• Assyrian Tablets Contain Earliest Written Record of Aurora’s Sky Glow
Carved references to an aurora predate known records by nearly a century.
Carved references to an aurora predate known records by nearly a century.
Gladiators may have frequented the ancient tavern where the fresco was found.
An aerial view of Kemune Palace from the west, near the Tigris River in Iraq.Credit: University of Tübingen/eScience Center/Kurdistan Archaeology OrganizationWhen a drought dried up the water in Iraq’s Mosul Dam reservoir, it exposed ruins from an ancient
Qingbai ceramics from the Field Museum's Java Sea Shipwreck collection.Credit: Copyright The Field Museum. Photo by Kate GolembiewskiScientists just blasted pottery from an ancient shipwreck with a "ray gun." Besides being totally sci-fi, the X-
Roman historians accused Nero of deliberately setting the Great Fire of Rome so that he could rebuild the city in a more pleasing style.Credit: Photographer Helmut Wimmer/Copyright Interspot Film GmbHWas the infamously cruelNeroreally as terrible an emper
Climate change trashed the Byzantine Empire, ancient garbage mounds revealed.Credit: ShutterstockAbout a century before the fall of the Byzantine Empire — the eastern portion of the vast Roman Empire — signs of its impending doom were written in garbage.A
Roman relief of a chariot race and spectators, from the Vatican Museum's collection.Credit: CM Dixon/Print Collector/GettyDuring the first century, people across Rome were obsessed with chariot races, which frequently produced horrific crashes.However, on
A schoolchild's homework in Greek was written on a wax tablet nearly 2,000 years ago.Credit: Copyright British Library BoardHomework written by a school kid in ancient Egypt has been preserved since the second century A.D. And the words on the slab may so
By mapping historical spy-satellite images to recent aerial photos, researchers can find historical sites that vanished decades ago.Credit: Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies, University of ArkansasWhen the United States launched its first secret &q
A preserved painting shows the clearing of the site of Capitolias, with the assistance of Dionysus and other gods.Credit: Copyright CNRS HiSoMAIn an ancient Roman tomb that was recently discovered in Jordan, a colorful mural offers a comics-like glimpse o
"You are the stench of a low-life latrine," said one irate character to another in the ancient Roman novel "The Metamorphoses," written by Apuleius in the late second century A.D.Credit: ShutterstockAre ugly accusations and verbal abus
A bronze right arm, preserved from the shoulder to the fingers, was recently recovered from the Antikythera shipwreck. (Brett Seymour/EUA/ARGO)A graceful bronze arm that was once attached to a statue dating to the first century was recently recovered from
Researchers offer a new angle on interpreting mathematical inscriptions on a very old tablet.Credit: UNSWScientists recently decoded a clay tablet from ancient Babylonia that dates to around 3,700 years ago, and found that it contains the oldest trigonome
About 1,400 years ago in Israel, a bag holding nine bronze coins was carefully hidden inside a niche in a building's wall. Untouched since then, the coin cache recently emerged during excavations for a highway expansion near Ein Hemed, a national park loc
Cambodia's ancient stone city of Angkor is a remnant of the Khmer Empire, dating between the 9th and 15th centuries. But even stone crumbles over time, and scientists are investigating what may have led to significant degradation of the remains of Angkor'
Marble statues of Aphrodite/Venus found at Petra in Jordan date to the second century.Credit: Tom ParkerTwo marble statues representing Aphrodite/Venus, the Greco-Roman goddess of love, were found recently at Petra, an ancient desert city in Jordan.The st
An unusually delicate pair of artifacts recently emerged from a dig site in the United Kingdom: a tiny ball of thread and another length of thread wound around a bobbin. Both are estimated to be approximately 3,000 years old.