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Ancient Origins Tour IRAQ

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The Abusir boat.
Goddess Council 4900-4750 BC Neolithic Culture of Cucuteni-Tripolye exposed in Cucuteni Museum of Piatra Neamt

Ancient Ink: How Tattoos Can Reveal Hidden Stories of Past Cultures

The English word tattoo is commonly said to be derived from the Polynesian word tatau or tatu . This Polynesian word means ‘to mark something’. Additionally, this word is an onomatopoeia, and is...
Carrying chair from the funerary furniture of Queen Hetepheres I. Thought to be a gift from her son, Khufu. Reconstruction of original on display in Cairo, this copy residing in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Queen of Pyramids: The Powerful Hetepheres I and her Magnificent Tomb

Behind the success of the great builders of pyramids, including Snefru and Khufu, stands a woman. She was one the most important women of the Old Kingdom (c. 2686 BC– 2181 BC) and the owner of a...
The hieroglyph at the top middle with the seven arms and a dome radiating from a post is the symbol for the regent Queen Neith-Hotep. It was previously thought that she was King Narmer’s wife and not a sovereign in her own right.

Discovery of 5,000-year-old Hieroglyphs Change the Story of a Queen, a Pharaoh, and an Ancient City

Miners carved Egyptian hieroglyphs and drawings into the rock of the Sinai Desert 5,000 years ago as a way of marking the area as owned by Egypt, a researcher says. The people carving the symbols...
The Bent Pyramid

Analysis Begins on Cosmic Particles in the Egyptian Bent Pyramid – Will This Help Explain How the Pyramids Were Built?

Researchers have begun analyzing cosmic particles, called muons, which were collected within the Egyptian Bent Pyramid. The international team of scientists hopes that their ambitious project will...
On Left – Theban tomb - burial site of Pinedjem II and a Royal Cache, tomb shaft. On Right – Pinedjem II as Theban High Priest of Amun. From his Book of the Dead. Source: Left, CC BY-SA 3.0; Right, CC BY-SA 2.5.

DB320 - Uncovering the Impressive Cache of Hidden Pharaohs

The tomb discovered in the summer of 1881 changed Egyptology forever. It was an assemblage containing the mummified remains and funerary equipment of more than 50 kings, queens, and many other royals...
Cenchrinae starch granules from the Haua Fteah cave and from a modern variety; Cenchrinae is a type of grass used as food in Africa

North African Neolithic Hunter-Gatherers Eschewed Domestic Grains for Wild Plants

A community of cave dwellers in North Africa apparently resisted switching over to pure agriculture and instead continued gathering highly nutritional wild grass seeds and other wild plants for many...
Mitanni invaders

A Forgotten Empire: The Ancient Kingdom of Mitanni

Mitanni was a state that existed between the 16th and 13th centuries BC. This state occupied the land of the Hurrians. This area is located in the upper Tigris-Euphrates basin, and corresponds today...
Celtic mercenaries in Egypt

Exploring the Little Known History of Celtic Warriors in Egypt

Celtic warriors were one of the most important supports of Mediterranean armies. However, it is a little known fact that apart from their role in the Byzantium, these powerful warriors also had a...
A relief of Kiya, remade from Amarna limestone.

Kiya - The Most Mysterious Woman of Amarna

The only thing we really know for certain about Kiya is her name, written in the forms kiya, kiw, kia, kaia, and that she was a wife of Akhenaten titled The Great Beloved Wife . Much information...
One of the two shrines with statues, this one showing a couple who are not identified by inscriptions at the site.

Two 3,400-Year-Old Shrines with Statues discovered at Egyptian Quarry Site

Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered some statues of two families in shrines that researchers previously thought were destroyed by an earthquake in ancient times. They made the find at Gebel el...
Main: The area of ancient Naukratis as it appears today. Credit: Dr Penelope Wilson / The Fitzwilliam Museum. Inset: A pottery bowl made on Chios in the late seventh century BC and brought to Naukratis

Unearthing the Ancient Port of Naukratis, a Bridge between Egyptian and Greek Civilization

Archaeologists are excavating Naukratis, a once lost Greek-Egyptian city famous in the ancient world for its dinner parties and beautiful courtesans, a hub for traders across the Mediterranean world...
Top Ten Historical and Archaeological Discoveries of 2015

Top Ten Historical and Archaeological Discoveries of 2015

2015 was another great year for archaeological and historical research. Amazing discoveries were made all over the world and provided more windows into the lives of our ancestors. Studies that...
Images at the entrance of the tomb of the wet nurse, called Maya, shows the pharaoh Tutankhamen seated on her lap. It's now believed that Maya may have been Tutankhamen's sister, Meritaten.

Tomb Hidden by History, Now Revealed: Wet Nurse of Tutankhamun May have been His Own Sister

The famous Egyptian boy king, Pharaoh Tutankhamun is believed to have been wet-nursed by a woman named Maia—who may have been his sister. The tomb of this mysterious woman has been opened to the...
Some of the Abydos boats in their brick-built graves.

The Abydos Boats: Transporting the Pharaohs Through the Afterlife

The Abydos boats are a fleet of ships discovered in the sands of Abydos, Egypt. Sea vessels played an important role in ancient Egypt, not only in the everyday life of its people, but also in its...
The ancient Egyptian sky goddess, Nut, arching over the earth. The human figures represent stars and constellations.

Ancient Egyptians Discovered the Period of Algol Three Millennia Before Previously Thought and Used the Information for Divination

There have long been theories that the mythological texts of the ancient Egyptians contain scripture related to astronomical phenomena. It is also known that as part of their cosmology, the Egyptians...
The marble sphinx was found in a Chinese grave dating back more than 1,000 years.

Discovery of sphinx in northern China tomb presents something of a riddle

The sphinx is a famous icon from ancient Egypt of 5,000 years ago, but a statue of one has been excavated in China dating back more than 1,000 years. The marble sphinx, which has western features, is...
The head and upper thorax of Hatason (Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco)

Mummy of middle class ancient Egyptian woman found to have intriguing features

A 3,000-year-old female mummy that underwent radiological examination in November was determined to be a middle class, free citizen but not an extremely important or influential person, says a...
An Egyptian mummy wrapped in linen (representational image only)

Mystery wrapped in linen: Unraveling the story of Hatason, a 3,200-year-old Egyptian mummy

Sometimes ancient Egyptians changed the remains in coffins and removed an original mummy to replace it with another. Researchers are looking into the case of a somewhat mysterious mummy with CT scans...
Ministry of Antiquities, Egypt.

Sarcophagus of Egyptian High Priest Unearthed with Hieroglyphic Inscriptions and Scenes of Offerings

The sarcophagus of a high priest of the ancient Egyptian god Amun Ra has been unearthed in Egypt. The well preserved sarcophagus, discovered by a team of archaeologists within the 3,400-year-old tomb...
Front view of the mummy of the "Younger Lady".

French Egyptologist Asserts that the Younger Lady is Really the Mummy of Nefertiti

French Egyptologist Marc Gabolde, specialist in the Eighteenth Dynasty and the Amarna period, argues that the mummy known as the "Younger Lady" discovered almost a century ago, is actually the famous...
The area known as “street 9” in Lothal, Gujarat, India.

The Extensive Indus Valley Sites of Gujarat

The Indus Valley Civilization is believed to have existed between the 3rd and 2nd millenniums BC. This civilization covered an area of around 1,210,000 square km (467,183.6 square mi). As a...
A pecked petroglyph of a reed boat I the Nag el-Hamdulab cycle in Egypt.

Ancient Symbols of Power: Royal Egyptian Rock Art of Nag el-Hamdulab Depict Rule of State and Military Might

An ancient king—heralded by standard bearers and trailing a retinue of soldiers, fan bearers, powerful beasts and deities—projects power and military might in elaborate scenes carved into the very...
An undisturbed skeleton of a man in the extended, supine posture typical at the cemetery; and the burial of a man with a common pattern of disturbance in which the upper torso has been jumbled by robbers and the skull removed.

Builders under Pharaoh Akhenaten worked so hard they broke their backs

When ancient Eygptian pharaoh Akhenaten ordered the construction of the new city of Amarna dedicated to the sun god Aten, more than 20,000 people moved there to do the back-breaking work. The work...

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