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Smart News / Smart News History & Archaeology

The tomb was decorated with colorful painted scenes.

Cool Finds

Tomb of Ramses II’s Treasurer Unearthed at Saqqara Necropolis

Carved scenes in the grave depict the life of Ptah-M-Wia, an important figure in the 19th-Dynasty pharaoh’s government

Studded with gems and carvings of classical figures, the two tiaras and accompanying jewelry are expected to sell for between $410,000 and $690,000.

Two Tiaras Once Owned by Josephine Bonaparte Are Up for Auction

Napoleon’s empress was an early 19th-century style icon. Now, two of her diadems are on sale at Sotheby’s

Researchers have tentatively dated the canoe to between 830 and 950 C.E.

Cool Finds

Well-Preserved Maya Canoe Found in Mexico May Be 1,000 Years Old

Researchers discovered the boat and other artifacts linked to the pre-Hispanic civilization near the ruins of Chichén Itzá

The Denver Art Museum's newly renovated campus, with the 50,000-square-foot Sie Welcome Center in the foreground

Denver Art Museum’s Much-Anticipated Renovation Centers Indigenous Voices

The four-year, $150 million project added 30,000 square feet of exhibition space to the Colorado museum’s high-rise building

DNA analysis of a lock of hair taken from Sitting Bull confirms that a South Dakota man is the Lakota leader's great-grandson.

New Research

DNA Analysis Confirms Claim of Sitting Bull Descendant

Formerly in the Smithsonian collections, a lock of hair taken from the Lakota leader verifies South Dakota man is his great-grandson

The mask was found atop the detached skull of a man who appears to have been an elite leader.

1,000-Year-Old Mask Was Painted With Human Blood

The gold mask found in Peru was used in the burial of an elite leader from the Sicán culture

A view of the schooner-barge Michigan, which sank in Lake Superior on October 2, 1902, alongside the M.M. Drake

Cool Finds

Three 19th-Century Shipwrecks Discovered in Lake Superior

”[W]e have never located so many new wrecks in one season,” says the director of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society

Claudette Colvin, pictured here in 1998, recently filed a request to have her arrest record expunged.

Claudette Colvin, Who Was Arrested for Refusing to Give Up Her Bus Seat in 1955, Is Fighting to Clear Her Record

The civil rights pioneer pushed back against segregation nine months before Rosa Parks’ landmark protest but has long been overlooked

The naturally mummified remains were remarkably well preserved, with some still sporting clothing and hair.

Cool Finds

New Research Reveals Surprising Origins of Millennia-Old Mummies Found in China

Once thought to be migrants from West Asia, the deceased were actually direct descendants of a local Ice Age population, DNA analysis suggests

Julie Green poses in front of a selection of The Last Supper plates in 2015. The artist died on October 12 at age 60.

Remembering Julie Green, Who Painted the Last Meals of Death Row Inmates

The artist, who died this month at age 60, sought to emphasize condemned prisoners’ humanity

Surveys yielded numerous burial sites along the planned train route.

Cool Finds

Thousands of Pre-Hispanic Structures Found Along Route of Controversial Railway in Mexico

Critics of the planned high-speed railroad point to its potential damage to archaeological sites and the environment

Archaeologists have discovered the foundations of a major medieval tannery at a former monastery in northern England.

New Research

Large Medieval Tannery Discovered at Monastic Abbey in England

A sizable community of monks made leather for paper and printing at the major industrial site

Tompkins Harrison Matteson, Examination of a Witch, 1853

History of Now

Reckoning With—and Reclaiming—the Salem Witch Trials

A new exhibition unites 17th-century artifacts with contemporary artists’ responses to the mass hysteria event

Chinese railroad workers near the Secret Town Trestle in Placer County, California, around 1869

Cool Finds

Artifacts Used by Chinese Transcontinental Railroad Workers Found in Utah

Researchers discovered the remains of a mid-19th century house, a centuries-old Chinese coin and other traces of the short-lived town of Terrace

The cake may have been baked for a Palm Sunday celebration.

Cool Finds

WWII Bombing Raid Eerily Preserved This 79-Year-Old Charred Cake

Researchers discovered the blackened hazelnut-and-almond dessert in the ruins of a German house destroyed in March 1942

Researchers discovered Khuwy's richly painted tomb in 2019.

Cool Finds

Richly Adorned Egyptian Tomb Could Rewrite the History of Mummification

A new analysis of a Fifth-Dynasty official’s mummy suggests sophisticated embalming techniques are 1,000 years older than previously believed

The modern horse overtook other equine lineages as it spread across Europe and Asia thousands of years ago.

Genetic Sequencing Pinpoints the Origins of the Domestic Horse

One lineage in southwestern Russia gave rise to all modern domestic horses, from sleek thoroughbreds to heavy-built Clydesdales

The tablet depicts a male ghost being led back to the afterlife, curator Irving Finkel says.

Cool Finds

3,500-Year-Old Babylonian Tablet May Contain Earliest Known Depiction of a Ghost

A curator at the British Museum details the spooky find in a new book

A plaster cast of a "ghost turnip" carving from Donegal, Ireland

When People Carved Turnips Instead of Pumpkins for Halloween

Revelers in Ireland transformed the root vegetables into lanterns designed to ward off dark spirits

Authorites plan to reattach the heads to statues along the famed Avenue of Sphinxes.

Cool Finds

Ancient Stone Ram Heads Unearthed on Egypt’s ‘Avenue of the Sphinxes’

The newly restored road, once lined with around 700 towering sculptures, is set to open to the public in the coming weeks

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