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The Aztec Empire once hosted an expansive trade network that brought volcanic glass to its capital from right across Mesoamerica, coast to coast. The largest compositional study of obsidian artifacts found in the ancient Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan has now revealed the far-flung influence of the Mexica culture – the largest and most powerful faction of the Aztec Alliance. The 788 precious obsidian objects analyzed include weapons, urns, earrings, pendants, scepters, and decorated human skulls. They appear to have been sourced from across the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, even from the lands of rival governments. The discovery speaks to the commercial...

Archaeologists have condemned a Tory council leader's threat to dismantle all archaeological controls on development, saying that the regulations are necessary to protect the UK's unique national heritage. Alan Melton, leader of Fenland District Council, dismissed opponents of development as "bunny huggers" in a speech last week. Archaeologists fear his views reflect a national threat to all heritage protection as a result of the government's determination to simplify the planning process to encourage development. The principle that developers must pay for archaeological excavation -- before construction work destroys sites -- has led to a string of major discoveries in the...

Art imitates life ... maybe.There’s something intriguing, even frightening, about the image of an ancient horned serpent roaming across the land. Thanks to some suggestive fossils and legends of old, talk of such a creature isn’t a new concept. But the recent discovery of 200-year-old rock paintings found in South Africa now has scientists hypothesizing that this ancient creature may have been far more than just a legend. The first formal scientific descriptions of this horned serpent—a supposed member of the dicynodont group—appeared in 1845. Considering the abundance of dicynodont fossils found in the Karoo Basin in South Africa, some...

An Early Bronze Age grave In the spring of 2002 what started as a routine excavation was undertaken in advance of the building of a new school at Amesbury in Wiltshire. By the end of the excavation the richest Bronze Age burial yet found in Britain had been discovered. The Bronze Age man discovered there had been buried not far from the great temple of Stonehenge. He was a man who owned and could work the new and magical metals of gold and copper. And he had come from what is now central Europe, perhaps around the Alps. Was he...

The National Museum of Denmark has confirmed that two 18th-century shipwrecks in Cahuita National Park, long thought to be pirate ships, are the Danish slave ships Fridericus Quartus and Christianus Quintus, which sank in 1710. The identification was announced on Sunday, resolving decades of speculation about the wrecks off Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast. The ships were identified through underwater excavations in 2023, which analyzed ship timbers, cargo blocks, clay pipes, and other artifacts. In 2015, U.S. archaeologists from East Carolina University discovered yellow bricks, specific to Danish manufacturing in Flensburg, among the wreckage, prompting renewed investigation. The wrecks, located on...

Archaeologists have uncovered the ruins of an ancient Egyptian town dating back 3,400 years near the city of Alexandria, according to a recent study published in Antiquity. The researchers from the French National Centre for Scientific Research have theorized that the mud-brick settlement was likely founded during Egypt‘s 18th Dynasty (ca. 1550 BCE–1292 BCE), due to the presence of items bearing an amphora stamp with the name Merytaton. Merytaton was the daughter of the pharaoh Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti and the sibling of Tutankhamun, better known as King Tut. Related Articles The tomb of an ancient Egyptian military commander....

A team of Brazilian researchers is investigating a cave site featuring ancient paintings in Itatiaia National Park, near the border between Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais. The discovery, which could reshape the understanding of early human presence in the region, has drawn the attention of leading archaeologists and cultural preservation agencies. Though the paintings were discovered in 2023 by Andres Conquista, an operational supervisor at the park, the news was kept under wraps to protect the site, which sits along a well-traveled hiking trail. While hiking during a climbing trip, Conquista was drawn to a cluster of blooming red...

Artifacts at Kach Kouch reveal stable agricultural settlements in mediterranean africa over 3,000 years ago.Recent archaeological discoveries at the Kach Kouch site in Morocco transform the understanding of ancient civilizations in North-West Africa. A team of young researchers from Morocco's National Institute of Archaeology carried out extensive excavations in 2021 and 2022, utilizing technology such as drones, differential GPS, and 3D models, as reported by The Independent. The findings at Kach Kouch suggest that stable agricultural settlements existed on the African coast of the Mediterranean during the Bronze Age, more than 3,000 years ago. This was at the same time...

The discovery of a ship, missing for five centuries, in a southwest African desert, filled with gold coins, is one of the most thrilling archaeological finds in recent times. The Bom Jesus (The Good Jesus) was a Portuguese vessel that set sail from Lisbon, Portugal on Friday, March 7, 1533. Its fate was unknown until 2008 when its remains were discovered in the desert of Namibia during diamond mining operations near the coast of the African nation. When it sank in a fierce storm, it was on its way to India laden with treasures like gold and copper ingots. Two...

Archaeologists believe they have uncovered evidence of a massive underground city lying beneath Egypt’s famous Giza pyramids. Researchers from Italy and Scotland used advanced radar technology to produce detailed images from deep below the surface, revealing possible hidden structures 10 times the size of the pyramids themselves. The report highlights eight distinct vertical, cylinder-shaped formations stretching over 2,100 feet beneath the pyramids, along with a series of additional unidentified structures located another 4,000 feet further down. However, some experts remain skeptical of the claim, insisting that such a feat would be structurally impossible. -------- Mail Online reported: Professor Lawrence Conyers,...

Archaeologists have discovered Britain’s largest known Viking-era building, offering new insights into early medieval life. The structure, buried beneath a field at High Tarns Farm in northwest England, was uncovered by the researchers and more than 50 volunteers. Researchers affiliated with Grampus Heritage, a nonprofit organization specializing in archaeology, have identified the remains of a substantial hall measuring approximately 160 feet in length and 50 feet in width. This discovery, made last summer, indicates that the site was an important assembly location during the Viking Age. “The significance of this discovery, in shedding light on the early medieval period and...

Yossi Klein Halevi, senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, describes how anti-Zionists in academia have systematically challenged the moral basis of the Jewish/Zionist story. He exhorts us, the Jews of the world, to mount a credible defense of our story. But do we Jews know our own story? Edward Robinson, a prominent American archeologist of the 1800s, did not think so. Robinson was the first to identify the archeological ruins of Bar’am, a site in northern Galilee near the Lebanese border, as synagogues. The primary structure, built in the third century CE, was still in use in the 13th...

After video of a worker using a hammer, chisel, and other tools on the stones of the Great Pyramid of Giza went viral on social media last November, outrage about the incident has grown to include a statement in Egyptian Parliament and one Egyptologist claiming “mismanagement.” The viral video of construction workers at the 4,600-year-old Great Pyramid of Giza, a UNESCO World Heritage site, was taken by tourists. Officials from the country’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities told local media outlets that the ancient monument had suffered no damage. Related Articles Allegations of 'Mismanagement at Giza Great Pyramid After Viral...

A rare collection of ancient coins was discovered last week by Israeli researchers, who called the find an "archaeological Hanukkah miracle." The coins are more than 2,000 years old and believed to belong to King Alexander Jannaeus, the second ruler of the Hasmonean dynasty that presided over Judea in the final centuries leading up to the common era, according to the University of Haifa in Israel. Archaeologists found the hoard of about 160 of the coins during ongoing excavations in the Jordan Valley, which runs between the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the eastern border of Jordan. The project is headed...

A shipwreck dating to the sixth or fifth century b.c. has been discovered near Sicily along with a collection of ancient anchors, according to a report from CBS News. The wreck was found buried under sand and rock 20 feet underwater off Santa Maria del Focallo, at the southern tip of the island. The excavation was carried out by underwater archaeologists from the University of Udine in collaboration with Sicily's superintendent of the sea. Researchers determined that the ship's hull was built using a simple early shipbuilding technique known as "on the shell." Further study of the wreck may help...

One of Sargon II's (r. 721–706 BCE) many acts -- besides conquering Samaria and taking the ten northern tribes of Israel into exile, of course -- was the establishment of a brand-new capital for the Assyrian Empire, Dur-Sharrukin. Before the purpose-built city was completed, however, Sargon fell in battle, and his son, Sennacherib, moved the capital instead to Nineveh, leaving the unfinished Dur-Sharrukin to be buried by history. Now, a joint French-German team is discovering that much more of the city had been completed than previously thought...Utilizing a high-resolution magnetometer, the team conducted a large-scale survey, scanning 2.79 million square...

Archaeologists have discovered a road in Utrecht that led to the Traiectum fortress in Roman times, which was built about 2,000 years ago on the site of the current Domplein. The discovery was made last week during archeological research in connection with upcoming construction work, the municipality of Utrecht reported on Wednesday. According to the municipality, the find is “of great importance for our knowledge of Roman Utrecht and the border community around it.”The northern border of the Roman Empire went straight through the Netherlands, past the Rijn River. Part of these so-called limes (the Latin word for border) was...

Not everyone is convinced.-Archaeologist Kathleen Martinez, who has been on the hunt for Cleopatra VII’s tomb for nearly 20 years, believes she’s found a bust that depicts the Egyptian queen. -The claim has put some at odds with Martinez, as other experts say the bust looks nothing like Cleopatra. -Along with the marble statue, the team also discovered 337 coins—some of which (less controversially) depict Cleopatra. Lawyer-turned-archaeologist Kathleen Martinez has been on the hunt for Cleopatra VII’s tomb for nearly two decades. And now, she believes that she and her team have just unearthed a small marble bust of the...

Ancient Egypt apparently predicted The Simpsons. More seriously though, a discovered tomb features a painting that looks suspiciously like a character from the beloved American sitcom. The internet is loving it. Discovering an ancient Egyptian tomb is one thing... But what about discovering an ancient Egyptian tomb with a painting on it that bears an uncanny resemblance to a character from American animated sitcom The Simpsons? That’s precisely what happened when a 3000-year-old tomb was discovered in an ancient cemetery in the Egyptian city of Minya, on the western bank of the Nile – with the upper lid looking like...

Archaeologists have uncovered a unique fragment of a Viking sword near Witmarsum, a village in northern Netherlands. The find, a pommel cap from the 10th century AD, once formed part of a gilded sword hilt. It features intricate patterns in the Mammen style, a decorative art tradition that followed the Jellinge style. The Fryske Akademy explained that the design includes depictions of wild boar heads, which symbolised strength, courage, protection, and combat. Most Read on Euro Weekly News Remarkable Viking discoveries in Sweden Interactions between Frisia, Scandinavia, and the British Isles Dr. Nelleke IJssennagger-van der Pluijm, director of the Fryske...