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Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered the tomb of a royal goldsmith containing the mummies of a woman and her two children, authorities said. The tomb, dating back to the New Kingdom (16th to 11th Centuries BC), was found near the Nile city of Luxor, 400 miles (700km) south of Cairo. Among the items discovered inside was a statue of the goldsmith Amenemhat, sitting beside his wife. ... According to the archaeologists, the mother died aged about 50, with tests revealing she had a bacterial bone disease. Her two sons were in their 20s and 30s and their bodies said to...

A dig to lay new cable for the Partner communications company near Damascus Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem this summer unearthed a very old missed message: a 1,500-year-old mosaic floor bearing a Greek inscription. Dr. Leah Di Segni of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem deciphered the inscription, which reads: "In the time of our most pious Emperor Flavius Justinian, also this entire building Constantine the most God-loving priest and abbot, established and raised, in the 14th indiction." According to Di Segni, "This inscription commemorates the founding of the building by Constantine, the priest. The inscription names the emperor,...

Most people don't spend their free time imagining what it would be like to get on the subway and sit across from a 300,000-year-old person. But anthropologist Jean-Jacques Hublin isn't most people. In June, Hublin published two papers in the highly-respected journal Nature suggesting that the first Homo sapiens — that is, the first members of our species — lived 100,000 years earlier than previously thought in a place that no one would have expected. They also had faces that looked surprisingly like ours. ”I’m not sure these people would stand out from a crowd today," said Hublin on a...

1. A breakthrough study from the Institute of Crystallography in Italy has just confirmed that the image of the man on the Shroud of Turin is composed of real blood and in fact a microscopic analysis of blood particles reveals that the blood had to come from someone undergoing torture.  This just further confirms the possible authenticity of the Shroud (see here). 2. Using a recently developed X-ray imaging technology, archaeologists were able to read the inside of a biblical scroll that was covered in ash during the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD.  The results?  The current manuscripts...

After decades of searches by archeologists in the upper Jordan Valley, the lost Roman city of Julias, believed to be the birthplace of Jesus’s apostles Andrew, Peter and Philip, may have recently been unearthed. The discovery was made during excavations at Beit Habek, located in Bethsaida, by archeologist Dr. Mordechai Aviam, head of the Kinneret Institute for Galilean Archeology at Kinneret Academic College. Bethsaida was once a fishermen’s village on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee, and is mentioned in several New Testament books as the home of at least three of Jesus’s most important apostles, reports the...

(Photo: YouTube/Israel Antiquities Authority Official Channel)Artifacts dating from the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in the sixth century BC.A newly discovered archaeological find confirms the Old Testament's account of the taking of Jerusalem by the Babylonian Empire in the sixth century BC.Excavations conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority at the Jerusalem Walls National Park, as funded by the City of David Foundation, discovered strong evidence of fire damage from around the time when the city was conquered by the Babylonians.The IAA explained in a YouTube video from late July that various findings recently unearthed included "charred wood, grape...

A marble slab was uncovered with an inscription in Hebrew that might indicate the exact location of the event. The Gospel of Mark recalls the arrival of Jesus to the northeastern region of the Sea of Galilee, the Kineret: They reached the territory of the Gerasenes on the other side of the lake, and when he disembarked, a man with an unclean spirit at once came out from the tombs towards him. The man lived in the tombs and no one could secure him any more, even with a chain, because he had often been secured with fetters and...

The tunnel was found under the Pyramid of the Moon, the second-largest structure in the ancient city (the largest is the Pyramid of the Sun), according to the International Business Times. The archaeologists who discovered it believe that it mirrors the Teotihuacans’ great monuments and may represent the underworld in the belief system of the pre-Colombian, 2,000-year-old civilization that built it (a civilization thought to pre-date the Aztecs, who later occupied the site). The tunnel is long, extending from the central square known as the Plaza de la Luna to the nearby pyramid. It is about 33 feet (10 meters)...

A rabbit hole in the UK conceals the entrance to an incredible cave complex linked to the mysterious Knights Templar. New photos show the remarkable Caynton Caves network, which looks like something out of the movie “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.” The shadowy Knights Templar order is said to have used the caves. The Sun reports that the caves are hidden beneath a farmer’s field in Shropshire. The site was visited by photographer Michael Scott after he saw a video of the caves online. “I traipsed over a field to find it, but if you didn’t know it was...

A gene study has shown that incomers could have ousted Stone Age Britons During the building of Stonehenge, around 2500BC, gene records show Stone Age Britons were replaced by Bronze Age Beaker folk. The men and women who built Stonehenge left an indelible mark on the British landscape. However, researchers have discovered that their impact on other aspects of the nation may have been less impressive. In particular, their input into Britain’s gene pool appears to have fizzled out, having been terminated by light-skinned Bronze Age invaders who arrived just as Ancient Britons were midway through their great Stone Age...

More of the ancient Roman city of Verulamium’s secrets have been discovered by archaeologists. The burnt remains of a 1,800-year-old kiln - a type of oven used to create pottery - have been unearthed during excavations of the ancient city near the modern city of St. Albans in Hertfordshire, Great Britain.

For archaeologists, Mary Magdalene’s hometown is the gift that keeps on giving. About a year ago, archaeologists announced the discovery of what was called the “Magdala Stone”: a stone bench that was part of a first century synagogue, one of the only seven that existed during the Second Temple period, and the first one ever found in Galilee. Considering some local coins dated from the year 29 were also found in that very same synagogue, it is likely that Jesus might have walked in and taught there as part of his ministry. As Zoe Romanowsky explained in this article,...

What the opening of the marble slab of the Edicule revealed On October 20th, 2016, one of the most exciting events in centuries took place: the opening of the marble slab guarding the place tradition claims was the tomb of Jesus, inside the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.Underneath that slab there was a second slab, also of gray marble, containing a slit along its side and bearing a Lorraine Cross. Most likely, this is from the time of the Crusades, from the beginning of the 12th century.Once the second slab was removed, the surprises began, according to testimonies gathered from different sources....

Intriguing new details have emerged about a medieval mummy known for her 'Adidas' boots - which she wore more than a millennia ago. The body of the woman was discovered a year ago this week in the Altai mountains region of Mongolia. And her body and possessions remained so remarkably preserved that experts are still uncovering some of the secrets they keep. Now, scientists have discovered that the mummy suffered a significant blow to the head before her death.

The oral history of the Heiltsuk Nation, an Aboriginal group based on the Central Coast of British Columbia, tells of a coastal strip of land that did not freeze during the ice age, making it a place of refuge for early inhabitants of the territory. As Roshini Nair reports for the CBC, a recent archaeological discovery attests to an ancient human presence in the area associated with the tradition. While digging on British Columbia’s Triquet Island, archaeologists unearthed a settlement that dates to the period of the last ice age. The archaeological team, supported by the Hakai Institute, sifted through...

Archaeologists from Egypt and Germany have found a massive 26ft (8 metre) statue submerged in ground water in a Cairo slum. Researchers say it probably depicts revered Pharaoh Ramses II, who ruled Egypt more than 3,000 years ago. The discovery, hailed by the Antiquities Ministry as one of the most important ever, was made near the ruins of Ramses II's temple in the ancient city of Heliopolis, located in the eastern part of modern-day Cairo.

Archaeologists in Mosul have made a stunning find beneath the Tomb of the Prophet Jonah that was destroyed by Islamic State militants in 2014: the long-hidden palace of ancient Assyrian King Sennacherib. Experts were documenting the jihadists’ destruction of the tomb’s ruins when they located the palace, which dates back to 600 B.C. ISIS had dug tunnels into the site in a search for ancient artifacts to plunder, according to media reports. The Telegraph reports that Iraqi archaeologist Layla Salih found a marble cuneiform inscription of Assyrian King Esarhaddon inside one of the tunnels. The inscription is believed to date...

(Phys.org)—A trio of researchers affiliated with institutions in the U.S., Europe and South America has found evidence that suggests the native people of South America likely arrived from more than one place. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, Noreen von Cramon-Taubadel, André Strauss and Mark Hubbe describe how they applied imaging technology to skulls that have been unearthed in Brazil and what was revealed. For many years, it was believed that a single wave of ancient immigrants made their way from Asia to North America and eventually to South America—the first people to exist in the New...

The largest and most significant collection of Roman waxed writing tablets is providing an intriguing glimpse into life in early Roman London. More than 400 wooden tablets were unearthed by archaeologists from Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) during excavations at the site of the Bloomberg company’s new European headquarters. Roman London (called Londinium) was founded around A.D. 50, and the recovered texts, written by ordinary residents, record various names, as well as events and transactions that took place during the settlement’s first few decades.

New fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls have been found in the Cave of the Skulls by the Dead Sea in Israel, in a salvage excavation by Israeli authorities. The pieces are small and the writing on them is too faded to make out without advanced analysis. At this stage the archaeologists aren't even sure if they're written in ancient Hebrew, Aramaic or another language. “The most important thing that can come out of these fragments is if we can connect them with other documents that were looted from the Judean Desert, and that have no known provenance," says Dr....