Cover Story
China unearthed: A hidden history of tombs and offerings Deep underground, the ancient inhabitants of what is now China built remarkable houses and palaces. But these dwellings were not homes for the living. Instead, the dead would be laid there, not to rest, but to live out their afterlife… Features
Ancient Egypt and the dawn of literature: Revisiting the oldest book in the world Among the many treasures recovered by archaeologists and antiquarian collectors from Egypt are papyrus copies of a remarkable text written more than 4,000 years ago: The Teaching of Ptahhatp. Bill… 
Sailing stony seas: Ship graffiti on Malta A previously unsung facet of Malta’s rich maritime heritage has recently come under the spotlight. An armada of ship graffiti, with examples dating back to prehistory, can be seen sailing… 
A bitter harvest: Slave labour and sugar on São Tomé The first archaeological project ever mounted on São Tomé is examining a 16th-century sugar mill. Results are shedding fresh light on the origins of the tropical plantation system, which would… News
Extreme cold drove early humans out of Europe New research is changing our understanding of the climate of Early Pleistocene Europe and what it meant for our early relatives. Hominin fossils and stone tools indicate that archaic humans… 
A spectacular synagogue Excavations in Israel have unearthed a 1,600-year-old synagogue, home to an exceptional set of mosaics. 
Neolithic water system in China Excavations in China have uncovered a set of ceramic pipes that represent the oldest water-drainage system ever found in the country, and appear to have been the product of impressive… 
Earliest Neanderthal cave engravings? A set of marks in a cave in central France may be the earliest example of Neanderthal cave-wall engravings found to date. Tens of thousands of years ago, the entrance… 
Fragrant finds in Vietnam A recent study of food preparation tools from Vietnam has identified the remains of a variety of spices used c.2,000 years ago. The researchers analysed microscopic plant remains from 12… 
Nero’s lost theatre found Excavations in Rome have discovered a theatre that was built by Emperor Nero in the 1st century AD. Several Classical historians refer to a theatre built for the infamous emperor… 
Ancient stilt village in Albania Archaeologists have found what may be Europe’s oldest pile-dwelling site, dating to almost 8,000 years ago, preserved by the waters of Lake Ohrid, which straddles the border between Albania and… Views
Calling all photographers! Current World Archaeology Photo of the Year 2024 Competitions As summer comes to an end, this is the perfect time to reflect on memories of your heritage-filled travels or visits to historical sites. Photography offers a wonderful way to… 
CWA #121 crossword, and answers to crossword #120 Competitions ACROSS 8 Egyptian agrarian culture of 4500-3250 BC (8)9 Son of Daedalus in Greek mythology (6)10 Édouard ..... , French archaeologist noted for his work on the Palaeolithic (6) 11… 
Ancient inscriptions in Saudi Arabia The Picture Desk The mountain of Jabal Ikmah, located 5km north of the ancient city of AlUla in north-west Saudi Arabia, has just been added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register, which… 
Volos: Archaeology and myth in Thessaly Travel Looking for somewhere off the beaten track to explore in Greece? Martin Davies is our guide to the rich prehistoric heritage of Volos. 
Ventotene: A prison that was a university Travel A free and united Europe is the necessary premise to the strengthening of modern civilisation… The Ventotene Manifesto (1941). 
One person’s trash is another person’s treasure Comment Rubina Raja and Søren M Sindbæk on the archaeology of waste 
Past masters Comment When COVID-19 reached New Zealand, all my plans to continue excavating and attend conferences ground to a halt. So I turned my attention to writing my memoir, Digging Deep: a… 
Analysing ancestry and ancient agriculture Comment It is less than a decade since scientists developed swift and efficient methods of extracting and analysing ancient DNA from human remains (for which Svante Pääbo was awarded the Nobel… 
Inscribed amphora fragment Objects What is it? This small sherd of pottery, measuring 6cm wide and 8cm long, comes from the lower part of a Roman amphora once used to hold olive oil. The… Reviews
Volos: Archaeology and myth in Thessaly Looking for somewhere off the beaten track to explore in Greece? Martin Davies is our guide to the rich prehistoric heritage of Volos. Ventotene: A prison that was a university A free and united Europe is the necessary premise to the strengthening of modern civilisation… The Ventotene Manifesto (1941). 
Naga: the buried royal city An exhibition at the State Museum of Egyptian Art (SMÄK) in Munich transports visitors to excavations at the ancient city of Naga in Sudan. 
The Scythian Empire REVIEW BY TIMOTHY TAYLOR Christopher Beckwith's The Scythian Empire represents a major challenge for archaeological understandings of what many pre- and proto-historians have been inclined to see as a merely ‘tribal’ phenomenon.… 
The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome: The history of a dangerous idea REVIEW BY ANDREW SELKIRK Edward J Watts, Professor of History at San Diego University, is not a fan of politicians who claim that society is rotten and only they can… 
Lucayan Legacies: Indigenous lifeways in the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos Islands REVIEW BY EMILY C KRACHT Lucayan Legacies evaluates the lives of the early Indigenous peoples in the Bahama archipelago and celebrates their legacy, identity, and descendants today. The book presents… 
Buried Beneath the City: An archaeological history of New York REVIEW BY META F JANOWITZ Archaeologists who work in New York City often get incredulous looks from people who ask about their careers: You work where? There’s archaeology in NYC?… 
From the editor
It started with the soil. The thick yellow loess that blankets much of northern China proved perfect for building city walls and platforms supporting timber buildings. Tombs could also be dug deep into this earth without causing it to collapse. It is within such tombs that many of the most astonishing trea sures to survive from ancient China have been found. Because the dead were believed to live on in these tombs, the objects accompanying them allow us to write biographies of the deceased. But these artefacts also tell a much wider story about how China it self developed over thousands of years.
On Malta, it is the sea that is crucial for understanding the rich heritage of the island. The enduring importance of maritime links is reflected in a wealth of ship graffiti, stretching from modern times all the way back into prehistory. Far from being crude doodles, some of these images are impressive compositions. But who was creating them, and why?
In ancient Egypt, we know that puzzling out the secret of life inspired Ptahhatp’s intellectual endeavours. The result was a text that survived – in varying states of completeness – to be collected by antiquarians or excavated from tombs. Ptahhatp’s work is now called the oldest book in the world, and sheds light on a pivotal moment for humanity: the birth of literature.
Founding plantations on São Tomé produced a lasting legacy, too, although in this case it was a bitter one. The model it pioneered for sugar production in a tropical environment using enslaved people came at a terrible human cost. The first archaeological project ever undertaken on São Tomé is currently examining this overlooked chapter in the shaping of the modern Atlantic world.
In our travel section, Richard Hodges contemplates the consequences of an archaeology of confinement on Ventotene, in Italy. Meanwhile, Martin Davies has gone off the beaten track to tease out the heritage of Volos, in Greece.
