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Medieval Ages

The Strait of Gibraltar 

Cool Finds

In a Graveyard of Shipwrecks Between Europe and Africa, Archaeologists Discovered Vessels Doomed Over Thousands of Years

The “harbor” of the Strait of Gibraltar is the final resting place for shipwrecks from ancient Rome, the medieval era and World War II, according to a new archaeological survey

The Boyd Family Memorial Window (The Falls) by Tiffany Studios will be auctioned in New York in June.

This Dazzling Tiffany Stained-Glass Window Adorned a Church for More Than a Century. Now It Needs a New Home

The Second Congregational Church of Winsted in Connecticut will auction off the colorful artwork featuring a stunning waterfall and sunset

Archaeologists uncovered a Cold War bunker underneath an English castle.

Cool Finds

Why Is a Cold War Bunker Buried Underneath This Medieval English Castle? In Case of Nuclear ‘Armageddon’

Archaeologists uncovered a relic of the 20th-century conflict beneath Scarborough Castle, decades after the bunker was sealed and its exact location was forgotten

Researchers from the Relicta Foundation studied the site using deep-core drilling, geophysical surveys and lidar scans.

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Unearth Traces of a Mysterious Medieval City That Was Abandoned Under Puzzling Circumstances Hundreds of Years Ago

Found in a Polish forest, the town of Stolzenberg appears to have been built around the turn of the 14th century. Surveys revealed evidence of a town square, a main street and a moat

The three-foot-long iron sword is covered in sediment and shells.

Cool Finds

This Diver Stumbled Upon a Centuries-Old Sword Beneath the Mediterranean Sea. Years Later, He Found Another One Nearby

Shlomi Katzin, who unearthed a 900-year-old sword in 2021, recently discovered a similar artifact jutting out of the seabed off the coast of Israel

Prayers partially cover diagrams from On the Sphere and the Cylinder, a treatise written by Archimedes.

Cool Finds

Historians Say They’ve Discovered a Long-Lost Page From the Archimedes Palimpsest, a Treasure Trove of Rare Ancient Mathematical Treatises

Three leaves had been missing for more than a century. Researchers found one of them when they decided on a whim to check the archives of a French museum

English farmer Nicholas Wood.

Eating Challenges Are All the Rage. But When Was the Last Time You Saw Someone Eat a Mutton Shoulder Bone?

Even before the internet, overindulgence was something of a spectator sport for those who reveled in gastronomic glory

Infrared scans suggest that the artist reworked their composition to prominently feature Anne's hands clasping a rose. “By clearly displaying five digits on each hand, the portrait acts as a visual rebuttal to hostile rumors and as a defense of Anne Boleyn—and, by extension, of her daughter Elizabeth’s legitimacy,” says curator Owen Emmerson.

Rumors Suggested That Anne Boleyn Was a Witch With Six Fingers. Did This Elizabethan Artist Rework a Portrait of the Tudor Queen to Debunk the Gossip?

A new analysis of the Hever Rose portrait suggests that the painter deliberately modified an existing template to showcase Anne’s hands—with no extra digits—holding a delicate rose

Volunteers repairing the Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorset, England, in 2019

This Massive Hillside Figure Has Mystified Historians for Centuries. Now, Donations Have Secured the Surrounding Landscape

The National Trust has purchased the land around England’s Cerne Abbas Giant, which will help protect the mysterious chalk figure and nearby wildlife for future generations

Researchers are using an instrument at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to uncover the original text of reused parchments.

Medieval Monks Wrote Over a Copy of an Ancient Star Catalog. Now, a Particle Accelerator Is Revealing the Long-Lost Original Text

The parchments initially contained references to a star catalog and maps created during the second century B.C.E.

Though the wooden buildings have long since rotted away, the postholes and beam slots are still there.

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Stumble Upon Mysterious Medieval Village While Preparing for New Wind Farms in England

The previously unknown settlement appears to have been abandoned at some point in the 1300s, but researchers don’t know why

Inky paw prints on a 15th-century Flemish manuscript

A Cat Left Paw Prints on the Pages of This Medieval Manuscript When the Ink Was Drying 500 Years Ago

An exhibition called “Paws on Parchment” tracks how cats were depicted in the Middle Ages through texts and artworks from around the world—including one example of a 15th-century “keyboard cat”

Divers swept away sand and silt to reveal the wreck.

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Say They’ve Unearthed a Massive Medieval Cargo Ship That’s the Largest Vessel of Its Kind Ever Found

Spotted off the coast of Denmark, the “Svaelget 2” is a cog, a kind of large trading vessel used in the Middle Ages. Experts say the 600-year-old discovery is “exceptionally well-preserved”

The Black Death may have killed more than half of Europe's population within just a few years.

A Volcanic Eruption in 1345 May Have Triggered a Chain of Events That Brought the Black Death to Europe

Ash from the explosion may have led to crop failure and famine in southern Europe, leading some Italian cities to import grain—which possibly carried fleas infected with the bubonic plague

Evidence of prehistoric flint tool-making dating to approximately 4300 B.C.E.

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Digging Beneath Britain’s Houses of Parliament Discover 6,000-Year-Old Flint Artifacts and a 2,000-Year-Old Roman Altar Fragment

During restorations at the Palace of Westminster in London, excavations have revealed a trove of historic objects, the oldest of which date to around 4300 B.C.E.

A bust of Plato in the Long Room at Trinity College Dublin

Coastal Cities of Europe

Go Behind the Scenes at an Iconic Irish Library as Staff Move 700,000 Historical Treasures Into Storage

Trinity College Dublin’s Old Library will close for restoration and construction in 2027. What does that mean for the medieval manuscripts and books housed there?

The text contains illustrations of plants, animals and biblical scenes.

See the ‘Mona Lisa of Illuminated Manuscripts,’ a 600-Year-Old Bible Covered in Intricate Illustrations

Created between 1455 and 1461, the Borso D’Este Bible is currently on view in the Italian Senate in Rome

The Torre dei Conti was built in the early 13th century.

800-Year-Old Tower Partially Collapses Near Rome’s Colosseum, Killing a Worker Trapped Inside

Octav Stroici, a 66-year-old Romanian man, was restoring the Torre dei Conti when the accident occurred on November 3. Several other workers were successfully rescued from the medieval structure

This 14th- or 15th-century aquamanile, a vessel for pouring water in domestic and religious settings, shows a sexual depiction of the legend of Aristotle and Phyllis.

See How These Medieval Artists Explored the Many Meanings of Love and Desire in a New Exhibition at the Met Cloisters

The show features more than 50 paintings, manuscripts, textiles and other artworks created in Western Europe between the 13th and 15th centuries

Leicester Market has hosted vendors for some eight centuries.

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Find Both a Medieval Dungeon and Roman Burial Beneath a Market Square in England

Researchers are excavating Leicester Market amid the area’s large-scale renovation

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