George Smith was born in 1840 in London to poor parents, and consequently left school at the tender age of fifteen to take up an apprenticeship with Messrs Bradburry and Evans, a firm of engravers...
Mention the Garden of Eden to a group of friends and you are likely to get as many suggestions on its true location as people you ask, plus a fair number who will deny that it was ever a real place...
Earlier this month we reported on an investigation into the story of Father Crespi and his missing artifacts. The story of Father Crespi is a mysterious and controversial account of a priest in...
A new analysis of a set of ancient clay tablets has revealed that ancient astronomers of Babylonia used advanced geometrical methods to calculate the position of Jupiter – a conceptual leap that was...
An archaeological team excavating an ancient center of the Hittite civilization in Turkey have recreated a 4,000-year-old Hittite feast including sweet breads, casseroles, grilled lamb hearts, and...
Great finds continue to be unearthed at the Bronze Age site of Kültepe-Kaniş-Karum, in Turkey. The latest discovery includes millennia old cuneiform tablets referring to commercial interests as well...
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...
Although the ancient Romans were the first people to have had a fire brigade, they did not have a police force (apart from a night-watch). Thus, victims of minor crimes such as petty theft had to...
As long as humanity has had beliefs in deities, the supernatural, and the power of magic, the use of magic, spells, and curses have featured widely across cultures. Very much entwined with human...
In 1961, archaeologist Nicolae Vlassa discovered what may be direct evidence of the earliest forms of writing in the world. While conducting an archeological excavation at a Neolithic site in Romania...
Five 1800-year-old ivory tablets found in the Albanian city of Durres have just been deciphered shedding new light on the role that women played in ancient Illyrian culture, according to a report in...
An ancient token-based recording system from before the dawn of history was rendered obsolete by the birth of writing, according to popular wisdom. But now, latest excavations show that, in fact,...
A collection of 130 ancient Roman curse tablets featuring gruesome messages of revenge has been added to the UNESCO Memory of the World register of outstanding documentary heritage. Found in the town...
The Danube Valley civilization is one of the oldest civilizations known in Europe. It existed from between 5,500 and 3,500 BC in the Balkans and covered a vast area, in what is now Northern Greece to...
Archaeologists in Oman have uncovered an important Bronze and Iron Age site during preparations for construction of the Sinaw-Mahut Dual Road Project. Initial results of the exploration have revealed...
Archaeologists have found a huge structure at a dig site known as the Kultepe mound in Turkey which dates back four-and-a-half thousand years. It is believed that the building belonged to an...
In a move that has pleased many historians and archaeologists, Cornell University has forfeited their vast collection of cuneiform tablets , which detail daily life in ancient Mesopotamia, considered...
