago and was discovered in 1935 in a wooden coffin beneath the tomb of Senmut – an important architect during the reign of the female pharaoh Hatshepsut.
Continue reading...Highway that consolidated Roman empire joins modernist Romanian sculptures as latest sites added to list
Italy’s Via Appia Antica, or Appian Way, the earliest and most important road built by the ancient Romans, has been named a Unesco world heritage site, making Italy the country with the world’s highest number of locations on the coveted list.
Known as the Regina Viarum, or Queen of Roads, it connected Rome with the port of Brindisi in the south and marked a revolution in the construction of roads.
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