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.
Archaeologists carrying out excavations in the port of Birka, Sweden’s oldest town, have unearthed a tiny dragon head once used on a Viking brooch. The bronze relic matches the shape of a mold that...
Some young boys in Israel took great care in excavating a winepress about 1,400 years old, not realizing they were doing anything wrong. The Israel Antiquities Authority got wind of the dig and took...
Archaeologists have made a remarkable discovery at Gebel el Silsila, a historic quarry site near Aswan on the River Nile, - a sacred temple used for four epochs of ancient Egyptian history spanning...
It is not every day that a team of divers and investigators stumbles upon the wreck of a 17 th century Spanish merchant ship. The Encarnación ( ‘ Incarnation’) was part of a fleet of Merchant Ships...
The fear and stigma attached to the terrible disease of leprosy has endured for millennia. Answers have long been sought regarding this mysterious ancient ailment, and now archaeologists have...
About 8,000 years ago in southwestern Bulgaria, around the time agriculture, husbandry and pottery were emerging, people were consuming bone powder. In a new scholarly paper published in the...
The invention of the ancient sport of polo, called the King of Sports and the Sport of Kings, had been dated to the 6 th century B.C. in Persia, but that may be changing soon. Archaeologists have...
Ten years of scientific and archaeological investigation of the Bosnian pyramids have brought many exciting moments as well as dramatic turnovers which are seeking the redefining of our knowledge...
The mummy of an ancient Egyptian child was saved from a municipal dump and is set to go on display for the first time outside Paris. The 2,000-year-old mummified body and casket are thought to have...
Two stone epitaphs found within a 500-year-old gold-filled tomb discovered in Nanjing, China, tell a remarkable story about the tomb owner, a woman named Lady Mei. According to the tablets, Lady Mei...
The skeletons of more than 200 medieval Parisians have been moved for further study to a warehouse of the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research in a suburb north of Paris,...
A necropolis is being excavated at a veritable crossroads of ancient civilizations, in Sinop, Turkey. Workers found remnants of the 4 th century BC city of the dead while building a culture center in...
Carved bone pendants have been found at a prehistoric site in Alaska that may prove to be the very first known examples of artwork in the northern region of North America. Two pairs of pendants were...
In what is described as Egypt’s “dark secret,” a staggering 70 million mummified animals have been found in underground catacombs across Egypt, including cats, birds, rodents, and even crocodiles...
New geophysical investigations into a stone circle discovered in 2007 in Dartmoor, southern England, show the stones were once standing and may have been arranged in a “sacred” circle with seven...
Local residents in the area of Zlatograd, Bulgaria, have uncovered an ancient bronze artifact that archaeologists have described as “the oldest children’s toy in Europe”. The supposed toy consists of...