It is well known that ancient cultures in what is today Peru deformed their babies' skulls to form elongated shapes. A new study reveals that, a millennium ago, people 'finger painted' the skulls of...
An Egyptian-English mission excavating a necropolis at Tel el-Amarna in Egypt has uncovered the burial of a young woman wrapped in textile and plant fiber matting. She carried a full complement of...
We can learn a lot about a civilization from how it treated its dead. The Nazca of Peru, for example, often carried their dead to Cahuachi, an important religious center, to be buried. Even though...
Finding the remains of a high priest buried at the most sacred spot in Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral, and all of medieval France, seems a predictable discovery. However, unearthing a knight with an...
One of the most fascinating of the many discoveries to come from the island of Crete is the Hagia Triada Sarcophagus. This beautiful ancient artifact was discovered in 1903 in a chamber tomb in Hagia...
Funerals can be difficult to get through. The pain of loss can simply be too much for many. So why would anyone ever need to pay people to cry at their funeral? This didn’t just happen occasionally...
Archaeological excavations ahead of work to expand heating pipes in Kleinbasel, the Rhine port and industrial area of Basel in Switzerland, has uncovered fifteen graves dating back to the early...
Italy is famous for many things, but did you know it’s also famous for mummies? The Venzone mummies are a collection of over forty mummies found in Venzone, Italy in the 17th century. Although these...
A Stone Age burial site in Majoonsuo in the municipality of Outokumpu in eastern Finland has provided an exceptional find during an archaeological dig. Buried underneath a gravel road in a forest in...
Based on the DNA extracted from a 19th century skeleton, a forensic artist has recreated the face of a man who was buried, but never laid to rest. Mr. John Barber’s body was later dug up so that his...
A grave found in Late Viking Age eastern Norway looks uncannily similar to one of the most immaculate graves from the Roman Age in Norway, from the Hunn burial site in Østfold. A rich burial site, it...
Many fascinating artifacts and ruins have been uncovered accidentally, particularly during construction projects or by farmers plowing their fields. This pattern has just been repeated in a small...
Archaeologists in Peru have unearthed the bodily remains of three children and five adults. This adds to bodies discovered at this site in August, the researchers suspect they've identified a rare...
Militaries from many countries past and present have used animals in their work. Whether using horses to carry men, or dogs to track and patrol, the use of animals has been significant throughout...
A team of archaeologists have studied the remains of a 10,000-year-old baby with high technology. Their new paper not only found signs of ritual burial, but it reveals that baby carriers, or baby...
Since the dawn of humanity, countless civilizations have engaged in ritual sacrifice. Often, these sacrifices involved other humans, and were so common they were considered a normal aspect of life...
The first Norman king of England met an untimely and turbulent death, although, to be fair, the situation really ‘exploded’ after his death. William the Conqueror, sometimes known as William the...
A new study has revealed that elite Vikings, specifically highly ranked Danish Vikings, used and wore beaver furs as a means of showing off their exalted social status. This practice is not...
2022 is shaping up to be a big year for colonial era discoveries in Central and South America. Only in May Ancient Origins covered the story of archaeologists studying “42 syphilis-ridden colonial...
A team of 65 Bournemouth University archaeology students exploring an Iron Age site in Dorset County in southwest England have been credited with a significant discovery. While digging at a location...
The ancient city of Kelenderis on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey is the site of the Greek Celenderis, a port and fortress in ancient Cilicia and later Isauria. From here, a furnace for commercial...
Robert the Bruce is one of the most, if not the most famous Scotsmen to have ever lived. Infamous for the 14th-century reign that saw him taking on England’s much bigger and better-equipped army and...
In November 2013 archaeologists from the University of Durham in northern England found two mass graves near Durham Cathedral. At first the archaeologists thought the bodies belonged to the Cathedral...
A rare 2,300-year-old Hellenistic cremation burial has been discovered in Istanbul. Artifacts discovered in the Hellenistic-era burial tomb are revealing secrets about the city of ancient Chalcedon,...