Smart News History & Archaeology

Salvador Dalí, "Gala Placidia. Galatea of the Spheres," 1952

Catalonia

Why Gala Dalí—Muse, Model and Artist—Was More Than Just Salvador’s Wife

Barcelona exhibition draws on 315 artifacts to unravel the myths behind central surrealist figure

Tracey Emin, "Death Mask," 2002

This Initiative Is Loaning Artwork Back to the Communities They're Most Associated With

Britain's National Portrait Gallery's 'Coming Home' initiative will loan portraits to the towns and cities most closely associated with their subjects

Photograph of Lulu Adams in the 1940s

Black and Female Circus Artists Take Center Ring in New Museum Show

“Circus! Show of Shows” at the U.K.’s Weston Park Museum reveals how the circus was shaped by diverse groups of performers

"Big Man" Elbert Howard

Black Panther Co-Founder Elbert 'Big Man' Howard Dies at 80

Howard was a key Panther organizer and played an important role in community activism

Rosa Parks lived in her brother's Detroit home after fleeing the south

Rosa Parks’ Detroit Home Is Now Up for Auction

Parts of the tiny home where the civil rights activist lived with 17 family members are expected to sell for between $1 and $3 million

"Portrait of Harriet Tubman," 1868-69

Library of Congress Puts Spotlight on 440 Snapshots Culled From Archive of 14 Million

About 300 of the images have been newly digitized, and 200 of these are free for public use

Cool Finds

1,000-Year-Old Handprint From "Europe's Lost People" Discovered In Scotland

The mark was left by a Pictish coppersmith at Swandro, a site in the Orkney Islands that is quickly washing into the sea

An artist's rendering of the Lingwu Amazing Dragon

Cool Finds

‘Amazing Dragon’ Fossils Unearthed in China Rewrite Story of Long-Necked Dinosaurs

The dino family emerged 15 million years earlier than previously thought

New Research

People Were Messing Around In Texas at Least 2,500 Years Earlier Than Previously Thought

Pre-Clovis projectile points and other artifacts at the Gault Site date back 16,000 years ago or even earlier

Willem de Kooning photographed in studio

Art Dealer Discovers Six Alleged Willem de Kooning Paintings in New Jersey Storage Locker

Boxes labeled with artist's name were found among the 200 abandoned works

Archaeologists unearthed a 14-room home, likely used by a commander of Emperor Hadrian's Praetorian Guard, back in March

Cool Finds

Construction on Rome’s Newest Subway Line Is Revealing a Trove of Ancient Treasures

Archaeologists have unearthed 2,000-year-old barracks, a military commander’s home and thousands of artifacts

Yves Klein's "Jonathan Swift" stands alongside the Blenheim Palace's collection of Old Master portraits

See Yves Klein's Experimental Art Take Over the Palatial Blenheim Estate

Paintings and sculptures rendered in Klein’s signature blue stand alongside Old Masters, 18th-century baroque stylings

Conservators working on the H.L. Hunley

Cool Finds

New Clues About Why the Confederate Submarine H.L. Hunley Sank

An emergency keel-block release suggests the crew did not panic, meaning they may have been incapacitated when the sub went down

To physicist Michael Pravikoff, the study is more about scientific curiosity than a tangible threat to public safety

California Wine Shows Traces of Fukushima Fallout

Although cabernet bottled after the 2011 disaster contains double the amount of pre-Fukushima radiation, researchers say levels pose no health risk

This is said to be the ship's wheel of the sunken Dmitrii Donskoi, which is rumored to have been carrying a treasure trove of gold when ti sank.

Doubts Swirl Over Claims of Gold-Filled Russian Shipwreck

It is far from certain that the <i>Dmitrii Donskoi</i> would have—or could have— carried such a huge hoard of gold

The new horticultural center will be built at the RHS flagship garden in Wisley, Surrey

One Million British Botanical Treasures Will Be Digitized

Artifacts in the sprawling collection include a Chilean potato plant collected by Charles Darwin and 18th-century lavender

Political cartoonist Thomas Nash lampooned Victoria Woodhull as "Mrs. Satan" in this 1872 sketch featured in Harper's Weekly

New York Museum Sorts Through Its Collections to Highlight 15 "Rebel Women" of the 1800s

Museum of the City of New York's latest exhibition puts the spotlight on these 19th-century women who defied Victorian ideals

Researchers used 1,000 years’ worth of built-up sediment found at the bottom of the valley’s Lake Huilla to create a timeline of the area’s population—and depopulation

This Lake Tells the Story of Ecuador’s Decimated Indigenous Quijo Civilization

In 1541, roughly 35,000 Quijos lived in the valley. By the 1580s, they had vanished, leaving little evidence of their existence behind

The Cairns Broch site in Orkney, Scotland

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Find 2,000-Year-Old Wooden Bowl, Strands of Hair in Northern Scotland

The Iron Age artifacts were sealed in a subterranean chamber of the Cairns Broch, a tower-like stone structure

Cool Finds

Egyptian Authorities Open Sealed Ptolemaic-Era Sarcophagus

Rampant speculation about what was inside the black granite tomb has swirled since the relic was first discovered at a building site in Alexandria

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