At midday on the road into Grünland, a Mennonite colony in the Bolivian department of Beni, the only sound is a distant chainsaw. On either side, strips of deforested land extend into the distance. Underfoot, the soil is scattered with shards of ceramic and bone: remnants of the pre-Columbian peoples that this part of the […]
Christie’s has called off the auction of a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton days before it was due to go under the hammer in Hong Kong after a US fossil company raised doubts about parts of the skeleton named “Shen”. Christie’s said in a statement that Shen – a 1,400kg (3,100lb) skeleton – had been withdrawn from […]
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails The scuba divers march through the cobblestone streets of one of the world’s most infamous former slave ports, carrying tape measures, clipboards and fins. There is a Senegalese […]
More than 2,000 years after it was probably hung from the door of a mud-brick house in northern Spain to bring luck, a flat, lifesize bronze hand engraved with dozens of strange symbols could help scholars trace the development of one of the world’s most mysterious languages. Although the piece – known as the Hand […]
Often, the past feels like a foreign country. But occasionally the landscape of the ancient world is illuminated in a way that makes it all too recognisable. I experienced a rush of fellow feeling with generations long gone last week after Israeli archaeologists revealed the oldest known sentence written in humanity’s first alphabet. Which words […]
Egyptian mummies, long an object of modern fascination, seem to link us with the ancient past by preserving distinct human form. But this was not the true reason for the intricate process, a major new British exhibition will argue. The technique was instead a way of transforming dead dignitaries into a shape that the gods […]
Since she was a child, Martina Canuti has been venturing down the steep hill flanking the Tuscan town of San Casciano dei Bagni, known by local residents as “the sacred mountain”, to take a dip in the two rustic ancient hot springs famed for their therapeutic benefits. But little did she know that just a […]
It’s a simple sentence that captures the hopes and fears of modern-day parents as much as the bronze age Canaanite who owned the doubled-edged ivory comb on which the words appear. Believed to be the oldest known sentence written in the earliest alphabet, the inscription on the luxury item reads: “May this tusk root out […]
Sign up for a full digest of all the best opinions of the week in our Voices Dispatches email Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter Archaeologists have discovered a vast tunnel underneath an ancient Egyptian temple, which they say may lead to the long-lost tomb of queen Cleopatra. The tunnel, which is at […]
Stones have shaped culture for as long as culture has existed. Their uncanny shape has led us to tell stories – of trolls disguised as boulders, of maidens cursed for dancing on the sabbath, of a snake-haired woman whose eyes petrified. They have provided us with tools, from axe heads to the rare minerals used […]
