How did Egypt build the pyramids? It is a question that has excited the imagination of scholars and visitors for millennia. Now papyri documenting work on the Great Pyramid are revealing fresh insights into construction work. Pierre Tallet and Mark Lehner told Matthew Symonds how combining text and archaeology can…
• Ötzi: life and death of the iceman
• Gifts for the gods: fascinating finds from an ancient sanctuary in Italy
• The ‘Qurna Queen’: Nubia’s influence on Egypt
• Hieroglyphs: unlocking a lost world
• United Arab Emirates: rock art and a hidden landscape
• Thailand: inside prehistoric houses…
Across 8 Ancient Mesopotamian temple similar to a pyramid (8) 9 Legendary island where King Arthur was taken after his final battle (6) 10 Ancient Egyptian funerary god, one of the Four Sons of Horus (6) 11 Australian state, location of the Rocky Cape North Cave site (8) 12 Mediterranean…
Your observations, your objections, and your opinions: send them to cwaletters@world-archaeology.com…
What is it? This collection of decorated ivory plaques found in Jerusalem was probably once inlaid in a piece of ornate wooden furniture. The plaques, which are believed to date to the 8th-7th centuries BC, were discovered broken into many fragments, but conservators were able to piece them back together…
Timothy Power and Mark Horton present some of the latest discoveries made during recent excavations at the Old Fort of Stone Town, Zanzibar.…
A round up of some of the latest archaeological news across the globe, including the discovery of 2,600-year-old remains of cheese at Saqqara, the oldest known octopus lures in the world, and the launch of Montenegro's first maritime archaeology research unit.…
Recent survey has revolutionised our knowledge of rock art created on an imposing natural landmark in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). What can archaeology reveal about how humans used a landscape that periodically became more or less hospitable in response to climate shifts? George H Nash, Yale Fox, Dillon von…
The fact that cacao appears to have been generally available does not diminish its value, but rather suggests that its importance for the Maya people extended throughout society.…
Haunted by Ostrogothic and Hunnic raids, Panticapaeum still survived as a Byzantine citadel. It lived through a succession of Khazar and Slavic lordships to become the modern city of Kerch, now once more trying to persist through a precarious situation in the current war in Ukraine.…
Archaeologists tend to reserve the term ‘civilisation’ for the settled villages and towns of the Neolithic and Bronze Age. Many of the innovations that we think are characteristic of human civilisation were, however, the inventions of Ice Age hunter-gatherers. Just think of eyed-needles and tailored clothing, drawing, painting and sculpture,…
The identity of the ancient Egyptian ‘Qurna Queen’ remains a mystery over 100 years after the excavation of her intact burial. However, new research on her burial assemblage is revealing historic biases in interpretation and shedding light on Egypt’s place within African culture, as Margaret Maitland explains.…
Excavations have uncovered a significant section of the site’s necropolis, which the archaeologists are calling ‘The Gallery of the Elite Craftsmen’.…
The fossilised remains, which date to between 31,000 and 30,000 years ago, were found during excavations at Liang Tebo. Previously, the earliest known evidence of surgical amputation came from a farmer in France c.7,000 years ago…
In the middle of Louisiana State University’s campus stand two earthen mounds, each c.5.5m tall. The LSU Campus Mounds have long been known to be among the c.800 mounds created by ancient indigenous communities in this region, but archaeological investigations recently published in the American Journal of Science (https://doi.org/10.2475/06.2022.02) have…
The title of this book is perhaps rather misleading. Although a hundred objects from the tomb of Tutankhamun (among which are counted two scenes from the walls of its burial chamber) are indeed listed, mentioned, and illustrated, they are arguably not the vehicle for structuring the narrative that one might…
The beautiful and mysterious signs adorning ancient monuments across Egypt have excited speculation for centuries. The tale of how their meaning was finally rediscovered is just as long, and takes in many twists and turns. Success came 200 years ago, and with it a staggering insight into ancient Egyptian history,…
The excavations revealed at least 50 burials dating to the Roman period, including inhumation graves, cremation urns, and signs of funerary pyres.…
On 19 September 1991, two hikers made an alarming discovery high in the Alps. Travelling off the beaten track, they saw a human corpse in a gulley, and imagined they had stumbled across an ill-fated mountaineer. Instead, this was just the latest twist in an extraordinary murder mystery. Investigators soon…
The study aims to improve our understanding of the social identities of people living in this region between c.9,000 and 7,500 years ago by exploring what their burials can tell us about their relationships with the animals in the world around them.…
A new exhibition at the British Library explores the 2,000-year history of storytelling and myth-making surrounding Alexander the Great.…
