History & Archaeology

We bring you all the latest historical news and archaeological discoveries relating to ancient human history. Read more history news from around the world here at Ancient Origins.

A Wari figurine of a warrior with a spear and shield found at Pikillaqta.

23 March, 2019 - 22:05 Alicia McDermott

Elaborate Wari Offerings Found At Pikillaqta Ritual Site [New Find]

Sometime around 1100 AD, Pikillaqta, a major feasting and ceremonial site located near Cusco, Peru , was abandoned by the Wari people. The reason behind their sudden departure is uncertain, but the...

Long before the emergence of modern-day protective sun glasses, Siberian hunters were forced to find their own solution to the dazzling glare reflecting from the snow.

22 March, 2019 - 22:00 ancient-origins

Eye-conic Siberian Spectacles: Dazzling Eye Fashion From 2,000 Years Ago Until Today

By The Siberian Times Siberian goggles are among the world’s earliest eyewear to prevent blindness from the sun’s piercing reflection off the snow. The following remarkable pictures and drawings show...

Watchers of the wall are ready to answer questions about Hadrian’s Wall or Game of Thrones

22 March, 2019 - 17:55 ashley cowie

Highly Trained ‘Watchers’ Positioned At Ancient English Forts Prepare For Game Of Thrones Invasion

English Heritage attempts to distinguish ‘facts from fantasy’ at Hadrian’s Wall as increasing numbers of Game Of Thrones fans visit ‘The Wall’. Hadrian's Wall is a vast defensive fortification built...

Analysis of the remains of the Bronze Age teen Skrydstrup woman shows she traveled from elsewhere in Europe to Denmark around age 13 or 14 and died there a few years later. She was an important, physically attractive figure and was accorded an elite burial.

21 March, 2019 - 20:24 Mark Miller

Doubt Cast on Bronze Age Teen Priestess and ‘Queen-like’ Woman’s Traveling Ways [New Study]

Over the last few years, studies have suggested that a Bronze Age teen ‘priestess’ and an elite ‘queen-like’ woman found in Jutland, Denmark were travelers who journeyed to their final resting places...

The World’s oldest astrolabe was found in the wreck of the Esmeralda in the Indian Ocean. Loss of Esmeralda as per Livro das Armadas.

20 March, 2019 - 17:47 Ed Whelan

Record Breaking Finds From Portuguese Shipwreck Confirmed by Guinness Book of Records [World’s Oldest Finds]

Experts from the Guinness Book of Records have confirmed a find to be the world’s oldest mariner’s astrolabe, a navigation device used by seamen in the past. The instrument, known as the Sodré...

An archaeologist inspects the keel of a shipwreck discovered in the waters around the sunken port-city of Thonis-Heracleion where marine archaeologists found new Egyptian ship.

18 March, 2019 - 17:54 Ed Whelan

Marine Archaeologists Find ‘First of its Kind’ Egyptian Shipwreck That Finally Vindicates Herodotus [New Find]

Marine archaeologists have found an almost intact Ancient Egyptian ship under the waters of the Mediterranean in a sunken port . This is remarkable in itself, but the ship is also the first of its...

Farmers from the Pontic Steppe drastically transformed Iberian DNA 4500 years ago.

15 March, 2019 - 21:58 ancient-origins

Unique Iberian Male DNA was Practically Wiped Out by Immigrant Farmers 4500 Years Ago [New Study]

An international team of researchers have analyzed ancient DNA from almost 300 individuals from the Iberian Peninsula, spanning more than 12,000 years, in two studies published today in Current...

Stonehenge was one of the feasting destinations of the pigs.

14 March, 2019 - 13:10 ashley cowie

Prehistoric Britons Brought Pigs From As Far As Scotland For Stonehenge Feasts

New findings suggest ancient people in the late Neolithic period travelled hundreds of kilometers across Britain’s wild landscapes to attend great feasts and festivals at stone circles in Wiltshire...

Using genetic material of this dead mammoth, Japanese researchers have taken the first steps in bringing mammoths back to life.

12 March, 2019 - 21:59 Ed Whelan

Japanese Researchers Are One Step Closer to Resurrecting Woolly Mammoths

Scientists in Japan believe that they have moved closer to bringing the extinct woolly mammoth back to life. Researchers from Kindai University in Osaka have found some genetic material that they...

Two pages from the Voynich Manuscript. Has the Voynich Manuscript code finally been cracked?

12 March, 2019 - 19:16 ashley cowie

Has the Enigmatic Voynich Manuscript Code Finally Been Cracked?

The Voynich Manuscript is a mysterious illustrated hand-written vellum codex in a currently unidentified written and visual code. However, according to a non-peer reviewed paper published in John's...

A ditch has revealed what is thought to be the boundary to Aebbe’s monastery.

12 March, 2019 - 17:35 ashley cowie

Discovered: The Lost Spiritual Legacy Of A Powerful Anglo Saxon Pagan Princess

Aebbe (615-668 AD) was a powerful Anglo Saxon pagan princess who became an abbess and then a saint for having been instrumental in spreading Christianity along the north east coast of what is today...

12 March, 2019 - 00:48 ancient-origins

New Theories on the Shigir Idol Paint A Surprising Picture of its Life

By Anna Liesowska, The Siberian Times With its evocative main face and O-shaped mouth, its mysterious zigzag etched lines, the Shigir Idol is now accepted as one of the world’s oldest examples of...

Tipu Sultan’s battle-damaged flintlock musket found in an attic in England

10 March, 2019 - 18:58 ashley cowie

Centuries-Old Sword and Gun Found in Attic Belonged to Famous Sultan and Could Fetch Millions

Wrapped in a newspaper and forgotten in the corner of a dusty attic in a townhouse in the English county of Berkshire, a couple have discovered a hoard of highly-valuable gold-encrusted swords and...

Portion of Ibn Sīna’s Canon of Medicine folded into medieval text

8 March, 2019 - 22:57 Ed Whelan

Irish Translation of Ibn Sīna Medical Text Discovered in Medieval Book Binding

A recent discovery is demonstrating the influence of Islamic medicine on European physicians. A fragment from a book dating from the 1400s has revealed the influence of a Muslim Persian polymath on...

Peña de Juaica sacred mountain, Tabio, Colombia

8 March, 2019 - 18:58 ancient-origins

Lost Mountain Gods of Colombia: Ancient Origins Explores the Sacred Mountain of the Muisca

The Muisca civilization flourished in ancient Colombia between 600 and 1600 BC. Their territory included what is the modern city of Bogotá and its surrounding area and they are renowned for being the...

Skull of a child sacrifice at Huanchaquito-Las Llamas in Peru.

7 March, 2019 - 22:50 ashley cowie

140 Children Found To Be Sacrificed in Peru, But Why?

Archaeologists and anthropologists excavating in the north of Peru have made the incredible 600-year-old discovery of more than “140 children, three adults, and at least 200 young llamas” all...

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Myths & Legends

Ivar the Boneless: Viking Warrior, Ruler and Raider

Ivar the Boneless was likely the son of legendary Viking king Ragnar Lothbrok, and raided alongside his father and brothers, eventually becoming ruler of York in England in the 9th century AD.

The Ancient Pagan Origins of Easter

The symbol of the Swastika and its 12,000-year-old history

The Knights of Blanik Mountain Are Ready to Face the Darkest Hour

The Wooing of Etain: An Irish Tale of Love, Loss, and Jealousy

The Real Story of Medusa, the Snake-Haired Gorgon

Human Origins

The origins of human beings according to ancient Sumerian texts

Sumer, or the ‘land of civilized kings’, flourished in Mesopotamia, now modern-day Iraq, around 4500 BC. Sumerians created an advanced civilization with its own system of elaborate language and writing, architecture and arts, astronomy and mathematics.

11 Mysterious Human Species That Most People Don’t Know Existed

The Secret Life of an Ancient Concubine

Rh-Negative Blood: An Exotic Bloodline or Random Mutation?

The human skull that challenges the Out of Africa theory

Asherah: God’s Forgotten Wife

Ancient Technology

Norimitsu Odachi: Who Could Have Possibly Wielded This Enormous 15th Century Japanese Sword?

The Norimitsu Odachi is a huge sword from Japan. It is so large, in fact, that it was said to have been wielded by a giant. Apart from the basic knowledge of it having been forged in the 15th century AD, measuring 3.77 meters (12.37 ft.) in length, and weighing as much as 14.5 kg (31.97 lbs.), this impressive sword is shrouded in mystery.

Robots Guarded Buddha’s Relics in a Legend of Ancient India

Was the Baghdad Battery a medical device?

A Step Closer to the Mysterious Origin of the Viking Sword Ulfberht

The revolutionary invention of the wheel

Han Purple: A 2,800-year-old artificial pigment that quantum physicists are trying to understand

Ancient Places

The White Slaves of Barbary

Much attention and condemnation has been directed towards the tragedy of the African slave trade, which took place between the 16 th and the 19 th centuries. However, another equally despicable trade...

The Knights of Blanik Mountain Are Ready to Face the Darkest Hour

Did the Portuguese Have Secret Knowledge about Brazil Before the Treaty of Tordesillas?

Expedition to Tayos Caves: Never Before Seen Photographs Shed Light on Mysterious Underground Network

Populating Palmerston Island: One Man, Three Wives and A Desert Island Paradise

Ramsund Carving: Viking Inscription Speaks of Dragon Slayer

Opinion

The astronomical ceiling at the Pronaos, Detail of the first Band west from the center. From left to right: two wind creatures (the winged ram with four heads personifies the south wind), the snake- and frog-headed eight goddesses and gods of the Ogdoad who ruled the cosmos before the creation of the world and Osiris seated on a throne sails across the sky as personification of the full moon accompanied by the seated goddesses Nephtys (left) and Isis on the right (Maat stands near the bow of the ship). Siri

Changing Colors and Scampering Across the Night Sky: What Did the Ancients Say about Sirius?

In Egypt, Sirius was the Star of Isis, Isis being the companion and rescuer of the god Osiris. In a very deep way, Osiris was Egypt.

Cracking the Code to Discover Ancient Tarot Symbolism and Forgotten Universal Knowledge

The Secret Strategic Plans of Darius the Great

The Secrets of the Kabbalists Garden

Alchemy and Generating Lifeforce —Global Temples Made in the Shape of Lingams: Shaivite Bull Cult Part II

From Green Man to Bull Son, The Universal Shaivite Bull Cult – Part I

Our Mission

At Ancient Origins, we believe that one of the most important fields of knowledge we can pursue as human beings is our beginnings. And while some people may seem content with the story as it stands, our view is that there exists countless mysteries, scientific anomalies and surprising artifacts that have yet to be discovered and explained.

The goal of Ancient Origins is to highlight recent archaeological discoveries, peer-reviewed academic research and evidence, as well as offering alternative viewpoints and explanations of science, archaeology, mythology, religion and history around the globe.

We’re the only Pop Archaeology site combining scientific research with out-of-the-box perspectives.

By bringing together top experts and authors, this archaeology website explores lost civilizations, examines sacred writings, tours ancient places, investigates ancient discoveries and questions mysterious happenings. Our open community is dedicated to digging into the origins of our species on planet earth, and question wherever the discoveries might take us. We seek to retell the story of our beginnings.