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…
Telltale signs of a hidden doorway hint at more rooms beyond the boy king's burial chamber. If so, what lies within? Could it be the tomb of his stepmother Queen Nefertiti that has for so long eluded discovery?…
The 17th- to 18th-century graves contain features designed to stop the deceased returning after death, such as a sickle across the neck or body, and a stone beneath the chin.…
Following an initial season of underwater excavation in the Aegean Sea, Mantha Zarmakoupi talks to CWA about the rise and fall of the trading emporium of Delos.…
Climate change and water shortages threaten the survival of rural communities in the Peruvian Andes. Robert Early explains how ancient Inca know-how is relevant today.…
In 2012, CWA reported on the damage inflicted on Syria’s cultural heritage since the beginning of the civil war. Now we take an updated look at heritage in conflict in Syria and Iraq.…
Are the macabre remains at an Iron Age sanctuary evidence of sacrificed enemy warriors? CWA talks to Mads Kähler Holst, who made the grim finds.…
A small perfume flask was found dangling from a nail on the back tomb wall where it had been hung about 2,500 years ago…
Patrick Skinner sets out from the country's capital on a voyage of archaeological discovery.…
Shortly after the end of the Cold War, exactly a decade before CWA was launched, Richard Hodges walked through the ruins at Butrint. Here, he looks back over 20 years of discovery and excavation at this ancient city that sits on the idyllic shores of the Ionian Sea.…
Archaeology destroys: once a site has been dug, it cannot be un-dug. Now, however, archaeologists Maurizio Forte, Nicolò Dell’Unto, and Scott Haddow, at the huge Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Turkey, have developed a process that can do just that – virtually, at least.…
Once gatekeeper to Egypt’s interior, Thonis-Heracleion lay forgotten beneath the sea several miles off the Egyptian coast. The legendary city, visited by Helen of Troy as she eloped with Paris, enjoyed wealth and prestige before vanishing from the face of the earth.…
Olive trees thrive on poor soil where little else will grow, which means land that would otherwise be barren can produce food. This realisation triggered a true agricultural revolution – but when and where did it take place? Colin Renfrew and Evi Margaritis believe the clues were grown on Crete.…
What impact did the Roman army have on the native population living in the military north? The recent publication of the report on a settlement at Faverdale, Darlington, by Jennifer Proctor provides some unexpected answers.…
Forget London 2012. What about Olympia in 388 BC? Archaeologist Neil Faulkner has just published a new book that attempts to reconstruct the lived experience of the ancient games. So what were they really like?…
Neil Faulkner on the greatest excavations.…
The deadly wave that engulfed the northeastern coastline of Japan devastated many archaeological sites and museums. Prehistoric settlers along the coast chose higher ground for their sites, perhaps passing on knowledge of the danger from earlier tsunamis from generation to generation. CWA looks at a handful of these ancient sites.…
Following the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in Spring this year, archaeologist Simon Kaner insists there is much to celebrate about the country’s heritage – and much to mend.…
Sensational discoveries of metal masks in a subterranean temple have led to calls for Javanese history to be rewritten. Fiorella Rispoli investigates.…
The cylinder, excavated in 1879 by the archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam, was once considered to be a unique object, made for ritual burial in the foundations of the Esagila, ancient Babylon’s main temple, when Cyrus rebuilt it.…
In Brian Fagan’s latest instalment of all things archaeological that are both exotic and entertaining, he reads a Jamestown tablet, gets spiritual with the Hopewell, and finds gomphotheres with Clovis points.…