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Egypt unveiled a sacred road lined with thousands of statues on Thursday, which was used as a procession route for the gods 3,000 years ago. Called the Avenue of Sphinxes, this 1.7-mile stretch features more than 1,050 statues of sphinxes and rams that has been reconstructed with the hopes of attracting tourists from around the world. The ancient walkway, also known as the Way of the Rams and the Path of the Gods, connects the famous Karnak and Luxor temples in what was the city of Thebes, which used to be Egypt's capital in antiquity. ...The glitzy ceremony began at...

(GUATEMALA CITY) — Researchers using a high-tech aerial mapping technique have found tens of thousands of previously undetected Mayan houses, buildings, defense works and pyramids in the dense jungle of Guatemala’s Peten region, suggesting that millions more people lived there than previously thought. The discoveries, which included industrial-sized agricultural fields and irrigation canals, were announced Thursday by an alliance of U.S., European and Guatemalan archaeologists working with Guatemala’s Mayan Heritage and Nature Foundation. The study estimates that roughly 10 million people may have....

Maya rulers' growing demand for animals of symbolic value may have caused a decline in big game, like jaguars, in ancient Latin America, a new study suggests. Faced with environmental problems and doubts about their ability to provide for their followers, the Maya elite may have ordered more hunting of large mammals whose meat, skins, and teeth provided proof of power and status, the study says. Kitty Emery, an archaeologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History, has studied 80,000 animal bones found in 25 Maya trash mounds to map the effects of ancient hunting on animal populations over 4,000...

Nothing lasts forever. Just ask Ozymandias, or Nate Fisher. Only the wind inhabits the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde in Colorado, birds and vines the pyramids of the Maya. Sand and silence have swallowed the clamors of frankincense traders and camels in the old desert center of Ubar. Troy was buried for centuries before it was uncovered. Parts of the Great Library of Alexandria, center of learning in the ancient world, might be sleeping with the fishes, off Egypt's coast in the Mediterranean. "Cities rise and fall depending on what made them go in the first place," said Peirce Lewis,...