In this issue

Join researchers in the search for lost cities of the ancient world as you travel from Iraq to West Africa and the English Channel to the Black Sea. Trek across the Great Plains in the footsteps of the Wichita, expert bison hunters who constructed forts to secure their homeland. Explore the locales in northern Greece where Alexander the Great spent his youth before he became king. And travel to the Catskill Mountains, where an archaeologist is investigating how construction of New York City’s largest reservoir displaced thousands of rural residents a century ago. In these stories—and so many more—this issue of ARCHAEOLOGY brings the past to life.

A Very Close Encounter

New research has shown that human figures painted in red on a rock art panel in central Montana depict individuals engaged in a life-or-death encounter during an especially fraught historical moment.

1 min

A Sword for the Ages

A zigzag pattern, now tinged with the green-blue patina of oxidized metal, adorns the octagonal hilt of a rare sword dating to the Middle Bronze Age in Germany (1600-1200 B.C.) that was recently excavated in the Bavarian town of Nördlingen.

1 min

Ancient Egyptian Astrology

For centuries, layers of soot have coated the ceilings and columns in the entrance hall of Egypt's Temple of Esna. Now, an Egyptian-German team of researchers, led by Hisham El-Leithy of the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and Christian Leitz of the University of Tübingen, is restoring the temple's vibrant painted reliefs to their original brilliance.

1 min

BRONZE AGE POWER PLAYERS

How Hittite kings forged diplomatic ties with a shadowy Greek city-state

10 mins

When Lions Were King

Across the ancient world, people adopted the big cats as sacred symbols of power and protection

8 mins

UKRAINE'S LOST CAPITAL

In 1708, Peter the Great destroyed Baturyn, a bastion of Cossack independence and culture

10+ mins

A MORE COMFORTABLE RIDE

Although the date is much debated, most scholars believe people 5,000 years ago. For thousands of years after that, they did so without saddles. \"In comparison with horse riding, the development of saddles began relatively late, when riders began to care more about comfort and safety in addition to the horse's health,\" says University of Zurich archaeologist Patrick Wertmann.

1 min

DRAMATIC ENTRANCE

Four miniature terracotta masks found in the Roman city of Jerash in Jordan shed light on its theater district in the second century A.D. Excavators from the University of Jordan unearthed the masks in a doorway of a structure.

1 min

THE ELEPHANT AND THE BUDDHA

While working in the village of Gada Balabhadrapur on the banks of the Daya River in India's state of Odisha, archaeologists unearthed a three-foot-tall sculpture of an elephant dating to the third century B.C., a time when Buddhism flourished in the area.

1 min

An Elegant Enigma

The luxurious possessions of a seventeenth-century woman continue to intrigue researchers a decade after they were retrieved from a shipwreck

7 mins

BIG GAME HUNTING

Archaeologists rarely unearth the remains of large predators such as leopards, lions, and bears. But University of Haifa archaeologist Ron Shimelmitz and his colleagues wondered if, by looking at a large number of sites over thousands of years, they could identify evidence showing that ancient people hunted these fearsome creatures.

1 min

A SURPRISE IN SUDAN

Beneath the ruins of the medieval village of Old Dongola, on the Nile in northern Sudan, a team from the University of Warsaw was surprised to find stone blocks that may date to the time of the pharaoh Taharqo (reigned ca.690-664 B.C.).

1 min

THE PALACE ON TABLET HILL

At the site of the ancient Sumerian city of Girsu A in present-day Tello, in southern Iraq, In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, French archaeologists excavated tens of thousands of cuneiform tablets there.

1 min

BOG TOGS

A piece of fabric found in a Highland peat bog in the early 1980s has now been determined to be the oldest example of true tartan ever located in Scotland.

1 min

LETTER FROM THE AMERICAN SOUTHEAST SPARTANS OF THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI

Unearthing evidence of defiance and resilience in the homeland of the Chickasaw

10+ mins

Peru's Great Urban Experiment

A millennium ago, the Chimú built a new way of life in the vast city of Chan Chan

10+ mins

REUSING THE PAST

Archaeologists discover how an embattled Assyrian king fortified Nineveh

3 mins

LOST ROMAN RESORT

In the Bay of Naples, miles of ruins recall the splendor of ancient imperial holidays

10+ mins

AROUND THE WORLD

Researchers determined that a mastodon living in the Pacific Northwest 13,900 years ago was wounded when it was struck by a spear.

3 mins

A Brush With Genius

An unprecedented find in central China brings to life the early years of a master calligrapher

10+ mins

TURNING SALT INTO GOLD

In the Austrian Alps, generations of miners toiled to extract the ancient world’s most valuable resource

10+ mins

When Isis Was Queen

At the ancient Egyptian temples of Philae, Nubians gave new life to a vanishing religious tradition

10+ mins

ITALIAN MASTER BUILDERS

A 3,500-year-old ritual pool reflects a little-known culture’s agrarian prowess

7 mins

GHOST TRACKS OF WHITE SANDS

Scientists are uncovering fossilized footprints in the New Mexico desert that show how humans and Ice Age animals shared the landscape

10+ mins

GAUL'S UNIVERSITY TOWN

New excavations have revealed the wealth and prestige of an ancient center of learning

9 mins

Digs & Discoveries

Roman marble cutters, anglo-saxon giant, neanderthal hearing… and much more

10+ mins

SECRET RITES OF SAMOTHRACE

Reimagining the experience of initiation into an ancient Greek mystery cult

10+ mins

LAND OF THE PICTS

New excavations reveal the truth behind the legend of these fearsome northern warriors

10+ mins

The Pursuit of Wellness

How the ancients attended to mind, body, and soul

10+ mins

IN THE REIGN OF THE SUN KINGS

Old Kingdom pharaohs faced a reckoning that reshaped Egypt’s balance of power

10+ mins

Read all stories from Archaeology

Archaeology Magazine Description:

Each issue of Archaeology offers the grit, and the magic, of archaeological discovery with an up-close view of sites around the world. Readers can look forward to the latest news, vivid storytelling, and compelling photography. Archaeology brings the human past to life.