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British archaeologists recently made a discovery that sounds like something straight out of an Indiana Jones movie: a secret tomb under the ancient city of Petra in Jordan, according to a press release from the University of St. Andrews. The archaeologists, led by Richard Bates, a professor at St. Andrews, and Pearce Paul Creasman, the executive director of American Center of Research, were exploring Petra’s iconic Treasury building, which was featured in 1989 blockbuster Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. (In the film, the building is home to the Holy Grail, though its actual purpose has remained mostly a mystery.)...

The bronze blade, thought to be around 3,000 years old, has the markings of Ramesses II, hailed as the most powerful king of ancient Egypt...The sword was uncovered among the ruins of an ancient military fort in Housh Eissa, a city just south of Alexandria, which featured barracks for soldiers and storage rooms for food, weapons and other goods...The ancient sword likely did not belong to the famous king, but likely to one of his soldiers stationed at the fort, experts said.Elizabeth Frood, an Oxford University Egyptologist who was not involved in the dig, told The Washington Post: 'An object...

According to a BBC News report, students discovered a message in a bottle at a Gaulish village site in northern France. Much of the 2,000-year-old fortified village has been lost to the erosion of the cliff where it is located. The message had been rolled up, tied with a string, and placed in a vial of the type that women used to wear round their necks to hold smelling salts, said municipal archaeologist Guillaume Blondel. The vial had then been placed in a pot and buried. "P.J Féret, a native of Dieppe, member of various intellectual societies, carried out excavations...

There may be some truth to the myth of Merlin. On Tuesday, archeologists in Scotland revealed evidence of the legendary wizard’s death in Drumelzier between the 6th and 7th centuries — and the findings could change the way we tell Merlin’s tale. Merlin was said to have been a loyal advisor to King Arthur amid the Dark Ages before being imprisoned, killed and buried along the river Tweed, according to Vita Merlini Sylvestris (the Life of Merlin of the Forest), a medieval manuscript of his life which is currently held at the British Library. A new geological survey of the...

Archaeologists in Israel uncovered a stone seal they believe to be around 2,700 years old from the First Temple period, a find that strengthens the biblical heritage of Jerusalem. The seal, discovered at the City of David National Park in Jerusalem, contains a winged figure with one arm raised forward with an open palm, the Israeli Antiquities Authority announced. The seal was discovered during excavations conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority and the City of David Foundation near the Southern Wall of the Temple Mount in the Davidson Archaeological Garden. On either side of the figure is an inscription in...

The wine in the glass urn. Credit: Juan Manuel Román The oldest wine ever discovered, originating from Andalusia, is a white wine over 2,000 years old. A 2019 excavation in Carmona revealed the oldest wine ever discovered, preserved in a man’s tomb for 2,000 years, highlighting significant aspects of Roman funerary rituals and societal gender norms. In 2019, a Roman tomb in Carmona was uncovered, revealing the remains of six individuals—Hispana, Senicio, two other men, and two women, whose names remain unknown. These inhabitants from 2,000 years ago likely never envisioned their funerary rituals gaining significance in the modern era....

Marine archaeologists have identified 10 shipwrecks, including one from the Roman era, in the waters around a Greek island in the Mediterranean. The finds came to light during a multiyear project carried out by a team in collaboration with Greece's National Hellenic Research Foundation and the country's Ministry of Culture. The project has been surveying an area around the island of Kasos, which lies in the Aegean Sea, a portion of the Mediterranean between the Greek peninsula to the west and Turkey's Anatolia peninsula to the east. "This research was conducted to shed light on the maritime history of the...

Researchers are still debating the age and origins of the sacred cloth.The Shroud of Turin may have been hiding in plain sight all along as a new book claims it was a relic from the Passion of the Christ. The piece of cloth is sacred to the religion of Christianity as it shows the imprint of Jesus Christ. Many believe the cloth was wrapped around his body when he was buried. following his crucifixion. Jack Markwardt's new book – The Hidden History of the Shroud of Turin – describes how early Christians may have hidden the cloth due to fear...

Archaeologists recently identified the remains of four human funerary burials from approximately 3,800 years ago in a space in northern Peru associated with a water cult. The bundled funeral remains belong to two children, a teenager, and an adult. They were buried facing the Andean mountains and interred with symbolic offerings, such as stone pendants and snail shells. The remains were found nestled between mud and stone walls near a valley in Peru’s dry, coastal Viru province by the Virú Valley Archaeological Research Project (PAVI) of the National University of Trujillo (UNT). Related Articles The ancient neolithic monument of Stonehenge...

About 20 fragments were found, including a skull, rib sections, vertebra, a front leg bone and a kneecap, all believed to come from the same mastodonArchaeologists in Iowa have uncovered parts of a mastodon fossil, including its skull, that they believe dates back to when the first humans lived on Earth. Over the course of a 12-day excavation, staff from the University of Iowa's Office of the State Archaeologist worked with local community members to recover the bones. About 20 fragments were found, including a skull, rib sections, vertebra, a front leg bone and a kneecap, all believed to come...

Archaeologists in Germany have unearthed more than 1,500 medieval silver coins after a citizen unexpectedly noticed what looked like "small metal plates" while digging during a construction project...The finding, which was made in May while workers laid pipe near a swimming pool in the municipality of Glottertal, bears clues to what the mining and minting trades looked like in the area 650 years ago, according to a translated statement from the Stuttgart Regional Council.Back in 1949, archaeologists in Freiburg (also known as Freiburg im Breisgau) found about 5,000 coins from around the 1280s, but no medieval coins had been found...

Roman-era sarcophagus used as bar on Bulgarian beach believed to be authenticThe genuine Roman sarcophagus was being used as decoration at a resort near Varna in the Black Sea. An ancient sarcophagus dating back to the Roman era was discovered on a beach and used as a bar at a Black Sea resort near Varna. Following its discovery, archaeologists from the Regional History Museum in Varna examined the ancient artefact, identifying its rich ornamentation as part of the "garland sarcophagi" from Roman times. The sarcophagus is made from shelly limestone, characteristic of northwestern Bulgaria. It features intricate relief decorations...

An archeological team in Venezuela has discovered 20 rock art sites that date back thousands of years in Canaima National Park, in the southeastern part of the country. While archaeologists have found similar rock art designs elsewhere in South America, the newfound art "represents a new culture previously unknown," José Miguel Pérez-Gómez, an archaeologist and researcher at Simón Bolívar University in Caracas who is leading the team, told Live Science in an email. Some of these designs, which researchers call "pictograms," were drawn in red and depict geometric motifs such as lines of dots, rows of X's, star-shaped patterns and...

The slabs included hieroglyphic inscriptions about the kings' achievements, including King Amenhotep III, also known as Amenhotep the Magnificent and ancestor of King Tut...The ancient artifacts were discovered in the area in 1960, but were lost the following decade during the construction of the Aswan High Dam in Aswan.Archaeologists had rushed to remove them before they were lost underwater, but many couldn't be relocated in time...The researchers used underwater filming and photographing techniques to document the discovery.They are also creating 3D models of the images using photogrammetry - the process of using surface measurements from pictures to create an accurate...

Rome's Monte Testaccio, the ancient world's largest garbage dump, is estimated to contain 53 million broken amphorae.Rome's Mountain of Ancient Garbage | 13:11toldinstone | 511K subscribers | 157,252 views | June 25, 2024Chapters:0:00 Introduction1:17 Spanish olive groves2:03 From olives to oil3:47 The voyage to Portus5:15 The emperor's oil6:15 Up the Tiber7:09 Romanis Magicae8:02 The warehouse district9:30 Monte Testaccio11:12 Significance of a dump11:46 Visiting Monte Testaccio

Archaeologists have uncovered a "monumental" fortification that protected Jerusalem's biblical kings some 3,000 years ago. The "dramatic" archaeological discovery solved a 150-year-old mystery in the City of David. Since 2007, archaeologists have been excavating the area around the Givati Parking Lot, the largest active archaeological excavation in Jerusalem today. The excavation site on the northwestern side of the City of David has unearthed different layers of the city's life from the Middle Ages to ancient times. The most recent archaeological find is the remnants of a moat that split the City of David in half — separating the king's palace...

A Sumerian “sacred code” has been deciphered, revealing divinely inspired building instructions echoed in the Bible. Experts have been puzzled since unearthing the 4,000-year-old statue of a leader called Gudea, which features an architectural plan, an inscription claiming he built a temple commanded to him in a dream, and a “ruler” of undeciphered measurements.... British Museum archaeologists have now cracked the “sacred code” of these mysterious measurements after finding a lost temple in Iraq...Dr Sebastien Rey, director of the British Museum’s project in Iraq, said: “It is like the precise measurement we see in the Bible in a much later...

Ancient Egyptians, 2000-3000 thousand years ago, not only worshipped crocodiles, offering them bread, meat and wine, but also sacrificed and mummified them, a new study confirms. Published in the journal Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, the research purports to have gained a deeper understanding of a religious practice behind the mummification of crocodiles in ancient Egypt. The specific crocodile mummy examined for the study that led to the conclusions was 2.2 meters-long and is housed at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. The team of experts conducted various scans on the mummified crocodile, which revealed a fish hook...

A study reveals that 400,000 years ago, early humans developed Quina scrapers for hunting, adapting to the disappearance of elephants and forming a cultural link to the resource-rich Mountains of Samaria... These tools were first discovered at a site in France and are named after it. They have been found at the ancient sites of Jaljulia and Qesem Cave. Quina scrapers are distinguished by their scalloped, sharp working edges, which were utilized for butchering fallow deer and processing their hides.The researchers explain that after the elephants disappeared from the region, the ancient hunters were forced to make technological adaptations enabling...

A £560,000 prize was on offer for scholars who could read the ancient Roman texts buried when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79AD. Scrolls cocooned in volcanic ash that consumed the Roman city of Pompeii have been deciphered for the first time in 2,000 years. Using AI researchers were able to discern some meaning from the writings which were discovered in the doomed ancient Italian city that was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD. ...In a statement the Vesuvius Challenge revealed some of the information hidden until now in the scrolls which appear to be philosophical treatises concerning...