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…
Researchers conducted genetic analysis of bone and tooth remains from 13 Neanderthals from two sites in the foothills of the Altai Mountains in southern Siberia.…
The discovery of a burial in pride of place in Gårdby Church, Sweden, marked the beginning of an archaeological detective story. What could explain the unusual treatment of the man’s body? Caroline Arcini investigates.…
Review by Carolynn Roncaglia In AD 452, Attila the Hun led his forces over the eastern Alps into Italy. Straightaway they besieged the city of Aquileia, which for more than 600 years had guarded the way into Roman Italy from the north-east. Attila’s forces sacked the city and slaughtered or…
A long-lost Roman emperor. Who could resist such a headline? The media lapped it up. But how could anyone lose an emperor in the first place? It turns out that this emperor was self-declared, so he wasn’t really an emperor at all…
New analysis has revealed that the layer containing the footprints dates to c.295,8000 years ago.…
Until now, inscriptions found in the Canaanite alphabet have been limited to two or three words; this is the first meaningful Canaanite inscription found in Israel.…
Excavations in the ancient city of Ephesus in Turkey have uncovered the remains of early Byzantine shops and businesses. Archaeologists from the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) working this year in Domitian Square, next to the Upper Agora, focused their investigations on a small area (c.170m2) that once housed several…
Inside the funerary structure, archaeologists found a number of rock-cut and stone-lined burial chambers containing a variety of burials, ranging from simple interments to examples of high-quality embalming.…
Review by George Nash Until relatively recently, European Palaeolithic rock art outside the Franco-Cantabrian area (south-west France and northern Spain) was considered a rare occurrence. This belief was partly based on harsh climatic regimes in the northern and alpine areas of Europe, where it was thought that human settlement would…
• 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.…