grave

17 January, 2021 - 13:51 Aleksa Vučković

Birka: The Mysterious Demise of a Majestic Viking Trading Center

The Viking Age in Europe brought a lot of key events and innovations, and greatly shaped the future of things that were to come. But there is a popular misconception that the Vikings were all about...

30 December, 2020 - 13:45 Caleb Strom

Finding the Grave of Nicolaus Copernicus - Heretic Turned National Hero

Today, Nicolaus Copernicus is hailed by many historians as the originator of heliocentrism, one of the first steps towards modern cosmology and away from the Aristotelian cosmology which had...

26 December, 2020 - 21:59 ashley cowie

An Ancient Baby Skeleton Was Found Buried In A Jar, But Why?

Israeli archaeologists excavating in Jaffa have made further discoveries beneath the streets of this ancient Greek settlement, but this time, they’ve discovered a baby’s skeleton buried in a jar!...

Skeleton of a 30–40 year-old woman with a decorated ivory button on her chest, from the first tomb

12 December, 2020 - 18:04 ashley cowie

Unique Cyprus Death Cult Treasures Uncovered at Mass Burial Site

Excavators in Cyprus have discovered a series of “sensational finds” of death cult artifacts dating to 3,500 years ago, during the Bronze Age. A vessel used as a cult funerary object, a seal with...

Thanks to new DNA analysis, the Krems-Wachtberg infants discovered in 2005 have now been identified as the earliest twins discovered to date. Source: OREA / Austrian Academy of Sciences

10 November, 2020 - 17:05 Ed Whelan

DNA Reveals Earliest Twins Buried 30,000 Years Ago in Austria

Thanks to news DNA analysis, prehistoric remains discovered in Austria have been found to contain the earliest evidence of twins found to date anywhere in the world. The discovery of infant remains...

The six-headed chief was discovered within a medieval Scottish burial. Source: FAS Heritage

29 October, 2020 - 12:59 ashley cowie

Six-Headed Scottish Burial Is Actually One Genetic Mass

Scientists in Scotland have analyzed DNA samples from a bizarre 14th-century Scottish burial and have made headway in solving the mystery of the “six-headed chief.” Over the last two years, several...

19 September, 2020 - 21:56 Ed Whelan

Shadows of the Dead: Anglo-Saxon Burials are Spooky Sand Silhouettes

Archaeologists in Britain have uncovered a remarkable Anglo-Saxon burial ground that dates back to the 6th or 7th century AD. This Anglo-Saxon burial site is rather unusual as it consists of spooky...

Photograph of a face-down burial, also known as a prone burial, in a churchyard in Berlin, just one of almost a hundred medieval and post-medieval burials in Switzerland, Germany, and Austria included in the study. Source: (Claudia Maria Melisch / Landesdenkmalamt Berlin)

4 September, 2020 - 23:01 ashley cowie

Buried Face-Down 400-Years-Ago, But Through A Fear Of Zombies, Or God?

In 2014 a construction project required Swiss anthropologist Amelie Alterauge of the University of Bern Institute of Forensic Medicine to investigate a very unusual burial in a 400-year-old cemetery...

Bronze Age death rituals sometimes included curated remains, such as this skeleton that was buried with skulls and long bones of three people who had died much earlier. Source: Tees Archaeology / Antiquity Publications Ltd

1 September, 2020 - 00:05 Alicia McDermott

Bronze Age Death Rituals Included Curating Remains Of Predecessors

No two people deal with death in exactly the same way. Both on the individual and societal level we have to face the inevitable. These days many people turn to their religious, scientific, or...

A facial reconstruction of the Renaissance painter Raphael. Source: Tor Vergata University

8 August, 2020 - 21:32 ashley cowie

Remains of Famous Renaissance Artist Raphael Finally Identified

The Italian Renaissance artist Raffaello Sanzio, more famously known as Raphael, died in 1520 AD. In 1833, an anonymous skeleton was exhumed from its grave in Rome's Pantheon that was suspected of...

A new CT scan of the Tashtyk death mask has uncovered the face of the ancient Tashtyk man, revealing he had a scar on his face from a wound stitched up after his death. Source: ©The State Hermitage Museum / The Siberian Times

14 July, 2020 - 21:24 ashley cowie

Tashtyk Death Mask Scan Reveals Evidence of Prehistoric Surgery

The surgically enhanced face and skull of an ancient tattooed Tashtyk man, hidden behind a stirring gypsum death mask for 1,700 years, has been 3D-visualized for the first time. Discovered wearing a...

The entrance to Bant’s Carn Source: Stringer, J / CC BY-NC 2.0

4 July, 2020 - 02:05 Ed Whelan

The Extraordinary and Ancient Entrance Grave of Bant’s Carn

The five inhabited islands of the Scilly Isles, an archipelago located off the south-west coast of England, is popular with visitors because of the warm climate and beautiful beaches. There are,...

When the couple removed the floor, they discovered a Viking grave. Source: Nordland County.

29 May, 2020 - 22:57 Ed Whelan

Viking Grave Found Under the Floorboards of a Home in Norway

A Norwegian couple made an unusual historic discovery during renovations of their home. They found a number of Viking era artifacts, and now archaeologists believe that they have found a Viking grave...

Four-sided die from a Roman game found in Norway. Source: University of Bergen

29 May, 2020 - 03:25 ashley cowie

Rare Roman Game Die Unearthed At Norwegian Burial Cairn

In April 2020, Norwegian archaeologists from the University Museum of Bergen were excavating the remains of a small Early Iron Age burial cairn near the village of Ytre Fosse, overlooking Alversund...

Photo taken on May 17, 2020 shows the excavation site of the ancient Chinese couple’s tomb dating back to the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) in Nanfentang Village, Batang Township, Ningxiang City, central China's Hunan Province. Source: Xinhua / Liu Jing

27 May, 2020 - 19:13 ashley cowie

1000-Year-Old Chinese Couple Vanish Making Way For New Motorway

A 1000-year-old “Chinese couple” have been pulled out of their brick-walled graves in an ancient cemetery to make way for a motorway. Archaeologists from the Institute of Cultural Relics and...

Human remains found at the excavation site at the medieval cemetery in Petriplatz, Berlin. Source: Ausgrabung Petriplatz

26 May, 2020 - 18:46 Ed Whelan

Mass Medieval Cemetery Sheds Light on Berlin’s Brutal Birth

In Berlin , a historic medieval cemetery has been excavated which reveals that medieval people’s lives were blighted by hunger, disease, and extreme violence. Many of the human remains show signs of...