Two marble statues representing Aphrodite/Venus, the Greco-Roman goddess of love, were found recently at Petra, an ancient desert city in Jordan. The statues, which date to the second century A.D., are nearly intact and are remarkably well preserved, retaining traces… Continue Reading
An ancient Mayan text captured the moment when a royal astronomer made a scientific discovery about the movement of Venus across the night sky. The text, called the Dresden Codex, contains laborious measurements of the rising and setting of Venus.… Continue Reading
Storytelling images on a deer-hide “manuscript” from Mexico have been seen for the first time in 500 years, thanks to sophisticated scanning technology that penetrated layers of chalk and plaster. This “codex,” a type of book-like text, originated in the… Continue Reading
The discovery of a 3,000-year-old pyramid-shaped mausoleum in Kazakhstan has gone viral over the past months, with several media outlets proclaiming the structure to be the world’s first pyramid. But archaeologists say the structure, which contains a series of five… Continue Reading
Around 1,500 years ago, at a time when China was divided, a woman named Farong was laid to rest wearing fantastic jewelry, which included a necklace of 5,000 beads and “exquisite” earrings, archaeologists report. Her tomb was discovered in 2011… Continue Reading
The early origins of domesticated cats are shrouded in mystery, but a new genetic analysis suggests that felines traveled the world with farmers and Vikings. The News section of Nature reports that the broadest genetic analysis to date of ancient cats reveals… Continue Reading
It must have been something in the air. During a short time window at the end of the last ice age, Stone Age humans in Europe and Asia independently began using a new plant: cannabis. The founders of Western… Continue Reading
Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa, the former capital of Roman Dacia and one of the most spectacular archaeological sites in Romania, is to be restored and preserved, under a EUR 4.5 million project, reports local Libertatea. The Amphitheatre at Ulpia Traiana… Continue Reading
Scholars believe they have unearthed a fragment from what might have been the tallest pagoda ever built in Japan. A fragment of the “sorin” made from copper with gold plating [Credit: Yoshiko Sato] The Kyoto City Archaeological Research Institute… Continue Reading
An unrivaled discovery on the southern coast of Israel may enable archaeologists to finally unravel the origins of one of the most notorious and enigmatic peoples of the Hebrew Bible: the Philistines. The discovery of a large cemetery outside the… Continue Reading