The enigmatic deer stones speckling the Mongolian steppe have long invited questions. Now fresh research is providing clues to why they were carved and what they may represent. William Fitzhugh and Richard Kortum, with Bayarsaikhan Jamsranjav, share the story of these remarkable relics.
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.
The reliefs depict details including mountains, grapevines, pomegranates, figs, palm trees, and warriors firing arrows in battle
Researchers have successfully traced the origin of tin ingots found aboard the shipwreck to ore deposits in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
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.
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.
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.
The study sheds light on how the hallucinogenic drug was used in Late Bronze Age burial customs.
This ruined city had richly carved monumental gateways and, even more significant, an 8th-century BC stela that, bearing the same text in both the Phoenician alphabet and Luwian hieroglyphics, gave Çambel the key to unlock the Luwian language for future scholars.
A round-up of some of the latest archaeological news from across the globe.
Remains of a palace at the site emerged from the waters in 2010, and in 2018, when water levels were again low, archaeologists carried out a short campaign, documenting the palace.
Access to the sea can be a double-edged sword. Recent archaeological work at Çeşme in Turkey has revealed that its Bronze Age inhabitants learnt this lesson the hard way. Vasıf Şahoğlu and Beverly Goodman-Tchernov told Matthew Symonds how a natural disaster ushered in dramatic change, both at Çeşme and further afield.
The Princess was not buried alone. Alongside her was a grave big enough for an adult, which contained the ochre covered skeleton of a little girl aged about 18 months, covered in about 15,000 shell beads and, lo and behold, a tiny clay anvil for shaping pots.
Persepolis paintings perfectly glorious’ was the verdict Prentice Duell cabled from Egypt to James Henry Breasted, founder of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (OI). He had just seen the work American artist Joseph Lindon Smith (1863-1950) created…
“The Dieulafoys were unconventional to the point of scorn: Jeanne routinely wore male clothes…”
It remains one of the best known of all Greek myths – not least, for a certain generation, because of the lurid 1963 Hollywood film adaptation. But if the story of Jason and the Argonauts' quest for the Golden Fleece continues to grip the popular imagination, the question of how far it is based in reality is also one that fascinates historians, classicists and archaeologists alike.
The Caucasus were home to some of the world’s earliest and most proficient goldsmiths. Despite an association between this metal and the mountains that became so strong it was woven into mythology, gold artefacts more or less disappear from a large part of the region for a period of some seven centuries. Nathaniel Erb-Satullo investigates why.
Barley starch granules from the residue inside one of the straws hint that people were using them to drink beer.
The game's discovery proves that such entertainment was available for lower social classes as well as rulers.
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The Eurasian Steppe: People, Movement, Ideas is an ambitious scholarly volume tracing the origins of the European identity in the Eurasian steppe, the vast expanse of land that stretches from Hungary through to the Ural Mountains and China. Covering a…
Ancient Mesopotamian literature, written in cuneiform from around 3000 BC, is haunted by omens and ghosts. Most of the sources on ghosts come from the 1st millennium BC, written in Akkadian, but some texts and ideas hark back to even…
Archaeologists excavating a Middle Don burial ground in the Ostrogozhsky District of the Voronezh region, Russia, have discovered a unique silver plate depicting winged Scythian gods and griffins.
'Armageddon’ came to English, via Greek, from Hebrew har megiddo, meaning ‘mountain of Megiddo.’
The Greek historian Herodotus tells us that among the Scythians, the nomads of the Eurasian steppe, there was a group of ‘gold-guarding Griffins’. Were these people the Saka, whose elite filled their tombs with golden depictions of griffins and other creatures? As a new exhibition on the Saka opens, Rebecca Roberts and Saltanat Amir explore one recently discovered burial and what its contents can tell us about this ancient culture.
Just how much can ancient diet tell us about past lives? Shyama Vermeersch considers what cuisine reveals about the southern Levant in the Bronze and Iron Ages.
The history of the Mesopotamian city of Babylon had a powerful legacy even within antiquity. Today, many are familiar with the city, situated in modern Iraq, for its numerous appearances in the Bible and for the fabled wonder of the…
The first excavations began in April 2021, and were focused entirely upon Tell al-Duhalia, which is home to hundreds of archaeologically significant sites, such as the Great Ziggurat of Ur.
Current World Archaeology's Amy Brunskill visits a new exhibition at the V&A presenting 5,000 years of art and design in Iran.
Archaeologists have stated that a monument at the Banat-Bazi complex is over 4,000 years old.
Wining and dining has long been part of diplomacy. Fine objects from the table tell stories of power, partnerships, and protocol, but also of poisoning, as a new exhibition explores. Geraldine Fabrikant reports.
When 22-year-old Olga Tufnell set off on her first ‘perfect journey’ in 1927 – to join Flinders Petrie’s expedition in Egypt – she had little training in archaeology beyond several years assisting the Petries with their annual exhibition. Over the…
A major exhibition delving into 5,000 years of art and design in Iran is set to open in London in May. Lucia Marchini speaks to curator John Curtis for a preview of some of the ancient highlights.
The initial exploration of an ancient Phoenician shipwreck discovered off the Maltese coast was reported on in CWA 88. Now, thanks to groundbreaking technological developments, the wreck can be explored underwater in minute detail using virtual reality in a new online museum. Timmy Gambin, Lucy Woods, and Maja Sausmekat take us for a closer look.
Ball games are known to have been played in Egypt c.4,500 years ago and in Central America at least 3,700 years ago, but it was previously thought that they were not present in Europe and Asia until much later.