Category Archives: Archaeology

‘Manhattan of the desert’: civil war puts Yemen’s ancient skyscrapers at risk

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In addition to the conflict’s huge human cost, Yemen’s rich cultural heritage has been ravaged, from the Queen of Sheba’s reputed throne room to the mudbrick high-rises of Shibam

On the edge of the vast Empty Quarter desert that dominates the Arabian peninsula, white and brown towers rise together out of the valley floor like tall sandcastles. Once they welcomed weary caravans traversing the Silk Roads: now they stand as testimony to the ingenuity of a lost civilisation.

This is the ancient walled city of Shibam, nicknamed the “Manhattan of the desert” by the British explorer Freya Stark in the 1930s, in modern-day Yemen, a country also home to an untold number of other archeological treasures. The kingdom of Saba, ruled by the legendary Queen of Sheba, and many other dynasties of the ancient world rose and fell here, their fortunes linked to Yemen’s position at the crossroads of early frankincense and spice trades between Africa and Asia.

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Ancient scrolls charred by Vesuvius could be read once again

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US scientists say it may be possible to decipher words using new x-ray technique

When Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD79 it destroyed the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum, their inhabitants and their prized possessions – among them a fine library of scrolls that were carbonised by the searing heat of ash and gas.

But scientists say there may still be hope that the fragile documents can once more be read thanks to an innovative approach involving high-energy x-rays and artificial intelligence.

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Neanderthal footprints found in France offer snapshot of their lives

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Scientists find 257 prints that were preserved in wind-driven sand 80,000 years ago

Scientists have found hundreds of perfectly preserved footprints, providing evidence that Neanderthals walked the Normandy coast in France.

The prints suggest a group of 10-13 individuals, mostly children and adolescents, were on the shoreline 80,000 years ago.

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Dead Sea scrolls study raises new questions over texts’ origins

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Salts used on Temple scroll are not common to Dead Sea region, researchers find

The Dead Sea scrolls have given up fresh secrets, with researchers saying they have identified a previously unknown technique used to prepare one of the most remarkable scrolls of the collection.

Scientists say the study poses a puzzle, as the salts used on the writing layer of the Temple scroll are not common to the Dead Sea region.

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Peru: skeletons of 227 victims unearthed at world’s largest child sacrifice site

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Experts believe the children were sacrificed by the Chimú culture to appease the El Niño phenomenon

Archaeologists excavating what is thought to be the world’s largest child sacrifice site have unearthed the skeletons of 227 young victims in the coastal desert of northern Peru.

Teams have been digging since last year at the sacrificial site in Huanchaco, a beachside tourist town close to Trujillo, Peru’s third largest city.

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‘Roman Biro’ – complete with joke – found at London building site

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Iron stylus uncovered at Bloomberg building site in City of London is ‘one of the most human finds’, say archaeologists

It sounds just like the kind of joke that is ubiquitous in today’s cheap-and-cheerful souvenir industry: “I went to Rome and all I got you was this lousy pen.” But the tongue-in-cheek inscription recently deciphered on a cheap writing implement during excavations in the City of London is in fact about 2,000 years old.

“I have come from the city. I bring you a welcome gift with a sharp point that you may remember me. I ask, if fortune allowed, that I might be able [to give] as generously as the way is long [and] as my purse is empty,” it reads.

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‘Bent’ pyramid: Egypt opens ancient oddity for tourism

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Pharoah Sneferu’s structure marks key step in Egyptian architecture, as builders had to change the angle when it started to crack

Egypt has opened to visitors the “bent” pyramid built for the pharaoh Sneferu, a 101-metre structure south of Cairo that marks a key step in the evolution of pyramid construction.

Tourists will now be able to clamber down a 79-metre long, narrow tunnel from a raised entrance on the pyramid’s northern face, to reach two chambers deep inside the 4,600-year-old structure.

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Piece of skull found in Greece ‘is oldest human fossil outside Africa’

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Remains discovered on Mani peninsula could rewrite history of Homo sapiens in Eurasia

A broken skull chiselled from a lump of rock in a cave in Greece is the oldest modern human fossil ever found outside Africa, researchers claim.

The partial skull was discovered in the Apidima cave on the Mani peninsula of the southern Peloponnese and has been dated to be at least 210,000 years old.

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Egypt asks Interpol to trace Tutankhamun relic auctioned in UK

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Cairo calls on international police agency to find head sold to unknown buyer for £4.7m

Egypt has called on Interpol to intervene and will sue over the sale at Christie’s auction house in London of a 3,000-year-old Tutankhamun sculpture that may have been looted from a Luxor temple.

The 28.5cm brown quartzite head was part of a statue of the ancient god Amun with the facial features of the young pharaoh Tutankhamun, who ruled Egypt between 1333 and 1323 BC. Similar statues were carved for the Temple of Karnak in the city of Thebes, now Luxor.

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Bust of Tutankhamun sold at auction for £4.7m despite Egypt protests

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The ‘rare and beautiful’ 3,000-year-old sculpture goes under the hammer in defiance of claims it was stolen

A brown quartzite head of young king Tutankhamun has sold at auction in London for more than £4.7m despite Egyptian demands for its return.

The more than 3,000-year-old sculpture, displayed at Christie’s London auction house, shows the boy king taking the form of the ancient Egyptian god Amen.

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Half-tonne birds may have roamed Europe at same time as humans

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Huge thigh bone in Crimean cave belonged to largest bird found in northern hemisphere

Giant flightless birds that dwarfed modern ostriches and weighed nearly half a tonne roamed Europe when the first archaic humans arrived from Africa, scientists say.

Researchers unearthed the fossilised thigh bone of one of the feathered beasts while excavating a cave on the Crimean peninsula on the northern coast of the Black Sea. It is the first time such a massive bird has been found in the northern hemisphere.

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Earliest known signs of cannabis smoking unearthed in China

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Incense burners found at 2,500-year-old cemetery suggest intentional use of to get high

Scorched wooden incense burners unearthed at an ancient burial ground in the mountains of western China contain the oldest clear evidence of cannabis smoking yet found, archaeologists say.

Residues of high potency cannabis found in the burners, and on charred pebbles placed inside them, suggest that funeral rites at the 2,500-year-old Jirzankal cemetery in the Pamir mountains may have been rather hazy affairs.

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Egypt tries to stop sale of Tutankhamun statue in London

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Officials fear bust of pharaoh might have been looted from Karnak temple in Luxor

Egyptian authorities are trying to stop the auction of a statue of Tutankhamun’s head at Christie’s auction house in London next month after concerns were raised that the bust might have been stolen from the Karnak temple in Luxor.

The statue, a brown quartzite head of the young pharaoh, which portrays him as the ancient god Amun, is expected to raise more than £4m at auction on 4 July.

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Italy’s new ruins: heritage sites being lost to neglect and looting

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Overgrown and weathered, many historical monuments are disappearing as public funds for culture fail to match modern Italy’s inheritance

Legend has it that the grotto hidden among the craggy cliffs on San Marco hill in Sutera in the heart of Sicily holds a treasure chest full of gold coins. In order to find it, three men must dream simultaneously about the precise place to dig.

Treasure or no treasure, the grotto itself is an archaeological gem, its walls adorned with a multi-coloured Byzantine-esque 16th-century fresco depicting Jesus, the Virgin Mary and Saints Paulinus, Luke, Mark and Matthew.

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Canadian Arctic fossils are oldest known fungus on Earth

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Fungus is half a billion years older than previous record holder found in Wisconsin

Tiny fossils found in mudrock in the barren wilderness of the Canadian Arctic are the remains of the oldest known fungus on Earth, scientists say.

The minuscule organisms were discovered in shallow water shale, a kind of fine-grained sedimentary rock, in a region south of Victoria island on the edge of the Arctic Ocean.

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‘It would destroy it’: new international airport for Machu Picchu sparks outrage

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Peruvian archaeologists decry new airport that would carry tourists directly to already fragile Inca citadel

Among the Inca archeological sites that abound in Peru, none draw nearly as many tourists as the famed citadel of Machu Picchu. There were more than 1.5 million visitors in 2017, almost double the limit recommended by Unesco, putting a huge strain on the fragile ruins and local ecology.

Now, in a move that has drawn a mixture of horror and outrage from archaeologists, historians and locals, work has begun on clearing ground for a multibillion-dollar international airport, intended to jet tourists much closer to Machu Picchu .

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Britain’s equivalent to Tutankhamun found in Southend-on-Sea

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Burial chamber of a wealthy nobleman in Prittlewell shows Anglo-Saxon Essex in new light

An Anglo-Saxon burial chamber found on a grassy verge next to a busy road and not far from an Aldi is being hailed as Britain’s equivalent of Tutankhamun’s tomb.

Archaeologists on Thursday will reveal the results of years of research into the burial site of a rich, powerful Anglo-Saxon man found at Prittlewell in Southend-on-Sea, Essex.

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Notre Dame: time to call in the French builders with medieval skills

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Artisans creating a ‘13th-century’ castle in Burgundy might well be the ideal team to restore the cathedral

In a clearing in a forest in northern Burgundy, the stonemasons and carpenters of Guédelon are awaiting a call.

If anyone can rebuild Notre Dame Cathedral as it was – if that is what is required – they can.

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Mummified mice found in ‘beautiful, colourful’ Egyptian tomb

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Recently discovered tomb of official dating back more than 2,000 years contains dozens of animals and two mummies

Dozens of mummified mice were among the animals found in an ancient Egyptian tomb that was unveiled on Friday.

The well-preserved and finely painted tomb near the Egyptian town of Sohag – a desert area near the Nile about 390km (242 miles) south of Cairo – is thought to be from the early Ptolemaic period, dating back more than 2,000 years.

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Fossil of ancient four-legged whale with hooves discovered

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Giant 42.6m-year-old fossil was found along coast of Peru and suggests creature could walk on land

An ancient four-legged whale with hooves has been discovered, providing new insights into how the ancestors of the Earth’s largest mammals made the transition from land to sea.

The giant 42.6m-year-old fossil, discovered in marine sediments along the coast of Peru, appears to have been adapted for a semi-aquatic lifestyle. Its hoofed feet and the shape of its legs suggest it would have been capable of bearing the weight of its bulky four metre long body and walking on land. Other anatomical features, including a powerful tail and webbed feet similar to an otter suggest it was also a strong swimmer.

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