When Auguste Mariette discovered the Serapeum of Saqqara in 1851 he found many objects inside. Among them was a statue known today as the seated scribe and that he represented a high Egyptian official. At that time, this sculpture stood out for its marked realism, which contrasted with the hieratic
The almost 11 centimeters tall statuette of the Venus of Willendorf is one of the most important examples of early art in Europe. It is made from a rock called an oolith that is not found in or around Willendorf. A research team led by anthropologist Gerhard Weber of the University of Vienna and geo
In the article that we dedicated to the famous Riace bronzes, we said that this discovery, made in 1972, was important because very few bronze sculptures from Ancient Greece had survived to this day. The reason is that most of them were melted down again in later times to use the bronze in the manuf
The famous site of Stonehenge was long thought to serve as an ancient calendar, given its alignment with the solstices. Now a study has identified how it might have worked. New findings on the history of the stone circle, along with analysis of other ancient calendar systems, led Professor Timothy
During the construction in 1974 of the current highway that connects the cities of Amman and Zarqa in Jordan, the remains of a large Neolithic settlement of about 10,000 years old were found in which hunter-gatherers coexisted with an incipient agriculture. The site, located on the outskirts of Am
Archaeologists have discovered a stone with a Pictish symbol near the location of one of the most important carved stone monuments ever discovered in Scotland. The University of Aberdeen team stumbled upon the 1.7-metre-long stone in a farmers field while conducting geophysical surveys to try to be
On the road that connects the ancient cities of Mycenae and Tiryns with Epidaurus in the Greek Argolis, there are four bridges built during the Bronze Age that are still in use. One of these bridges is known to be considered one of the oldest bridges in the world, and as the oldest of the European
It has long been assumed that proximity to resources determines settlement patterns, and that cities are generally founded near water and fertile farmland. But a new study challenges this idea, using the example of an ancient city in present-day southern Mexico. The researchers maintain that Monte
In the 5th century BC the Greek historian Herodotus traveled to Egypt and visited the current region of El Fayum, located south of the Nile delta, about 100 kilometers southwest of Cairo. There he saw a large lake that the Egyptians called mer-uer and which he named Meris (present-day Lake Moeris)
In the year 26 AD Emperor Tiberius gave a nightly banquet in one of his favorite places, a cavern by the sea decorated with the most exquisite sculptures by the best artists of the day. It was all laughter and revelry until the night took a turn for the worse. Large blocks of stone began to fall fro
In the article that we dedicated to the prehistoric statues of Ain Ghazal, we said that they were 10,000 years old, since they have been dated between 7,200 and 6,500 BC. But even so, they are not the oldest anthropomorphic statues of almost natural dimensions, since that honor goes to the so-called
Archaeologists working on a dig at Grange Farm, near Gillingham in the county of Kent in southeastern England, have discovered 15 kilograms of litharge, a lead ore associated with the extraction of silver from other metals. This is the largest amount ever found at a British Roman site and far exceed
Archaeological investigations carried out in Mozia (on the current island of Saint Pantaleon), the Phoenician city that flourished in the extreme west of Sicily between the 8th and 4th centuries BC, have revealed a large sanctuary delimited by a circular temenos in the center of which is a sacred po
An international team with the participation of the University of Bern provides new data on how the inhabitants of the oldest settlement in the world buried their dead in Çatalhöyük (modern Turkey). The bones were partially painted, unearthed and reburied several times. The findings provide insight
Last fall, an emergency excavation campaign carried out by the Superintendence brought to light a nucleus of ten Etruscan burials, dating from the Villanovian and Archaic periods (8th-5th centuries BC), in the heart of the Monterozzi necropolis. , a few dozen meters from the Tomb of the Bulls and th
Between the 19th and 20th centuries, four curious objects similar to large conical hats were found in southern Germany and France. They are made of thin sheets of gold and the researchers believe that they may be a kind of calendars. They all appear to have been deliberately and carefully buried nea
A research group from the Polytechnic of Milan has analyzed the orientation of the ancient Japanese megalithic burial mounds, the so-called Kofun, built between the second half of the 3rd century and the first half of the 7th century AD. This study had never been done before, due to the large number
During the archaeological supervision of the construction works of the new shed of the Basel Rowing Club in Kaiseraugst, a hitherto completely unknown amphitheater was discovered last December. The monument will be preserved in the ground. It is the second amphitheater in the canton of Aargau and th
In 1336 the Sangama brothers, Harihara I and Bukka Raya I, established the Vijayanagara Empire in south-central India, which flourished for three centuries before disappearing at the hands of the Deccan sultanates in 1646. The name of the empire comes from the name of its capital, Vijayanagara (city
Researchers searching for groundwater sources in the Eastern Arabian Peninsula for a project funded by the United States Agency for International Relief and Development have accidentally discovered the outlines of a settlement that appears to be more than 3,600 years old. A symmetrical, 2 x 3 kilo
This November 14, Unesco is organizing, in partnership with the European Union, a day on the illicit trafficking of cultural property. A traffic that has reached considerable proportions, especially in areas affected by armed conflicts or natural disasters and that the Covid-19 pandemic has not slow
A stele found during the Egyptian campaign. .. and a young scholar who lives only to decode the mysterious inscriptions. His triumph will allow Egyptology to take off. Portrait of Jean-François Champollion (1790-1832), French Egyptologist, decipherer of hieroglyphs. Painting by Léon Cogniet (1794-
In July 2017, the Dutch justice will decide in the case of the monk in the statue, and will finally decide on its attribution. In July 2017, the Dutch justice will decide in the case of the monk in the statue, and will finally decide on its attribution. His discovery stunned specialists in Septem
A funerary boat was unearthed in the enclosure of the necropolis of Abusir, a funerary complex near Cairo in Egypt. Explanations from naval archaeologist Patrice Pomey. Remains of a III-IV Dynasty funerary bark found at the site of Abusir in Egypt. NECROPOLIS. Stranded on a bed of stones, this fu