Recent research suggests that engraved stones discovered on the Danish island of Bornholm may have been ritual offerings in response to climatic change caused by a huge volcanic eruption almost 5,000 years ago. Over the past few decades, hundreds of…
Thanks to an ingenious digital technique, a particle accelerator, and an internet competition, we stand on the threshold of being able to enjoy what is potentially the greatest influx of ‘new’ Classical texts since the Renaissance. Brent Seales told Matthew Symonds why scrolls that were once widely believed impossible to read are now on the verge of becoming legible.
Oldest figurative art identified The oldest narrative art in the world has been identified in Indonesia during new analysis of rock-art sites on the island of Sulawesi. A new method of dating called laser- ablation uranium-series (LA-U-series) imaging uses a…
It is a question that has been debated by archaeologists and historians for decades: to what extent can one of the worst disasters in human history, the catastrophic volcanic eruption in c.1600 BC that devastated the ancient Aegean island of Thera (now known as Santorini), be linked to the mysterious collapse of one of the first European cultures, the once-dominant Minoan civilisation centred on the nearby island of Crete?
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.
Palaeontologists have identified a 'Big 5' of extinction events. Which one saw the demise of all non-avian dinosaurs?
It is believed that the pyramid’s creation was connected to the TBJ eruption as volcanoes and mountains were sacred to the Maya. The structure may have served some kind of religious function, perhaps it was even intended to guard against future eruptions.
Victims of Vesuvius Excavations at a large villa in Civita Guiliana, 700m north-west of Pompeii’s city walls, have uncovered two more victims of the eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed many settlements in this region of Italy in AD 79. The…
One of the most lavish dwellings in Roman Herculaneum, the House of the Bicentenary reopened to the public in 2019 after decades of conservation efforts. Francesco Sirano, Director of the Parco Archeologico di Ercolano, and Leslie Rainer from the Getty Conservation Institute tell the story of this magnificent house, its discovery, its decline, and how it has been brought to life once more.
The remains of two individuals who died during the eruption of Vesuvius have been found at a suburban villa near Pompeii.
Mass graves were needed all too often in the Medieval world, but establishing the specific tragedy behind any given set is difficult. Now Don Walker believes that a group in Spitalfields cemetery can be linked to a massive volcanic eruption, as he told Matthew Symonds.