A team of international researchers led by the University of Arizona reported last year that they had discovered the largest and oldest Mayan monument:Aguada Fénix. That same team has now discovered nearly 500 smaller ceremonial complexes that are similar in shape and features to Aguada Fénix. The f
As part of the Silk Road and situated at the geographic intersection of Eastern and Western cultures, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has long been an important crossroads for trans-European exchanges of people, cultures, agriculture, and languages. Since the late 1990s, the discovery of hund
A Sicilian lawyer named Ferdinand Guidano bought in 1859 a black basalt slab that had a series of Egyptian hieroglyphs engraved on it. He probably acquired it in some antique market in Cairo, but the truth is that its origin is not known. In 1877, perhaps after Guidanos death, his family donated the
In 1846 during the excavations of Nimrud, the ancient Assyrian capital, the archaeologist Austen Henry Layard (who thought that he was actually excavating the city of Nineveh) found a carved pillar with reliefs on all its sides. The so-called Black Obelisk is a black limestone sculpture with bas-r
In the Italian province of Ancona, in the Marche region northeast of Rome, there are two towns just 10 kilometers apart, called Osimo and Camerano. Both share a peculiar common characteristic, having a considerable network of galleries and tunnels under their urban area. In the case of Camerano, th
The tablet - known as Si.427 - was discovered in the late 19th century in what is now central Iraq, but its significance was unknown until detective work by a University of New South Wales (UNSW) scientist has revealed it. Most excitingly, Si.427 is believed to be the oldest known example of applie
The origin and date of appearance of prehistoric cave art are the subject of continuous debate. The Cueva de Ardales (in Malaga, Spain) is a point of contention. There a flowing stone formation is tinted red in places. This coloration is apparently almost 65,000 years old, but until now part of the
The story of Laocoön, the Trojan priest who was attacked and killed along with his two sons by giant snakes for trying to unmask the Trojan Horse ruse, is well known in Greek mythology. The tragic story of Laocoon has been related by numerous Greek poets, such as Apollodorus and Quintus of Smyrna. T
A research team from the University of Bern has for the first time accurately dated the pile dwellings on the shores of Lake Ohrid in the southwestern Balkans:they emerged in the middle of the 5th millennium BC. The region surrounding the oldest lake in Europe played a key role in the proliferation
Tourists who visit Peru are often attracted by the Inca archaeological heritage, whose most famous jewels, Cuzco and Machu Picchu, are located in the southern half of the country. But the Peruvian north is also attractive from that historical-monumental point of view, apart from being more culturall
For a long time it was believed that the Native Americans who occupied the area known as Poverty Point in northern Louisiana were simple hunters and gatherers. However, new archaeological finds from Washington University in St. Louis offer a very different picture of North Americas first civilizatio
On August 16, 1972, one of the most spectacular discoveries in classical Greek art took place. Two nearly intact bronze statues of two male figures, probably athletes or warriors, were found at the bottom of the sea near Riace, in the former Italian province of Reggio Calabria. The discovery was im
The monumental reliefs at the Camels site in northern Arabia are unique:three rocky spurs are decorated with life-size naturalistic carvings of camels and equines. In total, 21 reliefs have been identified. Based on similarities to works of art found in Petra, Jordan, the rock deposit was initially
It was the year 1911 when a scandal shook Jerusalem and, by extension, the entire Palestinian region, leading the Ottoman Empire to have a friction with the United Kingdom. Members of the Parker Expedition, an archaeological mission excavating in the city, were caught working at night and disguised
In the Middle Bronze Age (about 3,600 years ago, approximately 1650 BC), the city of Tall el-Hammam was prosperous. Situated on high ground in the southern Jordan Valley, northeast of the Dead Sea, the settlement had become the largest continuously occupied Bronze Age city in the southern Levant, da
The footprints found in the White Sands National Park, in New Mexico, constitute the first unequivocal evidence of human activity in America and allow us to discover life more than 23,000 years ago. The findings are described in a Science journal article co-authored by University of Arizona archaeol
For nearly two hundred years, archaeologists have searched for a plausible explanation for the ancient Yazılıkaya rock sanctuary in central Turkey. More than 3,200 years ago, stonemasons carved more than 90 reliefs of deities, animals, and chimeras into the limestone bedrock. An international team
The Votive Basque it is a unique wooden structure that was unearthed on a small hill in northern Italy in 2005, near the town of Noceto. Constructed primarily of oak, the exact purpose of the buried structure has been a mystery, as has the date of its construction. Italian researchers estimate its o
Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, known simply as Claudius, was the fourth Roman emperor (after Caligula). He was born in Lugdunum, present-day Lyon in France, in 10 BC, where his father was stationed as a military legate, thus becoming the first Roman emperor born outside the Italian pe
The Colonia Augusta Rauricorum (Augusta Raurica) was founded by Lucio Munacio Planco, one of the most slippery politicians of the late Republic and early Empire, in the summer of 44 BC. on the south bank of the Rhine, near the modern city of Basel in northern Switzerland. We know the exact year beca
While the myth of the collapse persists, a team of researchers shows that the population of Easter Island (Rapa Nui) experienced a continuous increase until the arrival of Europeans in 1722. The moai statues are sometimes presented as the symbol of the excessiveness of the Pascuans by the defender
We find the term Grand Tour for the first time in a guide by Richard Lassels, from the year 1670, referring to the great journey made by young British aristocrats between the 16th and 18th centuries. This fact constituted a new way of traveling quite similar to what we know today as tourism. The mo
We all remember the summer of 1939 because in its last stage, on September 1, the Second World War broke out. But history and art buffs have an extra reason to pay special attention to that season, as just six days earlierGermany revealed to the world something more than his almighty Wehrmacht:a sma
In July 2020, French archaeologists visited the island of Cabrera, in the Spanish Balearic archipelago as part of a project related to one of the most dramatic and largely ignored episodes of the Napoleonic epic:Cabreras captivity. A prison island where thousands of soldiers were abandoned and died