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Archaeology

Bogong moths were traditionally ground into pastes or cakes. Pictured here are a single moth (left) and thousands of moths resting on a rock (right).

Cool Finds

Aboriginal Australians Dined on Moths 2,000 Years Ago

The discovery of an ancient grindstone containing traces of the insect confirms long-held Indigenous oral tradition

Enemy combatants likely captured and bound the ruler before delivering a series of fatal blows.

CT Scans Suggest Egyptian Pharaoh Was Brutally Executed on the Battlefield

During the 16th century B.C., multiple Hyksos soldiers assaulted the captive Seqenenre-Taa-II, inflicting serious facial and head injuries

The bronze Cupid figurine carries a flaming torch.

Cool Finds

2,000-Year-Old Figurine of Roman Love God Cupid Found in England

Archaeologists say the petite statue, discovered ahead of construction of highway, may have been a religious offering

Rome's Basilica dei Santi Apostoli has housed bones said to belong to St. James and St. Philip since the sixth century A.D.

Bones Venerated as St. James the Younger’s Don’t Belong to the Apostle, Study Suggests

Researchers dated the femur fragments to between 214 and 340 A.D.—at least 160 years after the saint’s lifetime

The brewery “may have been built specifically to supply the royal rituals that were taking place inside the funeral facilities of the kings of Egypt,” says lead archaeologist Matthew Adams.

Cool Finds

World’s Oldest ‘Industrial-Scale’ Brewery Found in Egypt

Located in an ancient necropolis, the 5,000-year-old facility was capable of producing up to 5,900 gallons of beer at a time

A bell previously recovered from the wreck of the Whydah pirate ship

Cool Finds

Six Skeletons Found in Wreck of 18th-Century Pirate Ship Sunk Off Cape Cod

The “Whydah” sank off the coast of Massachusetts in 1717, killing all but two people on board

Researchers recorded striking similarities between Stonehenge and a razed stone circle at the Waun Mawn archaeological site in Wales.

Cool Finds

How a Stone Circle in Wales Paved the Way for Stonehenge

New research suggests early Britons used megaliths from a dismantled Welsh monument to construct the iconic ring of standing stones

Villa Adriana, or Hadrian's Villa, is a Unesco World Heritage Site in Tivoli, Italy, that spans 200 acres and was built around 210 A.D. by Roman leader Hadrian.

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Discover Ruins of Emperor Hadrian’s Ornate Breakfast Chamber

In the second century A.D., the Roman ruler entertained his guests on a raised marble platform surrounded by elaborate fountains

Archaeologists are conducting excavations ahead of a controversial tunnel plan set to move this highway, the busy A303, underground.

Newly Unearthed Bronze Age Graves Underscore Stonehenge Tunnel’s Potential Threat to Heritage

A critic of the controversial project points out that construction could lead to the loss of half a million artifacts

A number of terracotta heads were found separated from the rest of their bodies.

Cool Finds

2,000-Year-Old Terracotta Figurines of Deities, Mortals, Animals Found in Turkey

Some of the petite sculptures still bear traces of the pigments used to decorate them

The newly discovered face cream represents the earliest known instance of a Chinese man using cosmetics.

Cool Finds

This 2,700-Year-Old Chinese Face Cream Combined Animal Fat and ‘Moonmilk’

Researchers found the ancient moisturizer in a nobleman’s tomb

Artist's rendering of a prehistoric human playing the ancient conch instrument

Cool Finds

Hear the Musical Sounds of an 18,000-Year-Old Giant Conch

The shell was played for the first time in millennia after being rediscovered in the collections of a French museum

Archaeologists uncovered the coins in 2019 but only examined them recently due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Cool Finds

Trove of 650 Coins Bearing Likenesses of Caesar, Mark Antony Unearthed in Turkey

Minted between 75 and 4 B.C., the silver currency was probably buried by a high-ranking Roman soldier during Augustus’ reign

Crafted in Venice, these blue beads traveled all the way to northern Alaska in the mid-15th century.

Cool Finds

Venetian Glass Beads May Be Oldest European Artifacts Found in North America

Traders likely transported the small spheres from Italy to northern Alaska in the mid-15th century

Domínguez, who was executed by General Francisco Franco's fascist forces in 1936, was a teacher, writer and political thinker.

Is This the Body of a Woman Mayor Murdered During the Spanish Civil War?

Born into poverty, María Domínguez Remón overcame abuse to fight for women’s and workers’ rights

Both sides of a shark tooth from Rio do Meio, an artifact which may have been used as a cutting tool. Archaeologists think it was bound to a wooden shaft by cord, strung through the drilled holes.

Why Did Ancient Indigenous Groups in Brazil Hunt Sharks?

New studies show that shark meat may have constituted half of their diet and that the beasts’ teeth were used as arrow tips and razor blades

The researchers determined that a right-handed craftsperson created the markings in a single session.

Cool Finds

120,000-Year-Old Cattle Bone Carvings May Be World’s Oldest Surviving Symbols

Archaeologists found the bone fragment—engraved with six lines—at a Paleolithic meeting site in Israel

Parents probably created the tags in hopes of finding their children again.

Newly Unearthed I.D. Tags Tell the Stories of Four Young Holocaust Victims

The Nazis murdered the children, who ranged in age from 5 to 11, upon their arrival at the Sobibor death camp in Poland

Netflix's The Dig dramatizes the excavation of an elaborate Anglo-Saxon ship burial.

Based on a True Story

The True History Behind Netflix’s ‘The Dig’ and Sutton Hoo

One of the greatest archaeological finds in British history, the Anglo-Saxon burial changed historians’ view of the Dark Ages

The mud shell was added after the woman's original mummification, perhaps to repair damage inflicted by grave robbers.

Cool Finds

Why Was This Egyptian Mummy Encased in Mud?

Researchers have never previously observed the unusual, low-cost embalming method

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