• Ann

    Maya Pool the Size of a Football Field Discovered in Uxul, Mexico

    Archaeologists digging at the ancient Maya city of Uxul, Mexico, havelocated an artificial lake the size of a football field. The two metres deep pool its floor a mosaic of ceramic shards was constructed about 1,500 years ago. Uxul is located on the Mexican Yucatn Peninsula, near the Guatamalan border and only twentysix kilometres southwest of Unesco World Heritage Site Calakmul. German and Mexican archaeologists started systematically excavating and mapping its ruins in 2009. In doing so, we stumbled upon two square water reservoirs, each about 100 metres by 100 metres, says Dr Iken Paap from the University of Bonn.…

  • bettany-hughes

    Bettany Hughes Video Journal: Socrates, Sappho, Aryans and more

    Sappho the Greek poet, Socrates the famous philosopher and the fascinating Aryan Culture which formed the basis of Eastern and Western civilisation have all been occupying my time in recent months but I had the chance to make a Heritage KeyVideo Journal entry (watch the video now) while I was recording in a London studio for a new BBC Documentary about the Aryan culture. Going out to Siberia, at the Russian-Kazakhstan border (click to open map), to see the homeland of the Aryans was very, very stimulating and intellectually very exciting, but particularly fascinating were that many of the artefacts…

  • owenjarus

    Accessing the Terracotta Warriors by Touch – ROM Creates Braille Replica Warriors

    The Royal Ontario Museum, in Toronto Canada, has brought ina number offeatures to make theirTerracotta Warriors show more accessible. They have installed four replica artefacts, along with Braille markings, that peoplecan touch. These include a ding ritual vessel, a kneeling archer, a cavalry soldier and horse, and a dancer. The kneeling archer is of particular interest. The example on display at the ROM has some surviving color – information that will presumably be included in Braille. His armor is also quite detailed as seen in this close-up shot. Each of the warriors has a unique look (scholars believe they were…

  • owenjarus

    ‘Huge’ structure discovered near Snefru’s Bent Pyramid in Egypt may be an ancient harbour

    Archaeologists have discovered a large structure to the northeast of the 4,600 year old Bent Pyramid which may be the remains of an ancient harbour. It connects to one of the pyramids temples by way of a 140 meter long causeway. The discoveries were made by a team from the Cairo department of the German Archaeological Institute, and the Free University of Berlin. The team used magnetic survey and drill cores soundings to make the finds. The structure is mostly unexcavated and only a portion of the causeway has been unearthed. The structure itself is U-shaped, 90 meters by 145…

  • Ann

    History FAQ (Funny Asked Questions)

    It is a well-known rule that search queries which lead people to your website should be dealt with as actual questions depending on the amount of people using the search query, you know that at least one person is interested in the subject (as it comes to sex andnaked belly dancers a lot of people are intrigued). Now, some people actually phrase their search query as a question (remember AskJeeves?) starting with ‘what’, ‘how to’, ‘where’, … .Often these are err.. quite original. Here are my favourites (capitalisation and question marks added where needed) in the categories ‘General (Lack Of)…

  • Ann

    Traces of Lost Language and Decimal Number System Discovered in Peru

    Excavations at a Colonial Period site on the North Coast of Peru have revealed the first traces of a lost language. Sometime in the early 17th century, a Spaniard jotted down some notes on the back of a letter. Four hundred years later, archaeologists dug up and studied the paper, revealing how Peruvian natives used numbers. The find is significant because it offers the first glimpse of a previously unknown language and number system, says Dr. Jeffrey Quilter, director of the archaeological project at Magdalena de Cao Viejoand curator at the Peabody Museum Harvard. It also points to the great…

  • prad

    Kibworth Villagers Dig Up Their Gardens for BBC Four’s “The English Story”

    A BBCFour series presented by historian Michael Wood will be examining “The English Story”, which will be exploring the history of England not through monarchs and aristocrats, but through ordinary people. The programmes will be centred around the old parish of Kibworth, Leicestershire in the heart of England, which has a history rooted in Roman occupation, and found itself on the frontline between the Saxon and Viking territories. The series will explore the people of Kibworth’s past through letters, diaries, censuses, medieval tax rolls and the Domesday Book (Find your own past on the Online Domesday Book here), as well…

  • Ann

    Ancient town discovered at Kharga Oasis was last but one stop on the Forty Days Road

    Archaeologists have stumbled upon what appears to be the remains of a substantial ancient settlement at Umm El-Mawagir in Kharga Oasis, Egypt. Dated to the Second Intermediate Period (1650 to 1550 BC), the newfound city is at least a thousand years older than any of the other major surviving ancient remains in the area. The ancient town lies along the bustling caravan routes connecting the Nile Valley of Egypt and the El-Kharga oasis with points as far as Darfur in western Sudan. The discovery was made by an American-Egyptian archaeological team from Yale University that is systematically searching the area…

  • owenjarus

    ‘Huge’ structure discovered near Snefru’s Bent Pyramid in Egypt may be an ancient harbour

    Archaeologists have discovered a large structure – to the northeast of the 4,600 year old Bent Pyramid – which may be the remains of an ancient harbour.  It connects to one of the pyramid’s temples by way of a 140 meter long causeway. The discoveries were made by a team from the Cairo department of the German Archaeological Institute, and the Free University of Berlin. The team used magnetic survey and drill cores soundings to make the finds. The structure is mostly unexcavated and only a portion of the causeway has been unearthed. The structure itself is U-shaped, 90 meters by…

  • Ann

    Utah Locals Continued Eating Beaver Despite Invention of Early Flour

    Almost 10,000 years ago, in Utahs Escalante Valley, a new recipe was added to the prehistoric cookbook: mush cooked from the flour of milled sage brush seeds.In those times,what else would the early chefs put on your plate..err… rock? Archaeologists from the Brigham Young University are publishing what they’ve learned from five summers of excavations at the ‘North Creek Shelter’. The site,on the northern Colorado Plateau in southern Utah,has been occupied by humans on an off for the past 11,000 years, and is one of the oldest of such archaeological sites in Utah. In the upcoming issue of the journal…