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Artifacts

Pieces of Forrest Fenn's treasure

You Can Own a Piece of Forrest Fenn’s Treasure

The valuable artifacts, hidden in the Rocky Mountains for more than a decade, are going up for auction

The Museum of Broadway opens this week, bringing New York its first permanent museum dedicated to the Great White Way.

The Ten Coolest Artifacts at the New Museum of Broadway

Peek behind the curtain of “Ziegfeld Follies,” “The Lion King,” “Kinky Boots” and more

Leola One Feather, of the Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, observes as Native American artifacts are photographed in Barre, Massachusetts. 

Massachusetts Museum Returns Wounded Knee Artifacts to Sioux Tribes

A ceremony on Saturday marked the conclusion of a long repatriation process

The comb is made of ivory and inscribed with the sentence: "May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard."

Scientists Translate the Oldest Sentence Written in the First Alphabet

Inscribed on a Canaanite comb, the words reveal a struggle with head lice

The enigmatic John Smith Hurt, shown in 1966, was a pioneer of the vital American art form known as Mississippi Delta blues.

A Pilgrimage to Honor a Blues Legend

With a mysterious memento from long ago in hand, a devoted fan of the blues artist Mississippi John Hurt returns to the Delta

Griffin Post at the site of Bradford Washburn's abandoned 1937 camera cache.

Explorers Find Cameras Abandoned by Mountain Climbers in 1937

Scientists traced the movement of Canada’s Walsh Glacier to find the long-lost cache

Ruins found under an old deparment store may be from the friary of St. Saviours, which was founded by a Dominican order of monks in about 1256, but its exact location had always been a mystery.

Human Remains May Have Revealed the Site of a Medieval Friary

Archaeologists uncovered nearly 300 skeletons and other artifacts from beneath an old Welsh department store

The 44 solid gold coins dating back to the Byzantine era were discovered at the Hermon Stream Nature Reserve.

Cool Finds

These Gold Coins Were Stashed in a Stone Wall Nearly 1,400 Years Ago

Archaeologists found the 44 Byzantine-era coins during excavations in the Golan Heights

Some of the 14th-century B.C.E. vessels found at the Tel Yehud burial site

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Discover Evidence of Earliest Known Opium Use

At a burial site in Israel, pottery from the 14th century B.C.E. contained traces of the drug

Some of the returned artifacts

Panama

The Netherlands Repatriates 343 Ceramics to Panama

The pre-Hispanic pottery pieces range from bowls to plates to burial vessels

The 3,000-year-old Imsety sculpture is a lid to a canopic jar, which held organs during mummification.

Customs Officials Seize a 3,000-Year-Old Egyptian Artifact in Tennessee

The stone sculpture depicts the Egyptical funeral deity Imsety

The Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C.

Museum of the Bible Returns Centuries-Old Gospel Manuscript to Greece

The artifact had been stolen from a monastery during World War I

A plaque depicting a war chief and a royal military priest carrying a leather gift box

London’s Horniman Museum Will Return Stolen Benin Bronzes to Nigeria

The 72 objects were looted from Benin City more than a century ago

The watch that likely belonged to Adolf Hitler

Hitler’s Watch Sells for $1.1 Million at Controversial Auction

Jewish leaders opposed the sale, calling it “an abhorrence” in an open letter

Based on the remnants left on pottery fragments, researchers can say northern Europeans have been drinking milk for 9,000 years.

Why Did Europeans Evolve Into Becoming Lactose Tolerant?

Famine and disease from millennia ago likely spurred the rapid evolution of the trait on the continent

The U.S. government seized the Amadea, a yacht it says is owned by Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov.

‘Alleged’ Fabergé Egg Found Aboard a Seized Russian Oligarch’s Yacht

The rare egg may not be authentic—but if it is, it could be worth millions

The mosque was found in the Bedouin town of Rahat in Israel’s Negev desert.

Cool Finds

In Israeli Desert, Archaeologists Find One of the Oldest Known Mosques

The seventh-century structure provides clues about a region in transition

Rome’s new Museum of Rescued Art opens with some 100 objects on display.

Cool Finds

At Museum for Rescued Art, Italy Displays Stolen Artifacts It Has Recovered

The museum will showcase items before returning them to their original locations

The 21-year-old suspect, Brian Hernandez, broke into the Dallas Museum of Art around 9:40 p.m. Wednesday.

Trending Today

Man Breaks Into Dallas Museum of Art and Damages Artworks Valued at Up to $5 Million

Brian Hernandez broke ancient Greek artifacts and a contemporary ceramic piece

The National Museum of American History and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum announced the joint acquisition of the historic kit envisioned by activist Martha Goddard.

Invented by a Woman Activist, an Early 1970s Rape Kit Arrives at the Smithsonian

Martha Goddard didn’t receive much recognition—instead she got the job done

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