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A newly deciphered letter home dating back around 1,800 years reveals the pleas of a young Egyptian soldier named Aurelius Polion who was serving, probably as a volunteer, in a Roman legion in Europe. In the letter, written mainly in Greek, Polion tells his family that he is desperate to hear from them and that he is going to request leave to make the long journey home to see them.

Gobekli Tepe Summary In 1994, almost forty years after The Urantia Book’s 1955 publication, excavations began at the Gobekli Tepe archaeological site in Turkey. The Gobekli Tepe site already reveals 50 engraved stone monoliths, some of them dating back to 12,000 years ago, that are at least 6,000 years older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids. A full excavation to the bottom of the site has not yet occurred, and only a small percentage of the site has been uncovered. The evidence suggests that the complex of round rooms with two especially large pillars in the middle were built for...

They were hidden inside some phylacteries discovered during some excavations sixty years ago but never opened. The news was announced at a conference at the Faculty of Theology in Lugano. . . So there are now nine Qumran scrolls to keep experts busy. The discovery was made very recently and was announced a few days ago at the international research seminar. . . “The new discovery shows that the research being carried out on the Qumran is not complete yet. There are a thousand reasons, especially political ones, why the material unearthed is still being studied and why the the...

An archaeologist says he discovered nine tiny scrolls with biblical text from the Qumran caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were unearthed, according to news reports. The newfound scrolls, which date back to about 2,000 years ago, were hidden inside three leather tefillin cases, also known as phylacteries, traditionally carried by observant Jewish men, Italian news agency Ansa Mediterranean reported. These cases were first pulled out of the caves in the 1950s, but their contents apparently were not examined until now....

<p>The victims all appeared to be women, mostly in their late teens or early 20s. Evidence suggested they were strangled, or perhaps cut at the throat, at the edge of their shared mass grave, and then interred, meters away from an ornate burial of two men thought to be clan elders, political leaders, spiritual guides, or all three.</p>

Excavations in the Midwest have turned up evidence of a massive ancient fire that likely marked “the beginning of the end� for what was once America’s largest city, archaeologists say.The digs took place in southern Illinois, just meters away from the interstate highways that carve their way through and around modern-day St. Louis. But 900 years ago, this was the heart of Greater Cahokia, a civilization whose trade routes and religious influence stretched from the Great Lakes to the Deep South, and whose culture shaped the lifeways of the Plains and Southern Indians.An artist’s rendering depicts Cahokia’s city center...

For some cheese lovers, the older and stinkier the cheese, the better. Well, what about a cheese that's been aging for 3,600 years? Yellow lumps, believed to be the world's oldest cheese, were found on mummies buried in the Taklamakan Desert in northwestern China. The cheese, which was found during archaeological excavations that took place between 2002 and 2004, dates to as early as 1615 BC. The cheese was found on the necks and chests of the mummies. The multiple layers of cowhide the mummies were buried in, and the dry, salty desert helped preserve the cheese....

In an announcement likely to rewrite the book on early colonization of the New World, two researchers have proposed a location for the oldest fortified settlement ever found in North America. They believe that the legendary Fort Caroline, a long-sought fort built by the French in 1564, is located near the mouth of the Altamaha River in southeast Georgia.

Human remains dug up from an ancient grave in Oxfordshire add to a growing body of evidence that Britain's fifth-century transition from Roman to Anglo-Saxon was cultural rather than bloody. The traditional historical narrative is one of brutal conquest, with invaders from the North wiping out and replacing the pre-existing population. But a new study, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, hints at a more peaceful process. Dr Andrew Millard, from Durham University, is one of the study's authors. 'The main controversy over the years has centred on how many Anglo-Saxons came across the North Sea,' he says. 'Was...

For those who have never been to Mitzpe Ramon, you’re missing out. It’s on the edge of the Ramon makhtesh -- Israel’s Grand Canyon. In fact, although it is called a “crater” in English, it is actually a “makhtesh” i.e., a “box canyon”, formed not by a meteor or a river, but by geological processes of a receding ocean. It is the world’s largest “makhtesh”! ... In any event, no one listened, but everyone had a lot of fun. My friend Hershel Shanks who moderated my session chided me for being too confident. He wanted me to have an appropriate...

A team of Spanish and Egyptian archaeologists made a find in a southern Egyptian tomb that opens the way to a reinterpretation of Pharaonic chronology, since it could show that Amenhotep III and his son Amenhotep IV reigned together. The team, headed by Spaniard Francisco Martin Valentin and funded by Spain’s Gaselec foundation, excavated the remains of a wall and columns of the mausoleum of a minister of the 18th Pharaonic dynasty - 1569-1315 B.C. - in the province of Luxor. What is exceptional about the discovery, Martin Valentin told Efe, is that in the excavation they found the names...

Prehistoric Boy May Be Native American 'Missing Link' LiveScience.com By By Charles Q. Choi, LiveScience ContributorFebruary 12, 2014 A prehistoric boy's DNA now suggests that ancient toolmakers long thought of as the first Americans may serve as a kind of "missing link" between Native Americans and the rest of the world, researchers say. The findings reveal these prehistoric toolmakers are the direct ancestors of many contemporary Native Americans, and are closely related to all Native Americans. Scientists investigated a prehistoric culture known as the Clovis, named after sites discovered near Clovis, N.M. Centuries of cold, nicknamed the "Big Freeze," helped...

LONDON (AP) — They were a British family on a day out — almost a million years ago. Archaeologists announced Friday that they have discovered human footprints in England that are between 800,000 and 1 million years old — the most ancient found outside Africa, and the earliest evidence of human life in northern Europe.

Scientists Find 800,000-Year-Old Footprints Inn UK (Update) Jill LawlessFebuary 7, 2014Undated handout photo issued by the British Museum Friday Feb. 7, 2014 of some of the human footprints, thought to be more than 800,000 years old, found in silt on the beach at Happisburgh on the Norfolk coast of England, with a camera lens …They were a British family on a day out—almost a million years ago. Archaeologists announced Friday that they have discovered human footprints in England that are between 800,000 and 1 million years old—the most ancient found outside Africa, and the earliest evidence of human life in...

It was a vast boat that saved two of each animal and a handful of humans from a catastrophic flood. But forget all those images of a long vessel with a pointy bow - the original Noah's Ark, new research suggests, was round. A recently deciphered 4,000-year-old clay tablet from ancient Mesopotamia - modern-day Iraq - reveals striking new details about the roots of the Old Testament tale of Noah....

Archaeologists believe they have found the birthplace of British civilisation, and it is underneath a £15-a-night caravan park in Norfolk, England. Discoveries at the site include one million-year-old artefacts and fossilised animal remains, which are the oldest ever found in the UK. Scientists now believe that it was the first, or one of the first settlement sites of early humans in Britain. Although researchers are yet to uncover any human remains from our predecessors, it is believed the site currently lying beneath Manor Caravan Park in Happisburgh, Norfolk, was a settlement created by early human relatives, such as Homo erectus....

About 25 years ago, I started diving in the clear blue waters of Zakynthos. Many times I passed through the water seeing small broken pieces of ceramics and I asked myself where they were from. I thought that maybe there was something buried in the sand. I believed that there was definitely something ancient around the area that deserved more investigation. For many years I didn’t find any other clues to prove this. My love for the sea made me buy an underwater camera to start taking photographs of my diving excursions. It was then that the secret was...

Skulls discovered within the boundaries of ancient London a quarter of a century ago are now believed to be those of gladiators, brutally killed for the amusement of Roman audiences. The haul of 39 skulls, discovered beneath the site of the Guildhall in the City of London, were discovered in 1988 and were believed to have originated from human remains washed out of burial sites by the Walbrook, one of the area’s lost rivers. But now after 25 years in storage, the remains have been re-examined by an historian from the Museum of London, who believes they are the first...

Look around the Amazon rainforest today and it’s hard to imagine it filled with people. But in recent decades, archaeologists have started to find evidence that before Columbus’s arrival, the region was dotted with towns and perhaps even cities. The extent of human settlement in the Amazon remains hotly debated, partly because huge swaths of the 6-million-square-kilometer rainforest remain unstudied by archaeologists. Now, researchers have built a model predicting where signs of pre-Columbian agriculture are most likely to be found, a tool they hope will help guide future archaeological work in the region. In many ways, archaeology in the Amazon...

She rested in peace for about 2,000 years until utility crews came shortly before Christmas to install a new waterline on Pine Island Road in Davie. That's when the fully intact skeleton of what is believed to be a Tequesta Indian woman was found — perhaps the best-preserved remains of an ancient human uncovered in the past 40 years, authorities said Thursday. "It's either Tequesta or the member of a people that predates the Tequesta," said Bob Carr, of the Archaeological and Historical Conservancy in Davie. "It's unusually well preserved, considering it's been under a highway with thousands and thousands...

During the third millennium BCE, the Indus Civilisation flourished in what is now northwest India and Pakistan. Between 2200-1900 BCE the culture was characterised by long-distance exchange networks, carefully planned urban settlements such as Harappa and Mohenjo Daro that had sophisticated sanitation facilities, standardised weights and measures, and a sphere of influence that extended over a million square kilometres of territory. The culture was seemingly at its height when the end came (collapse attributed to climatic change) but recent research published in both the open access journal PLoS ONE and an earlier 2012 article in the International Journal of Palaeopathology...

For centuries scholars have been hunting for the lost works of ancient Greek and Latin literature. In the Renaissance, books were found in monastic libraries. In the late 19th Century papyrus scrolls were found in the sands of Egypt. But only in Herculaneum in southern Italy has an entire library from the ancient Mediterranean been discovered in situ. On the eve of the catastrophe in 79 AD, Herculaneum was a chic resort town on the Bay of Naples, where many of Rome's top families went to rest and recuperate during the hot Italian summers. It was also a place where...

The ABC Publishing Group has announced the publication of the world’s first prehistoric maps of Britain. These maps are based on the recently published book by Robert John Langdon titled ‘The Stonehenge Enigma’ which proves that Britain suffered massive ‘Post Glacial Flooding’ directly after the last Ice Age ten thousand years ago, and that mankind placed their ancient sites on the shorelines of these raised waterways. Stonehenge - surrounded by water on three sides[Credit: ABC Publishing Group] The maps are presented on the old ordnance survey first edition that shows the natural ancient environment to a higher degree of detail...

A high-quality genome sequence obtained from a female Neanderthal toe bone reveals that the individual’s parents were close relatives and that such inbreeding was prevalent among her recent ancestors, according to a paper published today (December 18) in Nature. But the sequence also reveals that interbreeding occurred between Neanderthals and other hominin groups, including early modern humans. “Did humans evolve like a constantly branching tree? A lot of people think so,” said Milford Wolpoff, a professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan, who was not involved in the study. “But there’s also been this thread of thought, by some...

Ancient Humans Had Sex With A Mystery Species Stephanie Pappas Live Science Dec. 4, 2013, 3:33 PM A new, improved sequencing of ancient human relative genomes reveals that Homo sapiens didn't only have sex with Neanderthals and a little-understood line of humans called Denisovans. A fourth, mystery lineage of humans was in the mix, too. As reported by the news arm of the journal Nature, new genetic evidence suggests that several hominids — human relatives closer than humans' current living cousin, the chimpanzee — interbred more than 30,000 years ago. This group of kissing cousins included an unknown human ancestor...

Whenever there's an archaeological discovery related to the Bible, conflicting interpretations by various experts can leave a believer's head spinning. Take the discovery in Israel of a palace from the era of King David earlier this year. An archaeologist from Hebrew University in Jerusalem said there's "unequivocal evidence" that David and his descendants ruled at the site. But critics, including some committed believers, say it could have belonged to other kingdoms and that David's palace likely would have been in Jerusalem some 18 miles northwest. Still others claim there is no archaeological evidence that David even existed. Similar confusion ensued...

The fortress, an important site in the Maccabee revolts which Hanukkah commemorates, is located in 'Area A' not under Israeli control. Tour guides from the Kfar Etzion Field School this week discovered that the Palestinian Authority (PA) has been digging at Beit Betzi, a Hasmonean fortress located between Bethlehem and the Herodion in "Area A." The Hasmonean revolt against the Greek empire is commemorated in the holiday of Hanukkah that begins Wednesday night. Following the Oslo Accords the site, one of the only existing discoveries from the days of the Hasmoneans, was transfered to PA control. News of PA digs...

Digging this summer at the ruins of a 1700 B.C. Canaanite palace in northern Israel, archaeologists struck wine. Near the banquet hall where rulers of a Middle Bronze Age city-state and their guests feasted, a team of American and Israeli researchers broke through to a storage room holding the remains of 40 large ceramic jars. The vessels were broken, their liquid contents long since vanished — but not without a trace. A chemical analysis of residues left in the three-foot-tall jars detected organic traces of acids that are common components of all wine, as well as ingredients popular in ancient...

In a further study of Neanderthal occupation at Abri du Maras, Ardèche in France, the evidence is stacking up to support the view that this group was behaviourally flexible and capable of creating a variety of sophisticated tools including projectile points and more importantly, cord and string.Fibrous materials that can be used to create cords are difficult to find in the archaeological record and have usually rotted away, so the oldest known string dated back only 30,000 years. However, perforations in small stone and tooth artefacts as well as shells from other Neanderthal sites in France suggested the pieces had...

Giant sloths were eaten by a population living in Uruguay 30,000 years ago, suggesting humans arrived in the Americas far earlier than previously thought, according to a new study. The discovery, along with other recent findings, strengthens the theory that people arrived in South America via ocean crossings long before humans might have walked into North America from northeastern Asia, during the end of the last glacial period around 16,000 years ago. The study was published in the latest Proceedings of the Royal Society B. These brave individuals apparently did not shy away from big game either, with giant sloth...

A 300-year drought may have caused the demise of several Mediterranean cultures, including ancient Greece, new research suggests. A sharp drop in rainfall may have led to the collapse of several eastern Mediterranean civilizations, including ancient Greece, around 3,200 years ago. The resulting famine and conflict may help explain why the entire Hittite culture, chariot-riding people who ruled most of the region of Anatolia, vanished from the planet, according to a study published in August in the journal PLOS ONE. Lost golden period Even during the heyday of Classical Greek civilization, there were hints of an earlier culture that was...

America was first discovered by Stone Age hunters from Europe, according to new archaeological evidence. Across six locations on the U.S. east coast, several dozen stone tools have been found. After close analysis it was discovered that they were between 19,000 and 26,000 years old and were a European-style of tool. The discovery suggests that the owners of the tools arrived 10,000 years before the ancestors of the American Indians set foot in the New World, reported The Independent...

A melting patch of ancient snow in the mountains of Norway has revealed a bow and arrows likely used by hunters to kill reindeer as long ago as 5,400 years. The discovery highlights the worrying effects of climate change, said study author Martin Callanan, an archaeologist at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. "It's actually a little bit unnerving that they're so old and that they're coming out right now," Callanan told LiveScience. "It tells us that there's something changing." Locked in snow Callanan and his colleagues spend every summer hiking up the Trollheim and Dovre mountains a few...

Archaelogists excavating a medieval church in a dales village have found further evidence that the site was an Anglo Saxon settlement. A carved section from an eighth century stone cross was unearthed during a dig at St Botolph"s field in Frosterley in Weardale this week. The discovery was met with great excitement from the archaeologists and volunteers who were digging on the site as part of the Altogether Archaeology project... Mr Frodsham said Frosterley was largely a post-medieval village but recent finds have suggested people lived in the area much earlier... It has already attracted more than 500 volunteers who...

Chemical analyses of teeth from 41 human skeletons excavated on Easter Island revealed the inhabitants ate rats rather than seafood; Here, Moai statues at Ahu Tongariki on the south-eastern part of the island, where 26 of the skeletons were found. The inhabitants of Easter Island consumed a diet that was lacking in seafood and was, literally, quite ratty. The island, also called Rapa Nui, first settled around A.D. 1200, is famous for its more than 1,000 "walking" Moai statues, most of which originally faced inland. Located in the South Pacific, Rapa Nui is the most isolated inhabited landmass on Earth;...

New findings from an archaeological excavation led this winter by Dr. Erez Ben-Yosef of Tel Aviv University’s Jacob M. Alkow Department of Archaeology and Near Eastern Cultures prove that copper mines in Israel thought to have been built by the ancient Egyptians in the 13th century BCE actually originated three centuries later, during the reign of the legendary King Solomon.Based on the radiocarbon dating of material unearthed at a new site in Timna Valley in Israel’s Aravah Desert, the findings overturn the archaeological consensus of the last several decades. Scholarly work and materials found in the area suggest the mines...

Buried under soil for hundreds of years, the goddess of love and beauty has some chipping on her nose and face. Researchers think her presence could shed light on the extent of the Roman Empire's wide cultural influence at the time of its peak. Archaeologists found the sculpture while working at a site called Antiochia ad Cragum (Antioch on the cliffs), on the Mediterranean coast. The researchers believe the region, which is dotted with hidden inlets and coves, would have been a haven for Cilician pirates — the same group who kidnapped Julius Caesar and held him for ransom around...

A Sarmatian burial mound excavated this summer in Russia’s Southern Ural steppes has yielded a magnificent but unusual treasure. The artefacts contained within the mound are helping to shed light on a little-known period of the illiterate nomadic culture that flourished on the Eurasian steppe in the 1st millennium BC and interacted with the Persian Achaemenid and Greek civilizations. The archaeological study of this remarkable ancient tomb, or kurgan, was carried out by the expedition of the Institute of Archaeology (Russian Academy of Sciences), led by Professor Leonid T. Yablonsky.

Eyewitnesses told Turkish media this week that a portion of the Temple Mount platform near the Al Aqsa Mosque has collapsed, creating a serious safety hazard and a possible threat to the stability of the Islamic structure. If the report is accurate, it would be the second serious collapse on the Temple Mount in the past five years. Palestinian officials claim that the collapses are caused by deliberate Israeli action to bring down the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock so that the Jewish Temple can be rebuilt. But archaeologists and engineers have been warning for...

The discovery in Peru of another tomb belonging to a pre-Hispanic priestess, the eighth in more than two decades, confirms that powerful women ruled this region 1,200 years ago, archeologists said. The remains of the woman from the Moche—or Mochica—civilization were discovered in late July in an area called La Libertad in the country's northern Chepan province. It is one of several finds in this region that have amazed scientists. In 2006, researchers came across the famous "Lady of Cao"—who died about 1,700 years ago and is seen as one of the first female rulers in Peru. "This find makes...

Experts find enormous marble tomb fit for a king under a massive mound in Greece Archaeologists have uncovered what could be the grave of Alexander the Great at a site near ancient Amphipolis, 370 miles north of Athens The warrior king was thought to be buried in Egypt but experts have discovered a marble-faced wall dating from the 4th century BC Site archaeologist Aikaterini Peristeri has voiced hopes of finding 'a significant individual or individuals' withinArchaeologists have uncovered what could be the grave of Alexander the Great at a site near ancient Amphipolis. The warrior king - who ruled in...

A 10-year legal battle is drawing to a close in the Holy Land over several astounding biblical relics, including a limestone box said to have held the bones of the purported brother of Jesus and the first-ever relic of biblical King Solomon's First Temple. But are they real or the greatest hoax in a hundred years? Last year, the Israel Antiquities Authority failed to prove in court that the items were forged by antiquities collector Oded Golan. Now the IAA seems to have changed its tune, and the two parties found themselves in court again in early August. Now Israel...

Archaeologists say they have discovered massive fortifications on the coast of Israel that may have protected an Assyrian artificial harbor during the Iron Age more than 2,700 years ago. Researchers from Tel Aviv University (TAU) unearthed the crescent-shaped structure in the Israeli city of Ashdod, just south of Tel Aviv. The impressive fortifications date back to the eighth century B.C. At their core is a mud-brick wall that measures more than 12 feet (3.6 meters) wide and 15 feet (4.5 m) high. This wall is covered in layers of mud and sand extending outward hundreds of feet. "The fortifications appear...

A fossil of the oldest known ancestor of modern rats—an agile creature that could climb, burrow and eat just about anything—has been unearthed in China, scientists said Thursday. The newly named species Rugosodon eurasiaticus had flexible ankles for tree-climbing and sharp teeth that could gnaw both animals and plants, according to the journal Science. These adaptations helped the ancient rat-like rodents known as multituberculates become among the longest lived mammals in history, said the study led by Chong-Xi Yuan from the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences in Beijing. Believed to originate 160 million years ago during the Jurassic Period, they...

How far would you go to get your cinnamon fix? If you lived in the Levant 3,000 years ago (a region that includes modern day Israel), very far indeed new research indicates. Researchers analyzing the contents of 27 flasks from five archaeological sites in Israel that date back around 3,000 years have found that 10 of the flasks contain cinnamaldehyde, the compound that gives cinnamon its flavor, indicating that the spice was stored in these flasks. At this time cinnamon was found in the Far East with the closest places to Israel being southern India and Sri Lanka located at...

Archaeological excavations conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority in the area of the Gihon Spring in the City of David, in the Walls around Jerusalem National Park, have unearthed a layer of rich finds including thousands of broken pottery shards, clay lamps and figurines. Most intriguing is the recent discovery of a ceramic bowl with a partially preserved inscription in ancient Hebrew. While not complete, the inscription presents us with the name of a seventh century BCE figure, which resembles other names known to us from both the Biblical and archaeological record (see examples below) and providing us with a...

The invention of the bow and arrow allowed users to shoot projectiles more rapidly and more accurately than with the traditional spear. A new theory argues that this innovation resulted in more than just a technological revolution. It also had profound social consequences wherever the bow was adopted. Stony Brook University biologists Paul Bingham and Joanne Souza developed the “social-coercion hypothesis” as an explanation for the rise of social complexity. They recently outlined their work in the journal Evolutionary Anthropology. According to this idea, the introduction of a more-effective weapon system gave social groups a safer, more-reliable way to coerce...

Magli simulated what the sky would have looked like from Turkey when Göbekli Tepe was built. Over millennia, the positions of the stars change due to Earth wobbling as it spins on its axis. Stars that are near the horizon will rise and set at different points, and they can even disappear completely, only to reappear thousands of years later. Today, Sirius can be seen almost worldwide as the brightest star in the sky -- excluding the sun -- and the fourth brightest night-sky object after the moon, Venus and Jupiter. Sirius is so noticeable that its rising and setting...

Beneath Rome's Fiumicino airport lies a "mini-Colosseum" that may have played host to Roman emperors, according to British archaeologists. The foundations of the amphitheater, which are oval-shaped like the much larger arena in the heart of Rome, have been unearthed at the site of Portus, a 2nd century A.D. harbor near Ostia's port on the Tiber River. A monumental seaport that saved imperial Rome from starvation, Portus is now reduced to a large hexagonal pond on a marshy land owned by a noble family, the Duke Sforza Cesarinis. The two-square-mile site has been known since around the 16th century, but...

Archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) recently found the decapitated skull of an individual still lying in the offering bowl, dating back 500 years ago at the Tlatelolco temple site in Mexico City.The area is excavated within the tourist site. Image: INAH Tlatelolco is a site in Mexico City where remains of the pre-Columbian city-state of the same name have been found centred on the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, which is a large square surrounded on three sides by a excavated Aztec monuments and a seventeenth-century church called the Templo de Santiago.According to the archaeologist...