The warriors in two Iron Age boat graves in Valsgärde, outside Uppsala in central Sweden, were laid softly to their eternal rest on down bedding. The boat graves date to the 7th century, and their featherbeds are the oldest down bedding known in Scandinavia. Feathers were widely traded in the Middle Ages, and there are […]
The remains of a grand Roman estate with a large floor mosaic has been unearthed in the town of Rus in southern Spain. Found in the El Altillo neighborhood, the villa was in use between the first and fifth centuries, with the bulk of the construction documented thus far dating to the fourth century. The […]
More than 500 important artifacts, including a rare gold foil mask, have been unearthed in six newly-discovered sacrificial pits at the Sanxingdui Bronze Age archaeological site in Guanghan, Sichuan, China. The gold mask is incomplete, but more than half of it survives. About 3,000 years old, the mask is large at nine inches wide and […]
A silver-gilt praying knight emerging from a snail shell onto a non-equine quadruped, likely a goat, is one of the stand-out pieces of this year’s British Museum annual treasure report on Portable Antiquities Scheme finds. The object is less than an inch long, has flat back and a short rivet which indicates it was mounted […]
An excavation in Massongy, southeastern France, has unearthed a Neolithic stone circle with engraved stones. The Chemin des Bels site has two distinct occupation areas from the Middle Neolithic period: a small village and a large megalithic complex. It was occupied for a short time — just a few centuries — but during that period, […]
Eight of Rome’s civic museums are offering new virtual tours. Available in Italian and English, to tours allow visitors to explore the museums floor-by-floor, in aerial views, through video, audio and information panels. It’s a curated approach. Select objects on display and important features of the museums themselves are highlighted. You navigate by clicking on […]
A small bronze figurine of a bull from the Geometric Period (1050-700 B.C.) has been discovered at the Temple of Zeus in Olympia. Heavy rainfall had exposed one its horns which caught the sharp eye of archaeologist Zacharoula Leventouri. The bull was excavated and removed to the laboratory of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Ilia […]
Warning: this is a grisly one. The preserved heavily tattooed skin of a man held in a private collection in London has been studied for the first time, revealing tantalizing glimpses into his life. Pieces of tattooed human skin were preserved as medical oddities in the 19th century, as anthropological specimens in the case of […]
An exceptional hoard of 10th century jewelry that almost disappeared into the penumbra of online antiquities trafficking has gone on display for the first time at the Archaeological Museum of Córdoba. Its existence was only suspected last year when a local archaeologist saw photographs of some of the pieces for sale on social media and […]
A pit filled with ancient shells at The Cairns site in South Ronaldsay, Orkney, has been radiocarbon dated to the 5th or 6th century. The Iron Age community at the site cooked 18,637 shellfish in the pit, ate them, and then threw the shells back in, all in one massive clambake. That’s more than half […]