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Ancient Civilizations

Researchers documenting and analyzing the inscriptions

Deep Inside a Spanish Cave, Roman Women May Have Worshipped a Mysterious Goddess

Best known for its Paleolithic art, Valencia’s Cova de les Dones also contains a Roman sanctuary where researchers say women appear to have played an active role in the worship of a female deity

Archaeologists found human remains inside a mysterious pit in northern Scotland.

A Human Skeleton Was Found Inside a Mysterious Stone Structure in Scotland. Archaeologists Still Don’t Know Why It Was Buried There

Built with fitted stone and a clay-like material that may have helped retain liquid, the unusual structure has left researchers searching for an explanation

An aerial view of the mass grave, which was found beneath a soccer field in Vienna in October 2024

New Research

Construction in Austria Revealed a Roman-Era Mass Grave Beneath a Soccer Field. New Research Suggests That the Men’s Enemies Targeted Their ‘Sensitive Areas’

No written records mention a fight in this specific part of Vienna at the time of the men’s deaths. But the brutal nature of their injuries, particularly to the pelvis area, indicates that these individuals died on the battlefield

An early papyrus fragment from Homer's Odyssey, dated to roughly 285 to 250 B.C.E., is now on display in New York City.

You Can Now See One of the Oldest Surviving Copies of ‘The Odyssey’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

The papyrus fragment contains three lines that don’t appear in standard modern-day translations of Homer’s epic poem

The seven-foot-tall sculpture was broken into two pieces and buried facedown. The figure holds a fruit, probably a quince, in his right hand.

Cool Finds

Why Did the Ancient Romans Bury This Monumental Marble Statue Facedown? They Wanted to Repurpose It as a Paving Stone

Archaeologists discovered the roughly 2,500-year-old sculpture of a young man while conducting excavations at Sardis in western Turkey. The artwork reflects the different cultures that wielded control over the city in the first millennium B.C.E.

Andy Crammond and Alan Daniels discovered the three gold armbands while surveying a field near the Scottish-English border.

Cool Finds

Metal Detectorists Thought They’d Hit the Jackpot When They Discovered a Gold Bracelet Dating to the Bronze Age. Then They Dug Up Two More

At first, Andy Crammond thought the object was a bull’s nose ring. Other artifacts unearthed nearby include a Viking brooch, a Roman coin hoard and a Bronze Age ax head

Archaeologists used lidar to “see” through the Amazon’s dense canopy and discovery nearly 400 previously undocumented geoglyphs.

Mysterious Shapes Hidden Beneath the Amazon Canopy Reveal a Sprawling Ancient Civilization Much Bigger Than Researchers Expected

Scientists recently discovered hundreds of monumental, geometric earthworks known as “geoglyphs” in northern Brazil from the Aquiry civilization

Visitors with regular admission tickets are not usually allowed inside the monument.

Want to Spend Some Alone Time With Stonehenge? This August, Lucky Visitors Get the Chance to Enter the Stone Circle Before the Site Opens to Tourists

Almost every day next month, management of the prehistoric landmark in England will draw a winning ticket and offer a unique experience to a visitor before the daily bustle begins

The bronze sword measures nearly two feet long.

Cool Finds

A Man Unearthed a Mysterious Metal Object Sticking Straight Up From the Ground. It Turned Out to Be a 2,700-Year-Old Sword

Marcin Wiśniewski found the weapon while metal detecting in a forest near the Polish city of Gdańsk. Experts told him that it likely dates to between 900 and 700 B.C.E.

The facial reconstruction of a man the team named Respectus

Their Names Were Lost to History. But Now, You Can See What Their Faces May Have Looked Like When They Lived in a Roman-Era City Nearly 2,000 Years Ago

A new exhibition in Budapest features 16 facial reconstructions based on skulls excavated from the ancient city of Aquincum. Curators don’t know the details of their lives, but they’ve invented backstories to fill in the gaps

Minted by Carausius, this silver denarius is dated to 287 C.E.

Cool Finds

Railway Construction Reveals a Coin Minted by a Roman Officer Who Proclaimed Himself ‘Emperor of the North’ in Britain 1,700 Years Ago

Archaeologists in Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire unearthed a silver denarius bearing the name of Carausius, who ruled the breakaway state of Britannia between 286 and 293

Odysseus and Polyphemus, Arnold Böcklin, 1896

Was There Ever an Original Version of ‘The Odyssey,’ and Do We Need to Worry About What Homer Would Think?

The earliest surviving fragments of the epic poem—the subject of Christopher Nolan’s latest Hollywood blockbuster—date back more than 2,000 years. But oral storytelling about a hero named Odysseus is much older

Gold tongues found at Marina el-Alamein (right) and a limestone tombstone showing a man holding a bird (left)

Cool Finds

Ancient Egyptians Believed That These Newly Discovered Gold Tongues Allowed the Dead to Communicate in the Afterlife

Excavations at Marina el-Alamein, an archaeological site west of Alexandria, unearthed about two dozen of the rare artifacts, including one shaped like the Eye of Horus

At the end of the calculation, researchers found two symbols they deciphered to mean “so says Sak Tahn Waax.”

Cool Finds

Meet Sak Tahn Waax, a Maya Math Whiz Who Lived More Than 1,000 Years Ago and Left Behind a ‘Really Elegant, Complex’ Formula

For the first time, archaeologists identified one of the culture’s famed Classic era mathematicians and astronomers

Archaeologist Andrew Birley found the relief carving while excavating a fourth-century barrack at Vindolanda, a Roman fort near Hadrian's Wall in northern England.

Cool Finds

Ancient Romans Put Their Faith in Guardian Spirits. Archaeologists Just Found a Rare 1,600-Year-Old Carving of One in Northern England

Known as a “genius,” the protective spirit or deity was believed to bring good fortune and prosperity to a particular person, household or place. Archaeologists haven’t found many depictions of them across Roman Britain

Archaeologist Gino Caspari holds an iron artifact recovered from one of the Menorca shipwrecks.

Take an Exclusive Look at Three Newly Discovered Medieval Shipwrecks in Menorca’s ‘Cove of Mysteries’

Meteorological tsunamis likely sank the 13th-century trading vessels, whose cargo included objects from both Christian kingdoms and Moorish communities on the Iberian Peninsula

A gold ring unearthed at the Don Yai Thong archaeological site in Thailand is engraved with what experts think is Brahmi, an ancient Indian script. 

A Pair of 2,000-Year-Old Gold Rings, One Engraved With Indian Script, Was Discovered in an Iron Age Burial Ground in Thailand

The engraving seems to reference an “auspicious” zodiac sign in Indian or Vedic astrology

Mastarna (Servius Tullius, the sixth king of Rome) frees Celio Vibenna from chains in this fresco from the Francois Tomb.

See These Ancient Etruscan Frescoes That Italy Bought for Millions and Put on Public Display in Rome

Found in a burial chamber, the artworks depict battles between ancient heroes in the Mediterranean world

The Rumkale fortress ruins sit on the banks of the Euphrates River in Turkey.

Scientists May Have Discovered the Origins of the Euphrates River, Which Helped Nurture Some of the Earliest Known Civilizations

The famous waterway began as two rivers, a new study suggests. Tectonic activity around five million years ago probably made them change course and merge, helping to birth the Fertile Crescent

Aerial view of excavations at the newly discovered villa in Castel di Guido

Cool Finds

Authorities Investigated Reports of an Illegal Excavation in Rome. Then, They Stumbled Upon an Ancient Villa Adorned With Mosaics

In the second century C.E., Roman emperors such as Marcus Aurelius and Antoninus Pius frequented the area where the residence was found

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