Its not exactly a spoiler to reveal that the ancient artifact everyone is searching for in my debut thriller, The Noah’s Ark Quest(called The Ark in the US) is actually Noahs Ark. In the novel, former US army combat engineer Tyler Locke and archaeologist Dilara Kenner must find the Ark in seven days to stop the end of the world. Suffice to say, the book has lots more explosions, fistfights, and gun battles than your average Jane Austen novel.
You might never have heard of Irthlingborough, in Northamptonshire, but an excavation there in the 1980s revealed some pretty spectacular archaeology, as explained in the first of a series of HKTV videos (Watch the Video). The archaeologists found a round burial mound with cremations buried in the sides. Below the cremation burials, there was a lattice of rotted cattle bones, which had been placed on the top of a heaped stone cairn. Below the cairn was a wooden platform that had now collapsed, and below the platform, at the heart of the mound, was a chamber, with a mans body…
This week sees the opening of the Ipswich Museum‘s new Egyptian Gallery. Visitors will be able tomarvel at the mummy of Lady Tahathor, or find out about daily life in ancient Egypt as they journey down the Nile. But wait… there has been a terrible crime! A thief has broken into the museum, and stolen a very rare and precious Egyptian artefact! Can you- or your kids -help solve the mystery? This Saturday, on the 7th of August, the Ipswich Museum celebrates the grand reopening of its Egyptian Gallery. At the centre of the new set-up is the mummy of…
An archaeologist from the University of Manchester has produced new research suggesting Western invaders should be blamed for the demise of the ancient people and culture of Rapa Nui or Easter Island, further contradicting the once popular idea that its primitive, warlike Polynesian inhabitants had already themselves provoked societal collapse long before the remote southeastern Pacific island was first visited by European explorers in 1722. Backing an already substantial body of opinion, Dr Karina Croucher a post-doctoral researcher in the School of Arts Histories and Cultures argues that the Easter Islanders must have had a sophisticated and successful culture until…
The good citizens of Milwaukee are set for a mummifying experience. From December 17, 2010 to May 20, 2011 the exhibit Mummies of the World will be hitting the Milwaukee Public Museum. The exhibit features 150 human and animal mummies showcasing mummification practices from around the world. The ‘Mummies of the World’ touring exhibit is currently on at the California Science Center. Egypt is famous for its mummies, but the practice is seen in many other cultures. The bogs of Northern Europe allow for mummification, as does the hot arid climate of Peru. Mummification techniques have even been used in…
A stone effigy monument, in the shape of a Blackfoot creator god named Napi, has been discovered in southern Alberta south of the Red Deer River near the hamlet of Finnegan. One day Old Man determined that he would make a woman and a child; so he formed them both the woman and the child, her son of clay. After he had moulded the clay in human shape, he said to the clay, “You must be people … They walked down to the river with their Maker, and then he told them that his name was Na’pi, – Old Man.…
Steering clear of crocodiles and navigating around massive submerged trees, a team of divers started mapping some of the 25 freshwater pools of Cara Blanca, Belize, which were of importance to the ancient Maya civilisation. So far, the divers found fossilized animal remains, bits of pottery and in the largest pool explored an enormous underwater cave. The underwater archaeology project, led by University of Illinois anthropology professor Lisa Lucero, was the first of what the professor hopes will be a series of dives into the pools of the southern Maya lowlands in central Belize. The divers so far have explored…
The Venus of Orkney, a 4,500-year-old Neolithic sandstone figurine hailed as Scotland’s earliest depiction of a human face, has been a darling of British archaeology since it was excavated last year on the remote island of Westray. Now, the Venus, which earned a nomination at the recent British Archaeology Awards, will have to share the limelight archaeologists at the Links of Noltland site on Westray have uncovered a second remarkable Neolithic figurine, less than 100 feet from where the Venus was discovered. Like the Venus, the recently excavated figurine is a tiny, delicate pendant-like figurine. Standing less than two inches…
Archaeologists excavating in the Guatamalanjunglehave discovered a royal tomb, filled with colourful 1,600-year-old Mayan artefacts, beneath the El Diablo pyramid. The well preserved tombis packed with carvings, ceramics, textiles, and the bones of six children, possibly the remains of a human sacrifice. The archaeological team, led by Stephen Houston, professor of anthropology at Brown University, uncovered the tomb beneath the El Diablo pyramid in the city of El Zots, Guatamalain May. Last week, the discovery of the tomb, dated to between 350 and 400AD, was made public. Houston said the first pointer to the discovery was something odd in the…
When the latest Tutankhamun study was published in Jama, there were quite a few outcries that although the study looked into the direct ancestry of King Tut, it fully ignored the pointers to the pharoah’s racial ancestry, possibly hidden in the pharaoh’s DNA. As usual, Dr Zahi was accused of many things, most notable charges of ‘hiding that King Tut was black/white/purple.’ Now a retired physicist took the time to write down some of the DNA test results exposed in the Discovery Channel programme that featured the study’s results and concluded the data shown in the docu reveals Tut’s haplogroup…