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Archaeologists unearthed a nearly 3,000-year-old Mayan city in Guatemala — complete with pyramids and mysterious monuments — that reveals new traces of the ancient civilization. The ancient metropolis known as Los Abuelos — Spanish for “The Grandparents” — dates back to about 800 to 500 BC and is believed to be one of the earliest and most significant ceremonial centers of the Maya civilization in Guatemala’s dense Petén region ... Officials said the roughly six-square-mile historic area — named after two human-like rock figures believed to represent an ancestral couple — features “remarkable architectural planning,” including pyramids, sacred sanctuaries and...

Did a big wave hit the Big Apple way back when? Scientists say a tsunami struck the New York City area 2,300 years ago, possibly as a result of a meteorite crashing into the Atlantic Ocean.

A meteorite impact off Long Island 2,300 years ago may have set off a huge tsunami that flooded the New York City region, a new study says (New York City and Long Island map). It's not known whether any ancient settlements were in the path of the proposed killer waves, but "any significant tsunami today would be devastating and likely to flood places like lower Manhattan," Vanderbilt University geologist Steven Goodbred said. Tsunamis are typically triggered by seismic events. An undersea earthquake, for example, caused the catastrophic 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. But meteorite strikes have also been known to spark...

The tsunami washed over Fire Island and, to the west, waves perhaps as high as 20 feet spilled into Lower Manhattan. The furious onrush of water left sediment a foot and a half deep on the Jersey Shore, and debris cascaded far up the Hudson River. No, there’s no need to rush to higher ground, commandeer a rowboat in Central Park or empty the closet to grab the rubber boots. This disaster occurred about 2,300 years ago, though how bad it was, or even if it was a tsunami, remains in dispute. But several geologists have collected evidence indicating that...

Rag and bone cup dates to 300BC Last Updated: 9:40PM BST 27/05/2008 The grandson of a rag and bone man who acquired a small metal cup is in line for a windfall after discovering it is a pure gold vessel dating back to the third or fourth century BC. A rag and bone man gave his grandson the pure gold vessel, which is from the third or fourth century BC The piece could be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. The 5½ in cup, believed to be from the Achaemenid empire, has two female faces looking in opposite directions, their...