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The bronze items—three shields and a helmet—were found during excavations at the archaeological site of Ayanis, an ancient citadel and settlement in what is now Van province in eastern Turkey, Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy announced on social media.Ayanis was a citadel city founded in the seventh century B.C. by the Urartian king Rusa. Urartu was an Iron Age kingdom that extended across parts of what is now eastern Turkey, Armenia, Iran and Iraq.The kingdom, renowned for its mastery of stone, metal and weaponry, was one of the most powerful states in West Asia during the eighth and...

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...

The relic was likely a votive altar fixture. A 3,000-year-old statuette molded in the image of a goddess has surfaced at Italy’s underwater Gran Carro Archaeological Park, about 50 miles north of Rome, according to the Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts, and Landscape, which is part of Italy’s Ministry of Cultural Heritage. This six-inch relic turned up while divers were paving an underwater pathway through the Iron Age ruins beneath the east end of Lake Bolsena (whose waters once inspired a suite of Cy Twombly paintings). The pathway in progress will host visitors to the site and is part...

At the underwater archaeology site of Gran Carro di Bolsena in Aiola, Italy, divers found an ancient clay figurine pegged to be from the 9th or 10th century BC...A clay figurine has spent millennia incomplete, waiting at the bottom of a lake for its long-dead craftsman to finish the Iron Age-era statuette.During work at the underwater archaeological site of Gran Carro di Bolsena in Aiola, Italy, researchers pulled the rudimentary clay creation from the volcanic Lake Bolsena. The unfinished clay figure of a woman, dating from between the 10th and 9th centuries BC, looks more like a first draft than...

An ancient necropolis discovered near Naples, Italy was used to bury the dead about 2,800 years ago, around the time the city of Rome was founded about 100 miles (161 kilometers) to the northwest.The discovery gives researchers a rare insight into the Iron Age cultures that existed before the Roman domination of the region. The astonishing finds near the town of Amorosi, about 30 miles (48 km) northeast of Naples, include 88 burials in "pit tombs" of both men and women.The men were typically buried with weapons, whereas the women were often buried with bronze ornaments, including bracelets, pendants, brooches...

...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...

Medieval fire arrows were real! So I followed the old books, made some and tested them in every way I could think of. We have loads of old manuscripts, pictures, drawings, fire arrow heads and recipes of fire arrows but because some people haven't looked at the old information and can't make them work, lots of people think they were a myth. You see them everywhere in films and computer games so it is easy to dismiss them as a modern popular culture affectation - they were as real as you are. So this film is an exhaustive description of...

...The Portable Antiquities Scheme is a project managed by the British Museum to address the lack of provision for metal detectorists (and the general public) to be able to notify relevant authorities of archaeological discoveries and document objects in a curated database...In the latest annual report that covers 2022, the PAS has documented 53,490 new submissions, 94% of which have been submitted by metal detectorists, and of which 1,384 have been reported as treasure under the Treasure Act 1996.Bronze Age: 1,210 objects were recorded, which include a stone wrist-guard, a gold hoard containing a decorated bracelet and two gold strips...

Identifying an archaeological site with biblical stories is often circumstantial. In this case, archaeologists found the biblical archaeology equivalent of the Holy Grail: inscriptions discovered within a few hundred meters from the site, albeit from the 1st century B.C.E., reading "boundary of Gezer" in Hebrew, among other things. But the city's story begins thousands of years earlier...Later excavations in the 1960s and '70s on behalf of Hebrew Union College discerned 26 strata, often with one built upon the last. They range in date from the Chalcolithic period (4th millennium B.C.E.) to the Early Roman period (late 1st century B.C.E).The most...

The Lublin Provincial Monuments Conservator has announced the discovery of an assemblage of "Barbarian" weaponry in the State Forests in the Hrubieszów region of Poland. According to the announcement, the assemblage dates to the Roman period and may be associated with the Przeworsk culture, an Iron Age people that emerged in the upper Oder and Vistula basins during the 3rd century BC, and continued to inhabit central and southern Poland until the 5th century AD.The culture's decline in the late 5th century coincides with the invasion of the Huns and the social crisis that occurred as a result of the...

As part of their research published in Communications Biology, they also identified the earliest known person with Jacob's syndrome (characterized by an extra Y chromosome—XYY) in the Early Medieval Period, three people with Klinefelter syndrome (characterized by an extra X chromosome—XXY) across a range of time periods, and an infant with Down Syndrome from the Iron Age.Most cells in the human body have 23 pairs of DNA molecules called chromosomes, and the sex chromosomes are typically XX (female) or XY (male), although there are differences in sexual development. Aneuploidy occurs when a person's cells have an extra or missing chromosome....

Archaeologists hoping to discover Roman and Iron Age finds at a Welsh hillfort were shocked to unearth pottery and arrowheads predating their predicted finds by 4,000 years at the home of a powerful Iron Age community, including flint tools and weapons from 3,600 BC. Caerau, an Iron Age residency on the outskirts of Cardiff, would have been a battleground more than 5,000 years ago according to the arrowheads, awls, scrapers and polished stone axe fragments found during the surprising excavation. “Quite frankly, we were amazed,” says Dr Dave Wyatt, the co-director of the dig, from Cardiff University... “But no-one realised...

Brick dates to the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II (ca. 604 to 562 BCE) based on the interpretation of the inscription. This object was looted from its original context before being acquired by the Slemani Museum and stored in that museum with agreement from the central government. Image courtesy of the Slemani Museum. Credit: Slemani Museum ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In a novel study, researchers utilized ancient Mesopotamian bricks to gain insights into Earth’s magnetic field changes 3,000 years ago. This archaeomagnetic approach provides a more precise method for dating ancient artifacts and understanding historical magnetic field fluctuations. Ancient bricks inscribed with the names...

Last year the project uncovered the remains of a large timber Royal Hall, confirming the location as a royal settlement of the East Anglian Kings.This year's excavations also uncovered evidence of metalworking associated with royal occupation, including a mould used for casting decorative horse harnesses similar to that known from the burial ground at Sutton Hoo.The royal compound was found to have been more than twice the size than previously thought at around 15 hectares, which is equivalent to the size of 20 football pitches. The compound was part of a wider settlement complex covering around 50 hectares which is...

For a team of archaeologists digging in southwest Spain, the discovery of a Bronze/Iron Age stela—a funerary stone slab with carvings depicting an important individual—would have been exciting enough...The excavation, taking place in the 3000-year-old funerary complex of Las Capellanías, in Cañaveral de León, Spain, uncovered a stela depicting a human figure with detailed face, hands and feet, a headdress, necklace, two swords and male genitals.Prior to this discovery, archaeologists had interpreted features such as a headdress and necklace on a stela as representing a female form, while the inclusion of weaponry such as swords would be interpreted as male...

Doliche was founded as a Hellenistic colony during the 2nd century BC in the present-day province of Gaziantep, Turkey. During antiquity, the city was located in the ancient region of Cyrrhestica, which was annexed by the Roman Empire in AD 72.Previous excavations in the city have unearthed the remains of a Mithraic temple, rock cut graves, and a stele depicting a previously unknown Iron Age deity.A recent study by the Asia Minor Research Centre has found over 2,000 seal impressions used to seal documents from the city municipal archive. The impressions consist of stamped clay lumps that range from 5...

Archaeologists want permission to carry out a new survey of the site of Jersey's largest coin hoard to stop people illegally searching and looting.The Le Catillon II hoard was discovered in the east of the island in 2012 by two metal detectorists after a similar find on the site in 1957.The hoard contains about 70,000 coins as well as valuable Iron Age artefacts.Societe Jersiaise is seeking planning permission to carry out archaeological surveys in the same area of the island.Plans submitted online said the move had been "prompted by recent instances of nighthawking and archaeological looting, which have been reported...

June 30, 2012 For more than 30 years, Richard Miles and Reg Mead scoured the fields of their native Jersey with metal detectors, hoping to one day come across an ancient coin or two. Earlier this week, the detector beeped and they found the world's largest-ever stash of Celtic coins. Host Scott Simon speaks with Reg Mead about their find. Copyright © 2012 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required. SCOTT SIMON, HOST: Reg Mead and Richard Miles began to scour a field on their home island of Jersey...

In June 2012 metal detectorists Reg Mead and Richard Miles uncovered a hoard of a staggering 70,000 late Iron Age and Roman coins. They were searching in Grouville in Jersey when they came across their incredible find that has since turned out to be the largest hoard ever found in the island. The Hoard The coins, which had fused into one solid mass, were found using a deep-scanning metal detector. They were searching the area after Reg and Richard had uncovered a smaller hoard of 120 coins the previous year. As soon as they realised the size of their find,...

An Excavation Project, in Collaboration With Archaeologists From Södertörn University, Uppsala University's Campus Gotland, Gotland Museum, and the Swedish National Heritage Board, Has Led to the Discovery of an Iron Age Port on Gotska Sandön.Gotska Sandön is an island and national park in Sweden's Gotland County, situated 24 miles north of Faro in the Baltic Sea.Earlier in 2023, archaeologists found two 2,000-year-old Roman coins on one of the island's beaches. Both coins are made of silver, with one coin dating from AD 98-117 during the reign of Emperor Trajan, and the other coin dating from AD 138-161 during the reign...