Current World Archaeology 136
The comprehensive website for archaeology, history, heritage and the ancient world. Find out more about us here
Discovering Denmark: From prehistoric burials to Viking Age power architecture and beyond
Denmark is home to many archaeological marvels, including both renowned sites and world-class museums. Olympia Bobou, Ilaria Bucci, and Rubina Raja are our guides to the wealth of heritage that the country has to offer.
Surveying Falerii Novi: Rethinking the development of a Roman town
Surveying an ancient town in Italy has presented fresh insights into a key moment for Roman urbanism. Matthew Symonds spoke to Martin Millett about what can be learnt from studying an entire townscape.
Ancient inscriptions in Saudi Arabia
The mountain of Jabal Ikmah, located 5km north of the ancient city of AlUla in north-west Saudi Arabia, has just been added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register, which recognises documentary
Volos: Archaeology and myth in Thessaly
Looking for somewhere off the beaten track to explore in Greece? Martin Davies is our guide to the rich prehistoric heritage of Volos.
Ancient Egypt and the dawn of literature: Revisiting the oldest book in the world
Among the many treasures recovered by archaeologists and antiquarian collectors from Egypt are papyrus copies of a remarkable text written more than 4,000 years ago: The Teaching of Ptahhatp. Bill Manley investigates this often-overlooked survival from ancient Egypt and one vizier’s contributions to the dawn of literature.
One person’s trash is another person’s treasure
Rubina Raja and Søren M Sindbæk on the archaeology of waste
Sailing stony seas: Ship graffiti on Malta
A previously unsung facet of Malta’s rich maritime heritage has recently come under the spotlight. An armada of ship graffiti, with examples dating back to prehistory, can be seen sailing across numerous structures. Timmy Gambin and Julia Zerafa examine what these ships are, and why they were carved.
Naga: the buried royal city
An exhibition at the State Museum of Egyptian Art (SMÄK) in Munich transports visitors to excavations at the ancient city of Naga in Sudan.
China unearthed: A hidden history of tombs and offerings
Deep underground, the ancient inhabitants of what is now China built remarkable houses and palaces. But these dwellings were not homes for the living. Instead, the dead would be laid there, not to rest, but to live out their afterlife in comfort. The objects and attendants that accompanied them shed light on both the deceased and the birth of a unified China, as Jessica Rawson told Matthew Symonds.
A bitter harvest: Slave labour and sugar on São Tomé
The first archaeological project ever mounted on São Tomé is examining a 16th-century sugar mill. Results are shedding fresh light on the origins of the tropical plantation system, which would go on to shape the Atlantic world at a terrible human cost, as M Dores Cruz told Matthew Symonds.
Extreme cold drove early humans out of Europe
New research is changing our understanding of the climate of Early Pleistocene Europe and what it meant for our early relatives. Hominin fossils and stone tools indicate that archaic humans had reached
The Scythian Empire
REVIEW BY TIMOTHY TAYLOR Christopher Beckwith’s The Scythian Empire represents a major challenge for archaeological understandings of what many pre- and proto-historians have been inclined to see as a merely ‘tribal’ phenomenon. His book
The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome: The history of a dangerous idea
REVIEW BY ANDREW SELKIRK Edward J Watts, Professor of History at San Diego University, is not a fan of politicians who claim that society is rotten and only they can make it
Lucayan Legacies: Indigenous lifeways in the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos Islands
REVIEW BY EMILY C KRACHT Lucayan Legacies evaluates the lives of the early Indigenous peoples in the Bahama archipelago and celebrates their legacy, identity, and descendants today. The book presents one of
Buried Beneath the City: An archaeological history of New York
REVIEW BY META F JANOWITZ Archaeologists who work in New York City often get incredulous looks from people who ask about their careers: You work where? There’s archaeology in NYC? New York
A spectacular synagogue
Excavations in Israel have unearthed a 1,600-year-old synagogue, home to an exceptional set of mosaics.
Neolithic water system in China
Excavations in China have uncovered a set of ceramic pipes that represent the oldest water-drainage system ever found in the country, and appear to have been the product of impressive community efforts.
Inscribed amphora fragment
What is it? This small sherd of pottery, measuring 6cm wide and 8cm long, comes from the lower part of a Roman amphora once used to hold olive oil. The fragment bears
World news in brief: From an Ice Age mystery to early cattle in the Americas
An Ice Age mystery In 1999, archaeologists working in Hohle Fels cave in southern Germany discovered the head of a 35,000-year-old ivory figurine, believed to depict a horse. Recent excavations have now
Earliest Neanderthal cave engravings?
A set of marks in a cave in central France may be the earliest example of Neanderthal cave-wall engravings found to date. Tens of thousands of years ago, the entrance of La
Fragrant finds in Vietnam
A recent study of food preparation tools from Vietnam has identified the remains of a variety of spices used c.2,000 years ago. The researchers analysed microscopic plant remains from 12 grinding stone
Nero’s lost theatre found
Excavations in Rome have discovered a theatre that was built by Emperor Nero in the 1st century AD. Several Classical historians refer to a theatre built for the infamous emperor – and