ancient-history

DNA from 258 ancient skeletons rewrite the history of the Roman Empire and the Dark Ages

A long-overlooked writing system from 5000 years ago is still largely undeciphered, but could mark the moment humans first represented their speech with written words

Here's something archaeologists don't see every day, or indeed ever: An ancient Egyptian mummy with...

A small, newly uncovered document from ancient Dongola is reshaping what historians know about a little-understood period in Sudan’s past. A small Arabic document found in the ruins of Old Dongola is helping confirm the existence of King Qashqash, a ruler long treated as legendary. The study, published in Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, examines [...]

Researchers discovered an Iliad fragment in a mummy, marking the first literary papyrus used in embalming and offering new evidence of cultural practices in Roman Egypt. More than 1,600 years after it was written, one of the most famous stories in human history has resurfaced in an unexpected place — wrapped around the dead. Archaeologists [...]

The ornately decorated metal bowl was found as part of a hoard containing dozens of pieces of ancient Roman tableware.

A new study of a 2,200-year-old Roman shipwreck reveals that ancient sailors used sophisticated organic coatings to waterproof their vessels. Since the earliest seafaring journeys, people have needed ships that could resist saltwater, stay watertight, and endure damage from marine organisms such as worms. Despite this long history, research into non-wood materials used in ship [...]

Nearly 2,000-year-old artifact handed over by FBI matches piece missing from museum near Rome for decades A nearly 2,000-year-old Roman grave marker discovered in a New Orleans backyard has now been returned to Italy. The marble epitaph – dating back roughly 1,900 years – was officially handed over to Italian officials in Rome on Wednesday during a ceremony led by the FBI. The event also marked …

Researchers discovered an early copy of Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica in Rome which preserves the earliest known poem in English

A new study in PNAS shows how changes in Nile dynamics shaped the landscape and settlement of ancient Nubia. By reconstructing 12,500 years of river behaviour near Jebel Barkal in Sudan, we found that a stable floodplain helped sustain the Kushite capital of Napata for more than a millennium.

It was struck in ancient Troy and buried in Germany centuries before the Romans arrived. What it reveals about the ancient world has experts rethinking the past.

The American Southwest—spanning Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado—is home to one of the world’s most dense concentrations of petroglyphs . Unlike pictographs, which are painted onto the stone, petroglyphs are pecked, carved, or abraded into the "desert varnish" (a dark patina of manganese and iron oxides) to reveal the lighter rock beneath. These images were created by various cultures, inc…

Ink that seeped invisibly between the pages of a dismembered 6th-century manuscript just revealed 42 lost pages of the New Testament.

A genomic analysis of people buried on the border of the ancient Roman Empire show how distinct groups combined after the empire’s fall

Burials from over a millennia ago are revealing how people lived in part of the Roman Empire after it fell.

The Temple of Artemis (the Artemision ) at Ephesus was not just a building; it was an architectural statement of scale and grandeur that earned its place as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Built of solid marble, it was the largest building in the Greek world, four times the size of the Parthenon in Athens. The story of its excavation is as dramatic as its destruction, involving a B…

Nature, Published online: 29 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10437-3 Analysis of 258 ancient genomes from southern Germany reveals a major demographic shift during the late fifth century, yet family structures persisted from Late Roman times, demonstrating cultural continuity despite profound demographic reorganization.

The Varangian Guard was one of the most elite and feared military units in history. Serving as the personal bodyguards to the Byzantine Emperors in Constantinople (the "Queen of Cities"), these Northmen traded the cold fjords of Scandinavia for the golden palaces of the East. Their story is a fascinating blend of archaeology, Norse sagas, and Byzantine court records, detailing how "barbarians" fr…