News Round Up

KARABÜK PROVINCE, TURKEY—Hurriyet Daily News reports that a slab of limestone thought to have been engraved some 1,800 years ago has been unearthed at the site of Hadrianopolis in northern Turkey. Ersin Çelikbaş of Karabük University said the woman…

Excavations in Derbyshire have uncovered the remains of a Roman settlement near the fort at Brough. The area is known to have a rich industrial and mining heritage, dating back to at least the Roman period, and it was hoped that the project would…

The assassination of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral on 29 December 1170 changed the course of history. Becket was one of the most powerful figures of his time, serving as royal Chancellor and later as Archbishop of Canterbury. Initially a…

KULUBA, MEXICO—The Guardian reports that a team of archaeologists from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History have unearthed the remains of a six-room palace at the site of Kuluba in northeast Yucatan. The structure stretches some…

BRISTOL, ENGLAND—New research announced by the University of Bristol has shown that Anglo-Saxons used birch bark tar, a technology previously believed to be limited to prehistoric populations. The sticky, water-resistant adhesive was used beginning…

ST. ANDREWS, SCOTLAND—BBC News reports that a magnetic anomaly indicative of a large lightning strike, or many small ones on the same spot, was discovered in the center of a 4,000-year-old stone circle on the Isle of Lewis during a geophysical…

A Bronze Age copper mine in North Wales is likely to have been the site of Britain’s first mining boom, with a ‘golden age’ of production between c.1600 and 1400 BC seeing its copper travel as far as Brittany and the Baltic, new research suggests…

NAVAN FORT, NORTHERN IRELAND—Cardiff University announced that pig bones unearthed at Navan Fort, the legendary capital of the Irish province of Ulster, shows that from the fourth to first centuries B.C. the site’s rulers hosted feasts that drew…

LUXOR, EGYPT—Ahram Online reports that the six-foot-long head and torso of a colossal statue of the falcon-headed god Horus has been unearthed from the hypostyle hall at the funerary temple of Amenhotep III, who ruled Egypt from about 1390 to 1352 B…

TULSA, OKLAHOMA—Live Science reports that Amanda Regnier and Scott Hammerstedt of the University of Oklahoma identified the site of possible mass graves and several smaller burials with ground-penetrating radar in Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Oaklawn Cemetery…

VORONEZH, RUSSIA—According to a statement released by the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, more than 30 iron arrowheads, an iron hook made in the shape of a bird, fragments of a horse harness, iron hooks for hanging…

MEXICO CITY, MEXICO—Reuters reports that David Carballo of Boston University and his colleagues uncovered fragments of murals decorated with images of flowers and singing birds, pieces of jade, a finely carved stone mask, and shells from the Pacific…

ROME, ITALY—The South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology announced that researchers from the Swiss National Science Foundation have examined the bow and quiver found with Ötzi the Iceman, the 5,300-year-old frozen remains of a man discovered by hikers on a…

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN—The Local reports that parts of the hull of a sixteenth-century ship were uncovered in central Stockholm during a construction project. Tree ring analysis of wood samples recovered from the waterlogged soil suggests that the pine…

During the 19th century the art movement of Orientalism reached its height in Europe and North America, particularly influencing the subject matter of paintings by many Western artists. But this artistic movement spread far beyond the confines of…

BANDUNG, INDONESIA—Science News reports that the last surviving Homo erectus individuals lived on the Indonesian island of Java between 108,000 and 117,000 years ago. Geochronologists Yan Rizal of Bandung Institute of Technology and Kira Westaway of…

ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA—Flinders University announced that a Neolithic seawall built to protect a settlement constructed in Israel at about 10 feet above sea level was unable to keep post-glacial sea level rise at bay. The archaeological site, known as…

MEXICO CITY, MEXICO—According to a New York Times report, two iron anchors resembling those made in the sixteenth century have been discovered off the coast of southeastern Mexico. Underwater archaeologists from Mexico’s National Institute of…

Field Archaeology – A 3 day hands-on field-based short course located at The Cairns, one of Orkney’s leading excavations. This three day short course in Field Archaeology from the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) Archaeology Institute…

Almost a century after the discovery of arguably the most-famous pharaoh’s tomb, some of Tutankhamun’s grave goods are on display in London. Lucia Marchini visited to find out more. The post Review – Tutankhamun: treasures of the golden pharaoh…