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Hürriyet Daily News reports that an excavation conducted at the Maydos Church Hill Mound in northwestern Turkey uncovered a 3,900-year-old cylinder seal, a 3,400-year-old lead sling stone, spindle whorls, weaving tools, metal tools, and drills dated to the Middle Bronze Age, around 2000 B.C. Archaeologist Göksel Sazcı of Onsekiz Mart University said that when sling stones are found, they are usually made of stone or terracotta. "The ones made of lead are very rare and are mostly found in the Hellenistic and Roman periods," he added. "Such finds are mostly known from the Mediterranean island of Crete, its Knossos settlement,...

Dartmoor National Park in Devon features five hills, each taller than 1,950 feet. Cut Hill is both one of the most remote and one of the highest, coming in at 1,978 feet...Amid challenging weather conditions, work began in August to retrieve the stone box, which measured about three feet on each side and was topped with three granite capstones. Inside the cist were substantial pieces of preserved wood. The wood appeared to have been worked into its shape, raising questions on its purpose and placement in the cist...This isn't the first major find from the era in the park. In...

Archaeologists revealed Tuesday that there may actually be some truth to the legend of Merlin and his death in Scotland. The legend goes that Merlin, loyal advisor to King Arthur, was imprisoned in Drumelzier in the Dark Ages, before being killed and buried on the banks of the river Tweed, according to a study published in the journal Archaeology Reports Online. A geophysical survey revealed that there is a grave-like pit in the region. When archaeologists started digging, what they found seemed quite unexpected. Excavations conducted at Tinnis Fort, which overlooks the area of Merlin’s grave in Drumelzier, found it...

A curious four-year-old boy visiting the Hecht Museum in Israel with his family inadvertently smashed a jar that predates the time of Biblical main characters King David and King Solomon. The boy’s father told the BBC that his son was simply “curious about what was inside,” so he pulled at the large piece of ceramic crockery to get a better look. To the family’s credit, they quickly owned up to the boy’s folly and spoke to a nearby security guard. To the museum’s credit, Dr. Inbal Rivlin, the institution’s general director, invited the boy and his family to visit the...

A 4-year-old accidentally knocked over and shattered a 3,500-year-old Bronze Age jar during a visit to the Hecht Museum at the University of Haifa in Israel on Friday. The museum said the artifact, which is dated from 2200–1500 B.C.E., was designed to store and transport goods, such as olive oil and wine, and was characteristic of the ancient Canaan region. The jar, the museum said in a statement, predated the Biblical kings Solomon and David. Though similar jars have been discovered in archaeological excavations, many are found in pieces or incomplete, making this jar rare for having been unearthed intact,...

A 3,500-year-old jar has been accidentally smashed into pieces by a four-year-old boy during a trip to a museum in Israel. The Hecht Museum in Haifa told the BBC the crockery dated back to the Bronze Age between 2200 and 1500BC - and was a rare artefact because it was so intact. It had been on display near the entrance of the museum without glass, as the museum believes there is "special charm" in showing archaeological finds "without obstructions". The jar was most likely originally intended to be used to carry local supplies, such as wine and olive oil. It...

The Saint-Belec slab. (D. Gliksman/Inrap) A piece of rock with mysterious markings that lay largely unstudied for 4,000 years is now being hailed as a "treasure map" for archaeologists, who are using it to hunt for ancient sites around north-western France. The so-called Saint-Belec slab was claimed as Europe's oldest map by researchers in 2021 and they have been working ever since to understand its etchings – both to help them date the slab, and to rediscover lost monuments. "Using the map to try to find archaeological sites is a great approach. We never work like that," said Yvan Pailler,...

Newsweek reports that two wool textile fragments discovered in Israel’s Cave of Skulls in 2016 had been dyed bright red with dye made from Kermes vermilio, a species of scale insect. The fabric has been dated to 3,800 years ago, making it the oldest known use of scale insects for dyeing textiles.“Identifying the dye in the ancient textile was achieved using High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)—a device commonly employed in biology and chemistry laboratories to separate and identify substances in minute quantities,” said Na’ama Sukenik of the Israel Antiquities Authority.A large quantity of the insects would be needed to produce a...

Archeologists in the Czech Republic uncovered a hoard of artifacts, including weapons and jewelry, from 3,600 years ago. Researchers were surveying the town of Budyně nad Ohří, roughly 40 miles from Prague, in 2023 when they found eight axes, one spearhead, eight arm rings and two pins, Prague Morning reported Thursday. The artifacts are believed to be from the Bronze Age, which spanned across the years 3,300 B.C. to 1,200 B.C., the outlet reported. This period is characterized by the shift in tool-making in Europe as people began using bronze, an alloy created from mixing copper and tin, instead of...

Newsweek reports that researchers from the Margulan Institute of Archaeology have discovered a face carved into a granite boulder at the top of a rocky outcrop in central Kazakhstan. The carving measures about ten inches long by eight inches wide, with well-preserved eyes, nose, and lips. A collapsed stone stele measuring more than six feet long and three feet wide was found nearby. It had been carved on one side with an image of a deer with large antlers. Archaeologist Sergey Yarygin said that the carved face and the stela are similar to others found at Bronze Age sites in...

In a groundbreaking archaeological discovery, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Thursday that a natural gas company's standard survey of the Eastern Mediterranean floor had uncovered the most ancient ship ever found in the deep seas.The discovery of the remains of the ship from the 14th-13th century BCE proves that Late Bronze Age mariners could navigate the seas without a line of sight to the shore, contrary to what was previously believed, the IAA said.The approximately 3,300-year-old ship with a cargo of hundreds of intact amphorae was found 90 kilometers off northern Israel's coast, at a depth of 1.8 km...The exciting...

According to a statement released by PLOS, a purple dye workshop dated to the sixteenth-century B.C. has been discovered on the Greek island of Aegina by Lydia Berger of Paris Lodron University and her colleagues. The researchers identified the workshop through the purple pigment preserved on ceramics that may have served as dye containers; grinding stones; a waste pit; and the crushed shells of marine snails. Most of these shells came from the banded dye-murex species of Mediterranean snail. The bones of young mammals, including piglets and lambs, were also recovered at the site. The animals are thought to have...

Excavations that are underway at the top of Papoura Hill, at an altitude of 494m. NW of the town of Kastellio and the airport under construction, yielded a monumental architectural ensemble, in a circular shape, unique for the...This monumental construction consists of 8 consecutive stone-built rings - through a thickness of 1.40m., And a height estimated. The rings form a circular building in the center ( zone A ) diameter 15m. with differential construction, the interior of which ( diems. Zone A is surrounded by a second main zone ( zone B, with a width of 6.9 ), in which...

An experiment inspired by Homer's description of combat in The Iliad tested the capabilities of the Dendra armour suit from Greece's Bronze AgeModern military volunteers donned replicas of ancient Greek armour and engaged in exercises inspired by Homer's epic poem The Iliad. The demonstration shows how elite Bronze Age warriors could have fought in heavy protective gear during sustained combat.The experiment's results strongly suggest that the 3500-year-old Dendra armour suit – one of the oldest complete suits of metal armour from Europe's Bronze Age – was indeed suitable for battle. Some scholars have argued that it was merely a ceremonial...

...Located in Marliens, a commune in eastern France, the site has a large bowtie-shaped structure, whose middle sports a circular construction measuring 36 feet (11 meters) in diameter. This center circlet is interconnected by a 26-foot-long (8 m) horseshoe-shaped structure on one side and a jug-handle-shaped feature on the other, according to a translated statement from the French National Institute of Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP), which carried out the excavations...Based on the plethora of artifacts found there — including a bundle containing seven flint arrowheads, two protective armbands worn by archers, a flint lighter and a copper-alloy dagger — archaeologists...

Archaeologists working with Norway’s Secrets of the Ice program recently got a shock when a arrow shaft they had previously dated to the Iron Age turned out to be some 4,000 years old....after the researchers cleaned the glacial silt off one end, they found a notch befitting a stone arrowhead and not an iron one. The team co-directed by Lars Holger Pilø – an archaeologist with the local Department of Cultural Heritage – concluded that the arrow dated to the Stone Age, pending radiocarbon dating.Whatever the results, the arrow joins a wealth recovered by Secrets of the Ice, which has...

A new paper in Molecular Biology and Evolution, published by Oxford Univeristy Press, uncovers well-preserved microbiomes from two 4,000 year old teeth in a limestone cave in Ireland. These contained bacteria that cause gum disease, as well as the first high quality ancient genome from S. mutans, an oral bacterium that is one of the major causes of tooth decay.These discoveries allowed the researchers to assess the impact of past dietary changes on the oral microbiome across millennia, including major changes coinciding with the popularization of sugar and industrialization. The teeth, both derived from the same Bronze Age man, also...

Archaeologists from the Red River Archaeology Group came across the complex while working on a Barratt and David Wilson Homes housing development at Brookside Meadows in Grove near Wantage, Oxfordshire.The site sits on a landscape inhabited since the Bronze Age which has been described as "artefact-rich".The group's project officer said it was "an important centre of activities for a long time".The archaeologists said the villa complex was richly decorated with painted plaster and mosaics.Finds also include a monumental hall-like "aisled building", which is a type of structure that seems to date from the late 1st Century AD.This building is immediately...

A burial monument with human remains thought to be about 4,500 years old has been discovered in East Yorkshire.Parts of a Roman road and a burnt mound were also discovered during a £5m project to build a 5.2km (3.2 miles) sewer near Full Sutton.Ecus Archaelogy, working on the site for Yorkshire Water, said the three sites give a glimpse into the prehistoric and early historic past of the area.The analysis stage of the project is yet to start and the sewer is now being laid.The small circular burial monument was discovered in the vicinity of Full Sutton with the human...

The glass used to create beads discovered at a prehistoric settlement dubbed "Britain's Pompeii" was probably made in Iran, analysis has revealed.The finds were among a wealth of well-preserved items unearthed at a burnt-out 3,000-year-old village at a quarry in Whittlesey, near Peterborough.Amber, shale, siltstone, faience and tin beads were also discovered...The remains of a settlement of about 10 circular wooden houses on stilts built above a river was discovered by the Cambridge Archaeological Unit between 2015 and 2016.Believed to be home to 50 to 60 people, the cause of the fire that destroyed it in 850BC is unknown. The...