May/June 2022

ARCHAEOLOGY

ARCHAEOLOGY magazine brings the ancient world to life.

ARCHAEOLOGY2 min read
Archaeology
Editor in Chief Jarrett A. Lobell Deputy Editor Eric A. Powell Senior Editor Benjamin Leonard Executive Editor Daniel Weiss Associate Editor Marley Brown Editorial Assistant Malin Grunberg Banyasz Creative Director Richard Bleiweiss Maps Ken Feisel C
ARCHAEOLOGY3 min read
Cradle Of The Graves
When the skeletal remains of more than a dozen hominins were first uncovered in the Dinaledi chamber of South Africa’s Rising Star cave system in 2013, researchers believed they had discovered a species that lived around two million years ago. The sp
ARCHAEOLOGY1 min read
Canyon Of The Ancestors
Inhabited as a colonial city by Macedonian soldiers in the third century B.c., the hilltop settlement of Blaundos in western Anatolia is surrounded by a deep canyon on all sides into which its inhabitants carved hundreds of burial chambers. Although
ARCHAEOLOGY2 min read
Kunga Power
Domesticated horses are thought to have arrived in Mesopotamia around 2000 B.c., but before then, Sumerian scribes wrote of another type of equid, the family that includes horses, donkeys, and zebras. These animals were used to pull war wagons in bat
ARCHAEOLOGY1 min read
Golden Lucky Charms
A cache of 41 concave Celtic gold coins has been discovered in the state of Brandenburg in northeastern Germany. The coins have no markings, but numismatist Marjanko Pileki? of the Schloss Friedenstein Gotha Foundation estimates they were minted betw
ARCHAEOLOGY2 min read
Pottery’s Family Tree
Pots are likely the most plentiful and often the most illuminating artifacts an archaeologist will find while in the field. Once pottery-making technology had been developed, wherever ancient people lived they left behind pots—or at least sherds from
ARCHAEOLOGY1 min read
Membership Has Its Privileges
In a valley in Siberia’s Tuva region, archaeologists have discovered a large wooden barrow containing the skeletons of a woman and a young child who were buried around 2,500 years ago with a set of intriguing artifacts. The deceased belonged to the A
ARCHAEOLOGY1 min read
First Falconer
Archaeologists in Oslo have unearthed a three-inch-tall wooden figurine depicting a crowned figure with a falcon perched on its right arm. Based on the figurine’s clothing and hairstyle, it has been dated to the mid-thirteenth century, making it amon
ARCHAEOLOGY1 min read
Saving Seats
While excavating the Roman amphitheater in western Anatolia’s ancient city of Pergamon, researchers from the German Archaeological Institute (DAI), the Technical University of Berlin, and the University of Zurich uncovered two blocks of seats inscrib
ARCHAEOLOGY1 min readWorld
Dragon Fire-eater
Korean archaeologists have unearthed a dragon-shaped roof tile measuring more than three feet tall and weighing more than 265 pounds from a beach in South Korea’s Taean County. The tile is believed to date to the early part of the Joseon Dynasty (139
ARCHAEOLOGY2 min read
Together Forever
During excavations at the necropolis of Abusir, Egyptologists discovered an unusual funerary monument embedded in an Old Kingdom mudbrick mastaba tomb dating to the 4th Dynasty (ca. 2575–2465 B.c.). The recently uncovered stela, however, dates to the
ARCHAEOLOGY2 min read
San Pedro De Atacama, Chile
As a central base camp for travelers who want to explore Chile’s Atacama Desert, San Pedro de Atacama is a literal oasis in one of the driest regions on Earth. The town is home to the Atacameños, an Indigenous people who first settled the area 3,000
ARCHAEOLOGY2 min read
An Urgent Need
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a vivid reminder of the devastating effects of war. In times of conflict, safeguarding human lives and human rights must take top priority. Protecting heritage is also critical, though, because heritage represents t
ARCHAEOLOGY3 min read
Around The World
FLORIDA: When conservators cleaned an encrusted button found in a 1782 shipwreck off the coast of St. Augustine, they were stunned by the 3 letters it displayed: USA. That might not ordinarily have caused surprise, but experts knew that when the ship
ARCHAEOLOGY12 min read
Secrets Of Scotland’s Viking Age Hoard
WHEN IT COMES TO Viking hoards, archaeologists know to expect the unexpected. Hundreds of these caches containing tens of thousands of objects that were hidden for safekeeping and never reunited with their erstwhile owners have been found buried bene
ARCHAEOLOGY1 min read
A Golden Bird
Among the Galloway Hoard’s many surprises was a trio of rare gold objects that had been placed in a wooden box and concealed within a cluster of four silver Viking arm rings. This mini-hoard consisted of an ingot, a ring, and a finely crafted bird-sh
ARCHAEOLOGY7 min read
Fit for Fighting
AT ITS HEIGHT IN THE seventh century B.C., the vast Neo-Assyrian Empire extended from Egypt through the Levant and Mesopotamia to the northern reaches of Anatolia and into Asia Minor. To control this domain, the Neo-Assyrians relied on highly skilled
ARCHAEOLOGY9 min read
The World of Egyptian Demons
THE PANTHEON OF EGYPTIAN GODS is filled with mighty human-animal hybrid deities such as Horus, the falcon-headed god of kingship; Anubis, the jackal-headed god of mummification; and the warrior goddess Sekhmet, a divine lioness who possessed healing
ARCHAEOLOGY8 min read
To Live And Die in Pompeii
AT THE TIME POMPEII was buried by the A.D. 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius, it was a bustling, cosmopolitan Roman city. Sitting at the crossroads of major regional arteries, it was a commercial hub with a mixed population that included descendants of G
ARCHAEOLOGY11 min read
Pottery’s Origin Stories
UNTIL RECENTLY, MANY scholars believed that the earliest pottery was made some 9,000 years ago, when Neolithic peoples in the Near East first settled down permanently and turned to farming. Archaeologists thought that pots were initially used to cook
ARCHAEOLOGY1 min read
Uncovering Pylos
The AIA has created Uncovering Pylos, a special publication highlighting the history and archaeology of this ancient site. To receive your copy of Uncovering Pylos, make a $25 donation to the Annual Fund. Go to archaeological.org/donate Or, please se
ARCHAEOLOGY12 min read
California’s Coastal Homelands
In the shade of a ground-floor parking deck inside a campus garage, Santa Clara University archaeologist Lee Panich points out a dark rectangle etched into the gray concrete surface. It marks the foundation of an adobe structure, one of the few physi
ARCHAEOLOGY2 min read
Photo Credits
COVER—Courtesy National Museums Scotland; 1—Courtesy Llorenc Alapont; 3—(clockwise from top left) Blaundus Excavation Archive, Photo Petr Košarek, ⓒ Faculty of Arts, Czech Institute of Egyptology, Charles University, Courtesy Łukasz Oleszczak, Photo:
ARCHAEOLOGY4 min read
Archaeocon 2022: From Maya Murals To Shipwrecks
archaeological.org EXCAVATE ■ EDUCATE ■ ADVOCATE Almost 800 archaeology enthusiasts spent Saturday, March 5, taking part in ArchaeoCon—an annual public outreach program from the AIA celebrating archaeology and archaeologists. This was our fourth Arch
ARCHAEOLOGY2 min read
Artifact
Many cultures, ancient and modern, have imagined magic as a supernatural art performed by specialists who undergo mysterious training. But for the ancient Greeks, magic consisted of a number of common rituals practiced by men and women from all socia
ARCHAEOLOGY2 min read
From Our Readers
There are many advantages to smaller horses (Around the World: England, March/April 2022). Faster mounting and dismounting are important in battle and much easier on a small steed. Better clearance while charging through woods is of prime concern whe

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