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Artifacts

Researchers are particularly excited about the newly discovered chess piece, which is about an inch and a half tall.

Cool Finds

Medieval Game Pieces Unearthed Beneath a Castle in Germany

The “excellently preserved” chess knight, six-sided die and several other pieces are all about 1,000 years old

Archaeologists found amphorae, bronze jugs, bronze lamps and construction materials inside the room.

Cool Finds

See the Stunning Shrine With Rare Blue-Painted Walls Unearthed at Pompeii

The 86-square-foot space is adorned with artworks depicting female figures and agricultural imagery

Sue O'Connor (left) and Shimona Kealy (right) study some of the artifacts found in Timor-Leste, which offer clues that early humans took a more northern path from Southeast Asia to Australia tens of thousands of years ago.

Archaeologists Discover Clues to Ancient Migration Route That Brought Humans to Australia

New research offers evidence that humans did not inhabit the island of Timor until around 44,000 years ago, suggesting it was not part of the original migration route from Southeast Asia to Australia

The 14.5-inch artifact was likely made between 900 and 1050 C.E.

Cool Finds

Norwegian Farmer Stumbles Upon 1,000-Year-Old Viking Sword

The well-preserved artifact may belong to a special class of high-quality, engraved weapons

The correspondence is undated, but experts think Kafka wrote it in the spring of 1920.

An Ailing Franz Kafka Curses Writer’s Block in This Handwritten Letter to a Friend

“I haven’t written anything for three years,” he admitted in the note, which will go to auction this summer

American authorities rounded up all 600 of the artifacts in a single year.

Trove of 600 Looted Italian Artifacts Worth $65 Million Comes Home

The collection includes artifacts spanning the ninth century B.C.E. to the second century C.E.

Measuring more than five and a half feet long and three inches thick, the fragment represents almost an entire wall of the sarcophagus.

Ramses II’s Long-Lost Sarcophagus Has Finally Been Identified

An Egyptologist recently concluded that a fragment of an overlooked granite coffin bears the great pharaoh’s name

While two of the tombs were robbed, one was left untouched, and it contained a box full of glazed pottery, among other goods.

Cool Finds

This Ancient Chinese Couple Was Buried in a Miniature Home

The tomb, composed of two chambers connected by a tiny door and windows, was found in a family gravesite on China’s east coast containing four other burials

The soldiers fought in replicas of a suit of armor found near the ancient site of Mycenae in Greece.

Soldiers Put an Ancient Greek Suit of Armor to the Test, and It Passed

Researchers outfitted Greek marines in replicas of a Mycenaean suit and simulated combat to see if the armor was usable in its day

This page from the Madrid Codex depicts the Maya honey harvest.

Cool Finds

Centuries-Old Maya Beekeeping Tools Unearthed in Mexico

Archaeologists in the Yucatán Peninsula found several stone lids used by the pre-Columbian civilization to collect honey from stingless bees

This gold earring found at an Iron Age archaeological site had been stashed inside a pottery jar, which sits behind it.

Did Hannibal’s Army Burn Down This Ancient Mountain Settlement?

In a scorched village in Spain, archaeologists discovered a hidden gold earring that suggests residents foresaw a coming attack around the time of the Second Punic War

A painted drum carved with phoenixes and tigers (circa 300 B.C.E.)

Why Is Chinese Art Full of Dragons, Phoenixes and Tigers?

A new exhibition showcases stunning mythical artworks of the Zhou Dynasty’s “lost” kingdoms

The stone has inscriptions on three sides.

Cool Finds

Geography Teacher in England Finds Stone With 1,600-Year-Old Inscriptions in His Garden

The rock is covered in ogham, an alphabet made up of parallel lines used for writing in the Irish language

The mummified head, reconstructed by a forensic sculptor, belonged to a woman who lived in Egypt during the region's Greco-Roman period, between 332 B.C.E. and 395 C.E.

See the Reconstructed Face of a Mummy Stored in a High School Library Since 1915

A forensic artist hopes the sculpture will help humanize the mummy, which appeared at Australia’s Grafton High School under mysterious circumstances

Alvin Gauthier drove more than 300 miles to personally deliver lost letters from a World War II veteran.

Mail Carrier Drives for Five Hours to Hand Deliver Lost World War II-Era Letters

When Alvin Gauthier found several letters written by a veteran in the 1940s, he went on a mission to return them

Researchers discovered broken pottery in a medieval ditch beneath a bridge in the city's center.

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Discover Medieval Artifacts Ahead of Bridge Demolition in England

Found during a construction project near the railway station in York, the trove includes pottery and bones

This photograph may depict the iceberg that caused the Titanic to sink

This Historic Photograph May Depict the Iceberg That Sank the Titanic

The image, which sold for $22,000 at auction this week, was taken aboard a recovery vessel days after the famous ocean liner went down

The glass bottles buried in the graves were unearthed in good condition.

Cool Finds

In This Ancient Cemetery, Romans Left Fine Glass Vessels, Platforms for Feasting and Phallic Pendants

Archaeologists in Narbonne, France, have been studying the necropolis since 2017

The Enterprise model had been missing for decades when it reappeared in an eBay listing last fall.

Original ‘Star Trek’ Enterprise Model Resurfaces Decades After It Went Missing

The model used in the original series’ opening credits is now back with Eugene Roddenberry Jr., the son of the show’s creator

The weapon is the only Islamic-era sword ever discovered in Valencia.

Cool Finds

Spain’s ‘Excalibur’ Sword, a 1,000-Year-Old Weapon Found Buried Upright, Reflects the Region’s Rich Islamic History

Discovered in Valencia in 1994, the iron blade was recently dated to the tenth century, when the Umayyad Caliphate controlled the Iberian Peninsula

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