At least 4,000 people have been killed and more than 100,000 left homeless in the worst earthquake to have hit Nepal in more than 80 years. Along with the ever growing loss of life, the disaster has...
A 2,000-year-old cooking pot filled with cremated human bones has been found by the banks of the Walbrook river in London, in what was known in ancient times as Londinium, a thriving capital of a...
Caves play an important role in the story of humanity. In addition to providing shelter for our earliest ancestors, caves were also often considered to be mystical and magical realms. For some...
A beautifully fashioned silver pearl excavated years ago at Prague Castle and made in the Middle Ages has recently been investigated and remanufactured, revealing the advanced craftsmanship that went...
Read Part 1 Nabta Playa is a remarkable site composed of hundreds of prehistoric tumuli, stelae, and megalithic structures located in the Nubian Desert, approximately 100 kilometers west of Abu...
In the fifth or sixth century AD, Picts on the eastern Scotland coast set up a fort on a stone outcrop just offshore, possibly to hold sway over the seas. The ancient people had a reputation for...
Archaeologists believe that a recent discovery of liquid mercury in a subterranean tunnel beneath the Temple of the Feathered Serpent in Teotihuacan, Mexico, may represent an underworld river that...
Archaeologists have long debated how the ancient inhabitants of Easter Island managed to balance a separate piece of stone on top of the heads of the famous moai statues that are dotted across the...
The 26th Dynasty of Egypt was the last dynasty of the Third Intermediate Period, and was known also as the Nubian Dynasty or the Kushite Empire. The pharaohs of this dynasty hailed from Egypt’s...
A clay tablet from ancient Babylon reveals that no matter where (or when) you go, good customer service can be hard find. So it was revealed by the irate copper merchant, Nanni, in 1750 B.C. The...
A team of scholars says their new research is rewriting when and where the Viking age began. The official date for the start of Viking voyages was a 793 AD raid in England. But researchers say people...
A gang of modern-day tomb raiders have been caught after they rented a restaurant near the ancient Guanghui Temple in China and used it as a base to dig a 50 meter (165 ft) underground tunnel in an...
About 1,600 years ago in the Maya site of Tikal, a boy and a man were sacrificed in an elaborate ritual. A new study suggests they were sacrificed and burned to re-enact the legend of the twin heroes...
It is hard to fathom the way in which invasive surgery was carried out prior to the development of modern anaesthesia, but ancient people around the world have been cutting and drilling into the...
Archaeologists in Catalonia have discovered the skeletal remains of a 5-year-old Neanderthal child in the Cova del Gegant (Cove of the Giant) in Sitges, Barcelona. The discovery represents the first...
Sometimes old friends give you a surprise. Russian archaeologists were conducting a routine examination of an old sabre unearthed seven years ago in Yaroslavl -- when it turned out to be oldest...
The ancient culture of the Guarani people, who are spread across Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina, and Bolivia, is as strong today as it was many centuries ago, sustained through an oral tradition of...
Many people think of ancient Egyptian dynasties as fairly well-documented, but there were many kings whose lives and deeds are lost in the dust of time . One was King KhaBa of the Old Kingdom’s Third...
What does champagne left on the bottom of the ocean for 170 years taste like? Leather and wet dog, apparently. Those were the initial findings by a team of scientists and lucky tasters after...
Chinese archaeologists say they have confirmed the ancient capital of legendary emperor Yao Tangdi, who lived 4,200 years ago and who is said to have brought peace and “illumined the people.” Yao has...
An important ancient temple site dedicated to the founder of a sect of Taoism has recently been excavated by Chinese archaeologists. In China's Jiangxi Province, the archaeological site of ruins of...
When scientists examined the cracked skulls and gnawed bones found in a cave in England, they recognized the grisly signs of cannibalism. Archaeological findings now indicate that the dwellers of...
New research suggests that people in a Stone Age village in Turkey cut the flesh off the bones and skulls of several people who were dying or had just died then painted and/or plastered the bones and...
Gold has long been regarded as a precious object, and has been equated with kingship and authority. As gold was rare, and sometimes not locally available, people often travelled over great distances...
![Ibn al-Haytham ("Alhasen") on the left pedestal of reason [while Galileo is on the right pedestal of the senses] as shown on the frontispiece of the Selenographia (Science of the Moon; 1647) of Johannes Hevelius. Source: Public domain provided by the author](https://www.ancient-origins.net/sites/default/files/styles/slideshow/public/field/image/Ibn-al-Haytham-optics.jpg?itok=IeK5wUZc)
