Sculptures of kings and princes and murals of delegations of ambassadors paint a detailed picture of the wealth, influences, and connections of Uzbekistan’s oasis cities. Lucia Marchini speaks to Yannick Lintz and Rocco Rante to find out more.
The reliefs depict details including mountains, grapevines, pomegranates, figs, palm trees, and warriors firing arrows in battle
A round-up of some of the latest archaeological news from across the globe.
Research suggests that, for Neanderthals and early modern humans, flavour was an important consideration during food preparation.
Analysis of Beveled Rim Bowls excavated from a Late Chalcolithic site in Iraq has challenged traditional interpretations that they were used for distributing cereal rations to state-dependent labourers.
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…
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 Petzinger, Genevieve von Petzinger, Aitor Ruiz Redondo, Juan F Ruiz Lopez, and Yamandu H Hilbert, provide us with a first glimpse of the fruits of their work.
The fossilised remains, which date to between 31,000 and 30,000 years ago, were found during excavations at Liang Tebo. Previously, the earliest known evidence of surgical amputation came from a farmer in France c.7,000 years ago
REVIEW BY TOBY CLARK Anyone who enjoyed the HBO television series The Pacific or Eugene Sledge’s memoir With the Old Breed will want to read Saul David’s new book, Devil Dogs: first in, last out – King Company from Guadalcanal…
• Japan’s stone circles: secrets from mysterious monuments
• Lost cities of Bolivia: discoveries in the Amazon
• Hunters and gatherers? Re-examining women’s lives in the Ice Age (out on The Past soon)
• France: Narbonne’s new archaeological museum
• Italy: First World War echoes at Sexten
Project 'Horse Power' aims to test the hypothesis that horses from the northern steppe region were traded south in exchange for Chinese metals.
It has been suggested that the ivories were made by Assyrian artists and possibly arrived in Jerusalem as a gift to the nobility.
One archaeological milestone this year is the centenary of the founding of the Délégation archéologique française en Afghanistan (DAFA) in 1922. Their century of research has included investigations at Aï Khanoum, a Hellenistic city on the banks of the Oxus…
As a new exhibition opens at the Stonehenge visitor centre, curator and archaeologist Susan Greaney explores the incredible artistry and ingenuity of people living during Japan’s Jomon period and the parallels to their contemporaries in Britain and Ireland.
Today, we live in a world of too much information: one in which a staggering 231,400,000 emails are sent out on average every single minute, according to the consumer data company Statista, along with countless million more text messages and…
Enheduanna, high priestess at the ancient city of Ur, is thought to be the world’s first named author. She was a poetic innovator, but she was not alone in Mesopotamian history as a prominent or a literate woman, as Lucia Marchini learns from Sidney Babcock.
Analysing pottery fragments recovered from the site, archaeologists have dated the construction of the settlement to between the 5th and 7th centuries AD.
These monumental structures, termed 'kites', consist of low stone walls that stretch hundreds of metres and lead to an enclosure, in which gazelles and other game could have been trapped.
• Revealing the riches of China’s Bronze Age kingdoms
• Mithras: mysteries of a Roman cult
• Ancient Egypt and modern art (out 24 August)
• The elusive cave writing of Lascaux
• From remarkable medieval women to famous discoveries
The study sheds light on how the hallucinogenic drug was used in Late Bronze Age burial customs.
A fascinating exhibition opening at the Stonehenge Visitor Centre this autumn shines new light on a remarkable group of ancient stone circles. Spread across 17 sites, and mostly dating from c.2500 to 300 BC, these extraordinary monuments served for centuries as the focus for ceremonies associated with solar alignments and the seasons, as well as with death and the afterlife. Such is their importance that these stone circles were even granted UNESCO World Heritage status last summer. Even so, they will be unknown to many here in Britain.
Dated c.14,000–300 BC, which is the earliest major culture of prehistoric Japan?
Numerous ancient stone circles are known in Japan, but how and why were these monuments built? Simon Kaner examines what these enigmatic structures can tell us about a key period of Japanese prehistory.
Saudi Arabia is a paradise for researching engraved rock art (see ‘Saudi Arabian rock art’ in CWA 102). In March 2022, I returned to the Saudi provinces of Najran and ‘Asir. In the latter, the exploration of Wadi al-Khayyur, located…
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.
Evidence of what appears to be the earliest known surgical amputation of a limb, dating to c.31,000 years ago, has been identified in Borneo.
Excavations at the site, located near Revadim, have previously unearthed stone and flint tools assigned to the Late Acheulean.
REVIEW BY TOBY CLARK. Sailing into Hong Kong in late August 1945, the Royal Navy battleship HMS Anson symbolised the Japanese defeat. Within a week of her arrival, the Anson hosted 500 recently freed ex-Prisoners of War (POWs) for afternoon…
Which legendary leader established the Xia dynasty in c.2070 BC, inaugurating dynastic rule in China?
It is easy to fall into the trap of believing that Chinese culture began with the Qin – the regional powerbrokers who in the 3rd-century BC conquered their warring rivals to become the country’s first imperial dynasty, thereby ushering in…
The Bronze Age kingdoms of China have long been overshadowed by the Qin, who replaced them with a unified empire. Fan Jeremy Zhang explores the spectacular discoveries that have been helping two of them, the Zeng and Chu, rise from obscurity.
Pangu was born in the midst of an egg-like chaos. After 18,000 years, the two muddled parts separated, and the Yin (which represents the negative, feminine, cool, dark, and wet) became the earth and the Yang (representing the positive, masculine, hot, bright, and dry) the sky.
Based on the architectural association between Rabana-Merquly’s rock reliefs, fortifications, and settlements, and some specific types of pottery, the team have tentatively dated the site’s main building phase to the 1st century BC.