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…
Richard Hodges has been visiting Sexten, where the alpine scenery still bears the traces of fighting in the First World War.…
Occupation of the fortress appears to have been relatively short-lived, with the main phase of activity probably dating to the 1st century BC.…
Researchers discovered that many of the bones had been modified – shaved down, polished, perforated, or filled with lead – in order to improve the roll of the dice.…
The recipe in question is recorded in an ancient Chinese text known as the Kaogong ji, which is believed to be the world’s first encyclopaedia of technology, probably dating to c.300 BC.…
The study found that the plaza would have been underwater for most if not all of the year at the time of the site’s creation.…
Review by Charlotte Spence. Stuart McKie’s reassessment of curse tablets sets itself up as a ‘paradigm shift’ in the scholarship and our understanding of these objects; and this is something he well achieves. The focuis on the examination of the tablets within the physical and social lived realities of the…
Several Roman sanctuaries are known in the Netherlands, but this is the first to be discovered on the northern boundary of the empire.…
• Maya underworld: subterranean secrets in Mexico
• The many faces of feminine power
• Into the desert: a pioneering journey to Palmyra
• A pub crawl around Pompeii
• Archaeology on screen
• What the Romans did for Athens…
Join Andrew Selkirk for a trip around the bars in Pompeii and find out where to go with your loved one for a slap-up meal.…
Artefacts made of non-local materials indicate that the quarry may have been the source of much of the ochre found across the American midcontinent…
Across 6 Ancient Greek historian and geographer (6)8 Emperor whose return to Rome from campaigns in Spain and Gaul was honoured by the building of the Ara Pacis (8)10 Member of a Germanic people believed to have invaded Britain in the 5th century AD (4)11 Stone tip found throughout Australia…
Your observations, your objections, and your opinions.…
Review by Robin Osborne. Thirty-three years ago, I attempted to push 7th-century BC Athens and Attica into the limelight. I managed to stimulate critical engagement from Anna-Maria D’Onofrio and James Whitley, but failed to convince the wider world that this was a topic well worth attention. In the past four…
A round up of some of the latest archaeological news from around the globe.…
Ancient Rome’s enthusiasm for all things Greek is well known, and archaeological echoes of these influences can be found across the Empire. Looking in the other direction, though, what traces did the Romans leave in Athens, the city at the heart of their idealised view? Carly Hilts reports.…
Conservators working in the Temple of Khnum in Esna, Upper Egypt, have uncovered new details of the building’s colourful ceiling frescoes. Construction on the temple began in the Ptolemaic period and continued into the Roman period, with decoration completed during the reign of Emperor Decius (r. AD 249-251). The temple’s…
Review by George Nash. The visible prehistoric sites of the Arabian Peninsula are all too clear to see, with burial-ritual and settlement sites of the Neolithic, Bronze Age, and, in particular, Iron Age providing the most obvious presence. Less visible are those sites that date from earlier times. Recent fieldwork…
What is it? This small female figurine made of bronze is 14.7cm tall and weighs 155g. The figure has an egg-shaped head with a prominent nose, and a flat body with looped arms, two knobs on the chest signifying breasts, an indication of a vulva, and two slightly differently shaped…
Southeast Mexico is rich in caves. This extraordinary underworld has influenced human activity for thousands of years. Now a project dedicated to understanding and preserving this realm is shedding new light on the archaeology of the Yucatán Peninsula, as Guillermo de Anda told Matthew Symonds.…
Information about the health of early migrants to South Australia was obtained through analysis such as micro-CT scanning of their teeth.…
