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…
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.…
A century after Tutankhamun’s tomb first captured the world’s attention, a new exhibition at the Bodleian Library offers fresh insights into the famous discovery through archival material. Amy Brunskill visited to find out more.…
In order to explore how this lavish home was experienced by Roman viewers, researchers first used 3D-modelling software to create a reconstruction of the house. This 3D model was based on information from an earlier Lund University project that digitally mapped a neighbourhood in Pompeii, in combination with records from…
Discussions were prematurely halted by the receipt of a coded telegram from the War Office summoning Birley home to join Military Intelligence, to which he had previously been recruited owing to his fluent German and knowledge of the Roman army.…
Dig into archive records. Leaf through forgotten research in books that were written in foreign tongues. Centuries-old observations can provide important perspectives on the archaeological record, as Eva Mortensen and Rubina Raja highlight in this account of a pioneering Danish explorer in the Syrian Desert.…
A letter in the Penn Museum archives sets Richard Hodges and Alessandro Pezzati on the trail of a memorable moment in the pioneering days of archaeological broadcasting.…
Review by Miroslav Bárta. The Old Kingdom papyri count among the rarest of finds. For several decades, the Abusir papyri archives from the pyramid complexes of the Fifth Dynasty kings Neferirkare and Nyuserre and queen-mother Khentkaus were among the earliest inscribed papyri known from the 3rd millennium BC. They detail…
How has female authority been expressed through belief? Examining goddesses, demons, and spiritual beings from around the world exposes the true scope of feminine power, as Belinda Crerar told Matthew Symonds and Amy Brunskill.…
The molar has been dated to between 164,000 and 131,000 years ago.…
New research finally answers the question of what Bronze Age daggers were used for, as Isabella Caricola and Andrea Dolfini reveal.…
Between c.900 and 600 BC, the Neo-Assyrian empire expanded across south-eastern Anatolia, establishing rule over many Aramean city-states, and using Assyrian art to express and consolidate their power.…
The research focused on a collection of 50 limestone plaquettes from the rock-shelter site of Montastruc in southern France, which was occupied in the Magdalenian period (23,000-14,000 years ago).…
It was probably around 3,600 years ago that the earliest known depiction of the cosmos was buried in eastern Germany. By then, the Nebra Sky Disc had already served several roles. Repeatedly refashioning the artefact allowed it to keep pace with changing desires to express knowledge, belief, and power, as…
Review by Barbara E Borg ‘The real essence of an age is better revealed among trivial and commonplace things than among prominent monuments and great leaders.’ The opening sentence of this book captures succinctly its underlying principles. Following two chapters outlining the approach and the wider social and topographical context…
• Digging Caesar’s Forum: daily life in Rome
• Nebra Sky Disc: decoding a prehistoric vision of the cosmos (out 25 May on The Past)
• The dead of Amato: conflict on the Peruvian south coast
• Tsunami: a Bronze Age tragedy in Turkey
• Finding Shackleton’s ship
• The monastery of San Vincenzo al…
Across 7 Phoenician city state destroyed by Rome in 146 BC (8) 9 Light cavalryman originating in Hungary in the 15th century (6) 10 Sailing vessel developed in Macau in the 16th century (6) 11 Germanic people who invaded Italy in the 6th century (8) 12 Palaeolithic communities of south-central…
Your observations, your objections, and your opinions: send them to cwaletters@world-archaeology.com…
Numerous altars, stelae, votive offerings, and other finds associated with a religious complex were discovered.…