July/August 2024

ARCHAEOLOGY

ARCHAEOLOGY magazine brings the ancient world to life.

ARCHAEOLOGY2 min read
Cycles Of Time
Human history doesn’t travel in a straight line but moves through cycle after cycle—of birth and death, boom and bust, rise and fall. In this issue, you will encounter stories about the different ways people of the past experienced these inevitable c
ARCHAEOLOGY2 min read
Archaeology
Editor in Chief Jarrett A. Lobell Deputy Editor Eric A. Powell Executive Editor Daniel Weiss Senior Editors Ilana Herzig Benjamin Leonard Editorial Assistant Malin Grunberg Banyasz Creative Director Richard Bleiweiss Maps Ken Feisel Contributing Ed
ARCHAEOLOGY2 min read
The Science Of Archaeology
This summer, I’ll be returning to Sicily to study the late Roman shipwreck at Marzamemi, the remnants of a vessel that carried 100 tons of marble columns, column bases, and capitals bound from the quarries of Proconnesus in Turkey to build a church i
ARCHAEOLOGY2 min read
From Our Readers
The article “High Priestesses of Copper Age Spain” in the May/June 2024 issue, which describes details of the burial of the Ivory Lady around 4,800 years ago, with its elaborate offerings and grave goods, was fascinating. The caption of the photo on
ARCHAEOLOGY3 min read
DIGS & DISCOVERIES
The smallest artifacts can sometimes reveal surprisingly distant connections. In 2015, archaeologists began excavating one of England’s most intriguing sites, the British Bronze Age (2500–800 B.C.) settlement known as Must Farm. This village of perha
ARCHAEOLOGY1 min read
Rubber Ball Recipe
Rubber was an essential material for many people of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, who used it to make objects such as sandals and rubber bands. However, it is perhaps best known as the material used to create the balls that were the centerpieces of well
ARCHAEOLOGY1 min read
Black Magic Seeds
Archaeologists working at the site of Houten-Castellum in the Netherlands uncovered the first conclusive evidence that Romans collected seeds from the black henbane plant, a toxic member of the night-shade family. Several Greek and Roman sources, inc
ARCHAEOLOGY1 min read
A Friend For Hercules
While digging at the crossroads of the two main streets in the ancient city of Philippi in northern Greece, archaeologists discovered a finely carved head W depicting Apollo, god of the sun, music, and poetry. While the sculpture was carved in the se
ARCHAEOLOGY1 min read
Sticking Their Necks Out
The world’s tallest mammals—and perhaps the most improbably proportioned animals on the planet—giraffes have always fascinated those lucky enough to see one. Archaeologist Loretta Kilroe of the British Museum has studied giraffe motifs in the art of
ARCHAEOLOGY1 min read
From The Horse’s Mouth
Analysis of teeth from an unusual horse burial ground in London offers a glimpse into the international trade in elite horses in the late 1400s and early 1500s. The robustness of the horses’ remains, along with the pattern of dental wear from bits th
ARCHAEOLOGY1 min read
A Fortress Sanctuary
A sprawling 2,000-year-old fortress in the Zagros Mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan appears to have included a sanctuary dedicated to the ancient Persian water goddess Anahita. The fortress of Rabana-Merquly stretched across some two miles of rugged terra
ARCHAEOLOGY1 min read
Medical Malfeasance
Archaeologists uncovered two coffins during excavations of a nineteenth-century cemetery in Quebec City that provide evidence of the illicit practice of diverting corpses for the study of human anatomy. One of the coffins contained two large logs on
ARCHAEOLOGY1 min read
Neolithic Piercings
At Boncuklu Tarla, or Beaded Field, a Neolithic site in southeast Turkey, an astounding 100,000 personal ornaments made of stone and shell have been unearthed since 2012. These include necklaces, pendants, and bracelets, as well as a range of small i
ARCHAEOLOGY1 min read
The Song In The Stone
Located in a desert gorge in southern Peru, Toro Muerto is one of the richest rock art sites in South America. It includes at least 2,600 boulders bearing petroglyphs, many featuring figures known as danzantes who appear to be dancing. On at least 30
ARCHAEOLOGY1 min read
Like Cats And Dogs
On the periphery of Zamárdi, an ancient lakeshore settlement in west-central Hungary, archaeologists uncovered a nearly five-foot-deep beehive-shaped pit with the skeletons of four adult dogs buried in successive shallow layers. Stretched out at the
ARCHAEOLOGY2 min read
Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park, California
Near a summit in the heart of California’s Santa Ynez Mountains, Chumash Painted Cave, or ’alaxulux’en, features rock art created over centuries by the Chumash. The cave now lies within Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park, which was established
ARCHAEOLOGY3 min read
Around The World
VIRGINIA: Did George Washington chop down the cherry tree to make a popular 18th-century beverage? While working on a project to revitalize Washington’s home, Mount Vernon, archaeologists found a pair of sealed glass bottles in the cellar with their
ARCHAEOLOGY9 min read
A Dynasty Born in Fire
A SINGULAR EVENT took place at the beginning of the ninth century A.D. that must have stunned the residents of the Maya city of Ucanal, capital of the K’anwitznal Kingdom, in northern Guatemala’s Petén region. Their new ruler, Papmalil, presided over
ARCHAEOLOGY8 min read
Java’s Megalithic Mountain
ON AN EXTINCT VOLCANO in western Java, five artificial terraces are cut into a promontory known as Gunung Padang, or Mountain of Enlightenment. The terraces are buttressed with stone retaining walls and can be reached from the valley below via a stai
ARCHAEOLOGY13 min read
The Assyrian Renaissance
ARCHAEOLOGISTS DIDN’T KNOW what to expect when they began searching for a 2,700-year-old Assyrian sculpture that had last been seen decades before. First documented in the nineteenth century and excavated in the early 1990s, the massive statue was su
ARCHAEOLOGY3 min read
Royal Bibliophile
While working at the newly rediscovered site of Nineveh in northern Iraq in 1850, a team directed by Assyriologist Austen Henry Layard was exploring the ruins of a Neo-Assyrian (ca. 883–609 B.C.) palace built sometime after 700 B.C. when they came ac
ARCHAEOLOGY9 min read
Making a Roman Emperor
Trajan (A.D. 98–117) Hadrian (A.D. 117–138) Antoninus Pius (A.D. 138–161) Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 161–180) Commodus (A.D. 177–192) Pertinax (A.D. 193) Septimius Severus (A.D. 193–211) Caracalla (A.D. 198–217) Macrinus (A.D. 217–218) IN THE EARLY SECO
ARCHAEOLOGY10 min read
Rise And Fall Of Tiwanaku
AROUND A.D. 600, migrants from across the southern Andes were drawn to a city just south of Bolivia’s Lake Titicaca, the world’s highest large lake, at 13,000 feet above sea level. Founded in A.D. 150, Tiwanaku—a name possibly based on the local Ayma
ARCHAEOLOGY12 min read
A West African Kingdom’s Roots
When visitors arrive at Benin Airport in southern Nigeria’s Edo State, one of the first things they see is a large poster welcoming them to the state’s capital city. It features an aerial photograph of a huge traffic circle—one of the world’s largest
ARCHAEOLOGY1 min read
ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE of AMERICA
At the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA), we believe that archaeology has the power to provide a better understanding of the past, that it is relevant to the present, and that it can influence the future in a positive way. The AIA provides a
ARCHAEOLOGY1 min read
From The Field
Kaja Tally-Schumacher of Cornell University, winner of an AIA Ellen and Charles Steinmetz Endowment for Archaeology grant, will work with colleagues from the Casa della Regina Carolina Project at Pompeii to create a 3-D virtual model of this Roman ho
ARCHAEOLOGY2 min read
Photo Credits
COVER—© The Trustees of the British Museum/Art Resource, NY; 1—Photo by Andrzej Rozwadowski, Archive of Toro Muerto Archaeological Project; 3—(clockwise, from top left) Photo by Andrzej Rozwadowski, Archive of Toro Muerto Archaeological Project; Phot
ARCHAEOLOGY2 min read
Artifact
For the nearly two centuries since this Etruscan oil lamp was found near the city of Cortona, Italy, it has confounded scholars. It was unearthed in a ditch, so its original context is unknown. And its combination of imagery is unique in the ancient

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