Category Archives: Archaeology

Archaeologist hails possibly oldest mummy yet found in Egypt

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The 4,300-year-old mummy was found at the bottom of a 15-metre shaft near the Step Pyramid at Saqqara

Egyptologists have uncovered a Pharaonic tomb near the capital, Cairo, containing what may be the oldest and most complete mummy yet to be discovered in the country, the excavation team leader has said.

The 4,300-year-old mummy was found at the bottom of a 15-metre shaft in a recently uncovered group of fifth and sixth dynasty tombs near the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, Zahi Hawass, director of the team, told reporters.

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‘Astonishing’ Pompeii home of men freed from slavery reopens to public

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House of the Vettii features ornate and erotic friezes – and a fresco of the god Priapus with a huge phallus

An ornate house – containing a fresco featuring a huge phallus – that was owned by two freed men freed from slavery in the ancient city of Pompeii has reopened to the public.

The House of the Vettii was buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD74 before being rediscovered in a largely preserved state during excavations in the late 19th century.

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‘A search for ourselves’: shipwreck becomes focus of slavery debate

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Vessel that sank with more than 200 transported people onboard is being used to humanise the story of slavery

In 2015, a delegation from the Smithsonian Institution travelled to Mozambique to inform the Makua people of a singular and long-overdue discovery. Two hundred and twenty-one years after it sank in treacherous waters off Cape Town, claiming the lives of 212 enslaved people, the wreck of the Portuguese slave ship the São José Paquete D’Africa had been found. When told the news, a Makua leader responded with a gesture that no one on the delegation will ever forget.

“One of the chiefs took a vessel we had, filled it with soil and asked us to bring that vessel back to the site of the slave ship so that, for the first time since the 18th century, his people could sleep in their own land,” says Lonnie Bunch, now the secretary of the Smithsonian.

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Young Sudanese archaeologists dig up history as ‘west knows best’ era ends

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On a continent that has long attracted western expeditions, a wave of young people are now exploring sites

A late morning in Khartoum. Inside a low, dusty building in the centre of the Sudanese capital, there are crates of artefacts, a 7ft replica of a 2,000-year-old stone statue of a Nubian god, and students rushing through the corridors. Outside is noisy traffic, blinding sunlight and both branches of the Nile.

Heading down one staircase are Sabrine Jamal, Nadia Musa, Athar Bela and Sabrine al-Sadiq, all studying archaeology at Khartoum University. Not one of them is older than 24 and they see themselves as pioneers, breaking new ground on a continent that has long attracted western expeditions, specialists and adventurers but whose own archaeologists have received less attention overseas.

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‘A second front’: fight to save 1,000-year-old caves from developers in Ukraine

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Archaeologists say cave complex must be preserved for ‘indisputable and cultural value’

Dmytro Perov was at his day job, analysing planning applications for Kyiv city council, when he saw a familiar address – the derelict house in central Kyiv built by his family in the late 1800s that was confiscated by the Bolsheviks. The owners of the site now wanted to build on it and had made the unlikely claim that their office was based at the house, which Perov knew had no roof and collapsed walls.

When he was a child, his grandmother said somewhere on the land around the former family home were rumoured to be ancient caves. He described it as a “small family legend”. Ukraine is home to a few cave complexes, most of which were built by monks, the most famous being Kyiv’s Pecherska Lavra – or Cave Monastery in English.

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Ancient Aboriginal rock art destroyed by vandals in ‘tragic loss’ at sacred SA site

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Archeologist says artwork was ‘unique in Australia’, calling for better protection at Koonalda Cave

Vandals have destroyed a 30,000-year-old artwork at a sacred cave in South Australia, as experts decried the “massive, tragic loss” and expressed frustration at the lack of protection at the site.

The vandals entered Koonalda Cave at Nullarbor Plain and scrawled graffiti across the heritage-listed site, writing “don’t look now, but this is a death cave”.

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Pope Francis orders Parthenon marbles held by Vatican be returned to Greece

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Three 2,500-year-old pieces will be ‘donated’ to Greece’s Archbishop Ieronymos II amid wider conversation about future of Parthenon marbles held by Britain

Pope Francis has decided to return to Greece three 2,500-year-old pieces of the Parthenon that have been in the papal collections of the Vatican Museums for two centuries.

The Vatican said in a brief statement that the pope was giving them to Archbishop Ieronymos II, the head of the Greek Orthodox Church and Greece’s spiritual leader, as a “donation” and “a concrete sign of his sincere desire to follow in the ecumenical path of truth”.

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Notre Dame’s uncovered tombs start to reveal their secrets

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Two sarcophaguses unearthed in reconstruction work after 2019 fire identified as elite canon of cathedral and young cavalier

Two lead sarcophaguses discovered buried under the nave at Notre Dame Cathedral in what was described as an “extraordinary and emotional” find have begun giving up their secrets, French scientists announced on Friday.

The first contains the remains of a high priest who died in 1710 after what experts say appeared to be a sedentary life. The occupant of the second has not yet been identified – and may never be – but is believed to be a young, wealthy and privileged noble who could have lived as far back as the 14th century.

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Early medieval female burial site is ‘most significant ever discovered’ in UK

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Find dating from about 650AD in Northamptonshire includes jewelled necklace and changed archaeologists’ view of the period

Archaeologists don’t often bounce with excitement, but the Museum of London archeology team could hardly contain themselves on Tuesday as they unveiled an “exhilarating” discovery made on the last day of an otherwise barren dig in the spring.

“This is the most significant early medieval female burial ever discovered in Britain,” said the leader of the dig, Levente Bence Balázs, almost skipping with elation. “It is an archaeologist’s dream to find something like this.”

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Queensland graziers unearth 100m-year-old plesiosaur remains likened to Rosetta Stone

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Amateur fossil hunters find skull connected to body of marine giant elasmosaur for the first time in Australia

A group of female graziers from outback Queensland who hunt fossils in their downtime have uncovered the remains of a 100m-year-old creature that palaeontologists are likening to the Rosetta Stone for its potential to unlock the discovery of several new species of prehistoric marine giant.

One of the “Rock Chicks” – as the amateur palaeontologists call themselves – uncovered the fossilised remains of the long-necked plesiosaur, known as an elasmosaur, while searching her western Queensland cattle station in August.

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Forgotten photos show how Kenyan archaeologists unearthed secrets of their own country

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Exhibitions in UK and Africa rewrite history by celebrating discoveries of overlooked black excavators in colonial era

The photographs are rare, the subject choice unusual, but what the photographer captured was a common sight in the early 20th century: a team of colonised people, hard at work under a hot sun, excavating an ancient monument.

Today, without these photos, taken in Kenya in the 1940s and 50s, there would be scarcely any evidence that African Kenyans were present at archaeological digs. Their contributions and priceless finds were credited to their European bosses – and their important role in unearthing the history of their own continent has been all but forgotten.

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Long-lost ancient mural rediscovered in northern Peru after more than a century

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Student archaeologists unearth Huaca Pintada, described as ‘the most exciting and important find of recent years’

A team of student archaeologists has rediscovered a 1,000-year-old multicoloured mural depicting a deity surrounded by warriors which was last seen a century ago in northern Peru.

Known as the Huaca Pintada, the 30-metre-long wall painted with fantastical images depicting mythical scenes was first found in 1916 by a band of treasure-hunting tomb raiders in Illimo near the city of Chiclayo.

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Celtic gold coins worth ‘several million euros’ stolen from German museum

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Third-century coins taken in heist involving ‘cut off’ phone and internet connections in Manching, Bavaria

Thieves have stolen a hoard of Celtic coins worth several million euros from a German museum after apparently disrupting local telephone and internet connections.

Employees at the museum in Manching discovered on Tuesday that a “showcase was broken” and the collection of 450 coins had been stolen, local police told AFP.

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Christie’s cancels T rex skeleton auction after doubts raised

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Sale of 1,400kg skeleton withdrawn after New York Times reported claims of similarities to T rex sold in 2020

The British auction house Christie’s has been forced to call off the £20m auction of a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton just days before it was due to go under the hammer after a well-known paleontologist raised concerns that parts of it looked similar to another dinosaur.

Christie’s said on Monday that the 1,400kg (3,100lb) skeleton – nicknamed Shen – had been withdrawn from the auction in Hong Kong on 30 November, when it was set to be the star lot.

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Fish fossils show first cooking may have been 600,000 years earlier than thought

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After examining carp remains, researchers claim people who lived 780,000 years ago liked their fish well done

Early human ancestors living 780,000 years ago liked their fish well done, Israeli researchers have revealed, in what they said was the earliest evidence of fire being used to cook.

Exactly when our ancestors started cooking has been a matter of controversy among archaeologists because it is difficult to prove that an ancient fireplace was used to prepare food, and not just for warmth.

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‘It’s as if we found oil’: Tuscan town savours discovery of spa trove

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San Casciano dei Bagni’s fortunes expected to change after opulent Etruscan-Roman sanctuary found

Since she was a child, Martina Canuti has been venturing down the steep hill flanking the Tuscan town of San Casciano dei Bagni, known by residents as “the sacred mountain”, to take a dip in the two ancient hot springs famed for their therapeutic benefits.

Little did she know that just a few metres away lay a sanctuary built by the Etruscans in the second century BC, containing a trove of treasures that could now reverse the fortunes of this relatively isolated town of 1,400 inhabitants near Siena.

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Oldest known written sentence discovered – on a head-lice comb

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Timeless fret over hygiene picked out on engraved Bronze age comb from ancient kingdom of Judah

It’s a simple sentence that captures the hopes and fears of modern-day parents as much as the bronze age Canaanite who owned the doubled-edged ivory comb on which the words appear.

Believed to be the oldest known sentence written in the earliest alphabet, the inscription on the luxury item reads: “May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard.”

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Archaeologists unearth 2,700-year-old rock carvings in Iraq

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Experts find artefacts from ancient empire during restoration of historic site destroyed by Islamic State

Archaeologists in northern Iraq have unearthed 2,700-year-old rock carvings featuring war scenes and trees from the Assyrian empire, an archaeologist has said.

The carvings on marble slabs were discovered in Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, where experts have been working to restore the site of the ancient Mashki Gate, which was bulldozed by Islamic State militants in 2016.

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Swedish archaeologists find 17th-century warship

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Maritime experts believe wreck is sister ship of Vasa, which sank off Stockholm in 1629

Swedish maritime archaeologists have discovered the long-lost sister ship of the 17th-century warship Vasa, which sank on its maiden voyage, the Swedish Museum of Wrecks has said.

Launched in 1629, Applet (Apple) was built by the same shipbuilder as the famed 69-metre Vasa, which was carrying 64 cannon when it went down in a strait off the island of Vaxholm, just outside the capital, Stockholm.

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Hundreds of skeletons found beneath old Pembrokeshire department store

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Archaeologists find remnants of medieval priory under former Ocky White store in Haverfordwest

The remains of more than 240 people, including about 100 children, have been discovered beneath a former department store in Pembrokeshire among the ruins of a medieval priory.

Archaeologists believe they have discovered the remnants of St Saviour’s Priory underneath the former Ocky White store in Haverfordwest, which closed in 2013.

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