A family in Lehi, Utah, inadvertently unearthed the skeleton of an Ice Age equine while working on landscaping project in their backyard. Laura Hill and her family were prepping the backyard for a new lawn when the backhoe they’d rented revealed animal bones. Hill thought they were historic, maybe the remains of a cow or …
Read the full post →“Bones of prehistoric horse found in Utah backyard”
The Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO) at the University of Leiden has the largest collection of cuneiform tablets in the Netherlands, upwards of 3,000 tablets ranging in date from 2,500 to 4,000 years ago. Some of the tablets are still enveloped in the original clay covers which served as a means of data …
Human remains from a Roman burial ground have been discovered underneath the swimming pool of a defunct hotel in York. Builders working on the redevelopment of the historic Newington Hotel into seven housing units came across the bones and experts from the York Archaeological Trust, on site to survey the restoration, excavated the find. Over …
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The remains of more than 140 children and 200 young llamas have been unearthed at a Chimú Empire site on the northern coast of Peru. It’s the largest known mass sacrifice in history. While incidents of human sacrifice among the Aztec, Maya, and Inca have been recorded in colonial-era Spanish chronicles and documented in modern …
Read the full post →“Largest known child sacrifice found in Peru”
The skeletal remains of a child killed in the calamitous eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. have been discovered in Pompeii’s Central Baths complex. The find was unexpected, a fortuitous discovery during work to strengthen and restore the complex that had already been extensively excavated in the 19th century. It’s also unusual from a stratigraphic …
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Some of Britain’s oldest gold has been declared treasure two years after it was found in a box of assorted watch parts bought by John Workman at the Berinsfield Car Boot sale in south Oxfordshire. The Oxford Coroner’s Court ruled on April 17th that the folded gold strip dating to the Early Bronze Age qualifies …
Read the full post →“Britain’s oldest gold bought at car boot sale”
In the aftermath of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, the island’s cultural patrimony was ravaged by looting, particularly in the Turkish-controlled area of Northern Cyprus. The northeastern Karpass peninsula was heavily targeted by heritage despoilers, with thefts going on for years after the invasion. The church of Panagia Kanakaria in the village of …
Read the full post →“Mosaic looted from Cyprus church repatriated”
The University of Toronto’s Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library celebrated World Book Day today by announcing the acquisition of the Caxton Cicero. Printed in 1481, only four decades after the invention of the printing press in the West, the volume is believed to be the oldest English-language book in Canada, and it’s certainly the oldest …
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Dashing off a quick one tonight — little more than a picture, truth be told — due to extreme business/tiredness, if you’ll forgive me. Archaeologists have unearthed the remains of a bust of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius at the Temple of Kom Ombo, about 600 miles south of Cairo. The team was working on …
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It’s April 21st, the traditional founding day of the city of Rome when, according to legend (one of them, anyway) Romulus ploughed a furrow laying out the boundaries of the city, sacrificed to the gods and became the first king of Rome by popular acclaim. Ancient sources vary on the date of this mythical event …
Read the full post →“Happy Birthday, Rome, from the Antonine Wall.”
