Archaeology News Online

The head of excavations at Perge in Turkey's Antalya province, Antalya Museum Director Mustafa Demirel, has announced that a new mosaic has been found in the ancient city. The 1,800-year-old mosaic depicts the sacrifice of Iphigenia, the daughter of King Agamemnon in Greek mythology, during the Trojan War. Speaking to Anadolu Agency (AA) Demirel said that during the initial years of the excavations, important projects were conducted in terms of rehabilitative efforts at the site. In the context of the excavation project, the area which includes the Kesos Fountain in the north to the south was rearranged and excavations along the West Street were accelerated. Throughout the archaeological excavations, numerous sculptures and artefacts have been unearthed, and Demirel noted that a particular mosaic has been unearthed to the "excitement" of researchers. "During the ongoing excavations in Perge, a mosaic was discovered which depicts the scene of the sacrifice of Iphigeni...

There has been damage to monuments and archaeological sites on Kos as a result of the strong earthquake that shook the island in the early hours of Friday morning, a team of archaeological service experts sent by the culture ministry reported. The inspection revealed damage to sites around the town, the castle and the Ottoman mosques, the team said, announcing that preliminary protection measures will be taken and the monuments restored after due study. "For this purpose, a Central Service team from the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Monuments Restoration directorate will go to Kos on Saturday and Monday in order to assess the situation and finalise the actions [that will be taken]," a culture ministry announcement said. The tremor also caused the movement and damage of exhibits, especially pottery, at the island's archaeological museum and this will be temporarily closed until the damage is restored, the ministry said, along with the Casa Romana monument on the island. For...

Spanish archaeologists excavating a Visigoth necropolis in Sena, in the northeastern province of Huesca, have uncovered what they say is a burial site dating to the 10th century BCE and that was part of the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture. An urn that revealed the existence of the cemetery dating back more than 2,000 years [Credit: EFE] Two urns and a lid were discovered in the graveyard. Hugo Chautón, the archaeologist overseeing the excavation, says Urnfield culture spread from central Europe into northeastern Spain around 1,000 years BCE. The name comes from the Urnfield culture’s custom of cremating the dead and placing their ashes in urns, which were then buried. “This culture represents the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron,” said Chautón, “and provides valuable information about burial practices, particularly the move from burying the dead to cremating them.” Archaeologists work on the Visigoth burial site in Sena (Huesca) [Credit: EFE] The team has been excavating a V...

They came by boat, bringing cooking utensils, crockery and all the other necessities needed for life in a strange land. That is how Julia Budka imagines the arrival, around 1539 BC, of the first Egyptian administrators in the new town on the island of Sai in the Nile. They were far from home, for the settlement lay in Nubia, between the river’s 2nd and 3rd cataracts. Following the final conquest of the whole of the African kingdom of Kerma by the Pharaoh Thutmose III, Egyptian expansion to the south continued, and the island’s location made it an ideal jump-off point. River traffic could be effectively controlled from here, and Egypt’s armies could be supplied with everything they needed to consolidate their hold. For Nubia was the primary source of gold and other valuable resources from Sub-Saharan Africa for the Egyptian state. Aerial view of the ruins of the town of Sai. Founded by the Egyptians on the island of the same name in the Nile,  in what is now Sudan, the town was occu...

The Association of Greek Archaeologists has been informed about unsettling developments regarding the intended conversion of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul to an Islamic mosque and in an announcement it made, expresses its strong concern in view of such a prospect. The Association of Greek Archaeologists requests the Greek government and international organizations to stay vigilant  and intervene so that this supremely important monument remains the property of all humankind,  an inseparable part of global cultural heritage [Credit: Shutterstock] As the AGA mentions in its announcement : “Hagia Sophia that was inaugurated in 537, has been operating as a museum since 1934 and due to its significance, constitutes a World Heritage site included, since 1985, in the relevant list of UNESCO. ”The repeated reading of the Koran and of prayers for a second consecutive year within this emblematic monument acts as a harbinger, with the ulterior motive being the cancellation of its function as ...

What was life in the fens like in the period known as the dark ages? Archaeologist Susan Oosthuizen revisits the history of an iconic wetland in the light of fresh evidence and paints a compelling portrait of communities in tune with their changeable environment. In doing so, she makes an important contribution to a wider understanding of early medieval landscapes. Highland Cattle grazing in the Wicken Fen [Credit: © Wicken Fen] The East Anglian fens with their flat expanses and wide skies, a tract of some of the UK's richest farmland, are invariably described as bleak – or worse. Turn the clock back 1,000 years to a time when the silt and peat wetlands were largely undrained, and it's easy to imagine a place that defied rather than welcomed human occupation. Historians have long argued that during the 'dark' ages (the period between the withdrawal of Roman administration in around 400 AD and the Norman Conquest in 1066) most settlements in the region were deserted, and...

Peruvian authorities have revealed the reconstructed face of the Lord of Sipan, a pre-Columbian ruler whose remains were discovered in 1987 and hailed as one of the country's most stunning archaeological finds. The Lord of Sipan was likely between the ages of 45 and 55 when he was buried around 250 AD  [Credit: © Peruvian Ministry of Culture/AFP] A full body representation of the ancient ruler, believed to have died around the year 250, was unveiled Thursday at the Museum of the Royal Tombs of Sipan in the northern city of Chiclayo. Peruvian Culture Minister Salvador del Solar traveled to Chiclayo for the unveiling, which marks the 30th anniversary of the tomb's discovery. The Moche culture ruler's face was reconstructed by anthropologists based on the skull and facial bones of the man's mummy, archaeologist Walter Alva told AFP, speaking by phone from Chiclayo. "The skull was quite damaged by the pressure of the earth and the burial jewels," but the anthropol...

An impressively large 2,700-year-old water system was recently exposed at Israel Antiquities Authority excavations near Rosh Ha-Ayin with the help of students majoring in the Education Ministry’s Land of Israel and Archaeology studies. The excavation precedes the construction of a new residential neighborhood initiated by the Ministry of Construction and Housing. Aerial view of the excavation area, with Rosh Ha-Ayin in the background  [Credit: Yitzhak Marmelstein, IAA] According to Gilad Itach, director of excavations for the IAA, “It is difficult not to be impressed by the sight of the immense underground reservoir quarried out so many years ago. In antiquity, rainwater collection and storage was a fundamental necessity. With an annual rainfall of 500 mm, the region’s winter rains would easily have filled the huge reservoir. On its walls, near the entrance, we identified engravings of human figures, crosses, and a vegetal motif that were probably carved by passersby in a later per...

No site in the world has been continually excavated for so long as Pompeii, the city that lay buried after being destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted, until its accidental discovery over 1,700 years later. Project Director Rebecca Benefiel uses an iPad to take a photograph of a drawing in Herculaneum  [Credit: Ancient Graffiti Project] Not far away lies Herculaneum; buried in the same eruption, it is less well known among tourists but just as much of a treasure trove for archaeologists and historians. There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, the cities are well preserved. The eruption may have wiped out their inhabitants, but it also ensured that they were kept alive in historical memory, thanks to the metres of ash that shielded the ruins and remains from the elements. Historians have therefore had access to details which in other cities they can only guess at. This is particularly true in Herculaneum, which was buried by volcanic ash from the ground up rather than being bur...

Without the proper context, the sight of a staircase leading down into a great hole in the ground might not look like much. But this hole is part of an archaeological dig that has uncovered an enormous building dating back 2,500 years, part of the famed Tartessos culture. The find was made in the western Spanish region of Extremadura, a rural land renowned for its cork oak plantations, its scorching summers, and for being the birthplace of conquistadors. The Tartessian staircase found in Turuñuelo de Guareña (Badajoz) [Credit: S. Burgos/ C. Martinez] In the fifth century before the Christian era, there was a massive two-story building standing here, in the demarcation of Las Vegas del Guadiana, in Badajoz province. The building – the first surviving one of its kind from that era to be discovered – had a monumental staircase rising two-and-a-half meters. And it was made with materials and techniques that researchers thought had not been in use in the Western Mediterranean until much lat...

An excavation in the Dargecit district of the southeastern region of Turkey, which will soon be left under the reservoir waters of the Ilisu Dam, has revealed crucial information about the North Mesopotamian people’s social life 10 millennia ago, particularly about burial rituals and the ancient belief in life after death. Bodies buried in the fetal position, with their knees pulled up to their stomach, were found in the basements of houses in the site, symbolizing the position of a baby in the womb, according to information provided by Nihat Erdogan, the manager of the Mardin Museum who conducts the excavation of the site. The findings point at belief in rebirth after death, Erdogan told the Dogan News Agency. The decades-old Ilisu Dam project, which was first planned under Southeastern Anatolia Project’s investments in the 1960s, was first tendered in 1997. The potential damage caused by the dam’s construction, which is planned to be finalized this year, has been discussed for a quar...

Covered by Tokat's Sulusaray district in the Black Sea region of Turkey, the ancient city of Sebastapolis faces expropriation problems, leading to illegal excavations. Dating back to the first century B. C., the ancient city of Sebastapolis is thought to have been one of the five largest cities  in the Black Sea region about 2,000 years ago. Once visited by Charles Prince of Wales, the site now faces  illegal excavations due to expropriation problems [Credit: AA] Sebastapolis has been looted many times and has seen illegal excavations, as it is located in a town center and excavations to saving the ancient ruins continue with cooperation from Gaziosmanpaşa University (GOÜ) and the Tokat Museum Directorate. An academic from the Department of Art History of the Faculty of Science and Literature at GOÜ and the adviser of Sebastapolis Ancient City Excavation Works, Associate Professor Şengül Dilek Ful, said the excavations are now continuing at the baths section of the city. The b...