Ancient History
How a Baltimore Hairdresser Cracked an Ancient Roman Hairstyle Mystery
Classical scholars had insisted Rome's towering braided hairstyles had to be wigs — until a Baltimore hairdresser with no archaeology degree read the busts the way only a professional could, and cracked…
Utah Geologists Excavate What May Be North America’s Oldest Cretaceous Bonebed
The Utah Geological Survey has begun excavating a dinosaur bonebed dating back 138 to 141 million years on a Utah…
Cleopatra Lived 500 Years Closer to the Moon Landing Than to the Pyramids
When you run the actual numbers, Cleopatra sat more than 500 years closer in time to the Apollo 11 Moon…
World’s Oldest Shipwreck May Have Been Found — 4,700 Years Old
A wooden cargo vessel discovered in the sheltered waters off Kekova Island, Turkey has been dated to between 4,400 and…
Karahantepe’s 11,000-Year-Old Carvings Are Rewriting Stone Age History
A cluster of Stone Age sites in southeastern Turkey — including Karahantepe and Göbekli Tepe — has produced sky burials,…
She Spent Three Weeks Digging in Greece — Here’s What No Textbook Teaches
Aspiring archaeologist Naomi Lyon spent three weeks sieving Bronze Age soil near Pylos, Greece — and her experience reveals what…
2,000 Years Sealed in Ash: AI Is Now Reading Herculaneum’s Buried Scrolls
When Vesuvius buried Herculaneum's Villa of the Papyri in 79 AD, it carbonized roughly 1,800 scrolls into unreadable black cylinders.…
Boudica Burned Roman London to Ash — and the Proof Is Still There
When the Iceni queen Boudica led her uprising against Rome, she burned Londinium so completely that a chemically distinct destruction…
9 Remarkable Facts About the Huacas de Moche Child Burial With Gold
Archaeologists at Peru's Huacas de Moche Archaeological Complex uncovered the richly furnished tomb of an 18-month-old child, complete with gold…
Mansa Musa Was Born a Royal Afterthought — Then Flooded Cairo With Gold
Born around 1280 as a distant heir in the Mali Empire's Keita dynasty, Mansa Musa inherited the throne only after…