• Egyptian and Greek pottery discovered by Israeli archaeologists at Megiddo (‘Armageddon’) confirms that Egyptian forces and Greek mercenaries were present around the period of the biblical battle between King Josiah and Pharaoh Necho II, c.609 BC. • A recently…
Iron Age cemetery in UAE An Iron Age necropolis recently discovered in Al Ain is the first to be found in the United Arab Emirates. The burial ground, which was unearthed as part of the Funerary Landscapes of Al Ain…
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 recognises documentary heritage of international significance. This is a significant…
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. His book is magisterial, presenting a wealth of crucial new…
• Rethinking the role of Persian and Greek luxury
• Investigating the transition to settled and farming lifestyles on the Konya Plain
• Exploring Persia’s northern defences in late antiquity
• The archaeological gems of Greece’s forgotten highlands
• Grama Bay: a crossroads in the Mediterranean
This year’s overall winner is Nickolas Warner’s photo of the West Cemetery of Meroë, Sudan.
We all know that the finer things in life can transmit messages about wealth and status. In the epic struggles between the Persians and Greeks in the 1st millennium BC, though, luxury came to mean so much more, as Jamie Fraser told Matthew Symonds.
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…
It has been suggested that the ivories were made by Assyrian artists and possibly arrived in Jerusalem as a gift to the nobility.
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.
Research into an intriguing rock relief recorded in the subterranean chambers is revealing details about religion and style in the region during the Neo- Assyrian Empire.
Likely created around 900-600 BC, the relief represents a rare example of Neo-Assyrian monumental rock art.
The Phoenicians occupied the coast of the Levant for over 1,000 years, but knowledge of their trade network and practices remains elusive. In 2007, an ancient wreck containing a large cache of ceramic containers was discovered off Malta. This ship proved to be one of only a handful of known Phoenician vessels. Since 2014, further exploration of the site has yielded some very exciting results. Project Director Timmy Gambin and Lucy Woods reveal some of its mysteries, and the challenges of excavating a shipwreck 110m below sea level.
On the plain of Pasargadae, Cyrus the Great founded a spectacular garden palace. Nothing like it had ever been seen in the region before, raising questions about where the idea came from, how the garden was maintained, and even where the inhabitants lived. Recently, an Iranian-French team under Rémy Boucharlat went in search of the answers, as Andrew Selkirk reveals.
The cylinder, excavated in 1879 by the archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam, was once considered to be a unique object, made for ritual burial in the foundations of the Esagila, ancient Babylon’s main temple, when Cyrus rebuilt it.