archaeology

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• 7/18/2021
  

  1920s "Tutmania" and its Enduring Echoes

  by Gill Paul

  A remarkable confluence of events and circumstances launched a cultural mania for ancient Egypt in Britain and the US with the 1922 discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun. 

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• SOURCE: History.com
  7/12/2021
  

  Why the Nile River Was So Important to Ancient Egypt

  Read an overview of the centrality of the river to Egyptian civilization and the history of efforts to harness the life-sustaining and destructive capacity of the Nile. 

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• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  6/29/2021
  

  A Scholarly Screw-Up of Biblical Proportions

  by Ariel Sabar

  The author of a book on the high-profile forgery of papyrus fragments indicating Jesus had a wife discusses how an article based on those fraudulent documents passed peer review. 

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• SOURCE: Smithsonian
  6/14/2021
  

  Is This Florida Island Home to a Long-Lost Native American Settlement?

  The dig is part of the UNF Archaeology Lab’s ongoing Mocama Archaeological Project, which seeks to shed light on the Indigenous people who lived along northern Florida’s coast prior to Europeans’ arrival in the region in 1562.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  5/11/2021
  

  It’s a Golden Age for Chinese Archaeology — And the West is Ignoring It

  by Rowan K. Flad

  Recent discoveries in Egypt have overshadowed more significant finds in China. This may reflect the romanticized popular culture image of colonial-era tomb-raiders, or the prevalent sense that Western civilization is derived from the Mediterranean world. It's time for a broader view of why the ancient world matters. 

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• 5/9/2021
  

  Mudlarking: Searching for Lost Treasure – and History – on the Banks of the Thames

  by Jason Sandy and Nick Stevens

  The Thames River's silty bottom and tidal patterns make its banks a repository of historical artifacts. Today's "mudlarks" have turned the old tradition of scavenging the banks for subsistence into a public archaeology project. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/24/2021
  

  What Doomed a Sprawling City Near St. Louis 1,000 Years Ago?

  New research shows little evidence that the civilization centered around Cahokia in the Mississippi valley caused its own demise by environmental mismanagement, indicating that perhaps "stories of great civilizations seemingly laid low by ecological hubris may say more about our current anxieties and assumptions than the archaeological record."

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/20/2021
  

  What Should Museums Do With the Bones of the Enslaved?

  The Smithsonian is considering how to deal with its natural history collection of human remains, including those of enslaved people. Secretary Lonnie Bunch III suggests that the museum must be guided by the imperative "to honor and remember."

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  4/20/2021
  

  Harriet Tubman's Lost Maryland Home Found, Say Archaeologists

  State archaeologists discovered remains of a cabin that evidence suggests belonged to Ben Ross, and where the woman who would be known as Harriet Tubman lived for a period of time as a child. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/16/2021
  

  Israel Reveals Newly Discovered Fragments of Dead Sea Scrolls

  These are the first new parchment fragments unearthed in Judea in 60 years. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/11/2021
  

  She Was Buried With a Silver Crown. Was She the One Who Held Power?

  The double burial at La Almoloya and other Argaric graves are making archaeologists reconsider life in ancient Iberia. Was she the one wielding the power?

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/25/2021
  

  Searching for Our Urban Future in the Ruins of the Past

  Annalee Newitz's book on lost cities debunks the idea of sudden, catastrophic collapse. But the death of cities does show that humanity is vulnerable to change that makes centuries-old ways of life untenable. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/12/2021
  

  Was Stonehenge a ‘Secondhand’ Monument?

  An archaeology paper recently published points to an excavated circle of stones in Wales as the possible original site of Stonehenge. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/6/2021
  

  In Beleaguered Babylon, Doing Battle Against Time, Water and Modern Civilization

  The ancient city of Babylon is a World Heritage Site, but it faces threats old and new. As some of its walls crumble, preservationists are fighting to preserve the past.

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  1/31/2021
  

  Americans Don’t Know What Urban Collapse Really Looks Like

  by Annalee Newitz

  "Having spent the past several years researching a book about ancient abandoned cities, I’ve come to realize that urban collapse is a modern-day version of an apocalypse prophecy: It’s always lurking just around the corner, seductive and terrifying, but it never quite happens."

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• SOURCE: Smithsonian
  1/21/2021
  

  Archaeologists Unearth Egyptian Queen’s Tomb, 13-Foot ‘Book of the Dead’ Scroll

  For the first time, archaeologists at the Saqqara necropolis have excavated coffins, estimated at 3,000 years old. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  12/9/2020
  

  Lockdown Gardening in Britain Leads to Archaeological Discoveries

  Locked-down Britons have unearthed many potentially valuable objects both modern and ancient, prompting consideration of expanding a law that would enable museums to claim such objects after compensating the finder.

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• SOURCE: The Guardian
  11/30/2020
  

  Campaigners Launch Legal Challenge Over Stonehenge Road Tunnel

  A plan to tunnel underneath the site of Stonehenge to expand a British highway is controversial and reflects different understandings of preservation. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  11/25/2020
  

  Grave Is Found at Site of Historic Black Church in Colonial Williamsburg

  The excavation may have discovered the remains of a Baptist congregation dating to the late 18th century, and may prompt a rethinking of the place of African American history in the open museum of Colonial Williamsburg.

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• SOURCE: CBS News
  11/29/2020
  

  Finding the Last Ship Known to have Brought Enslaved Africans to America and the Descendants of its Survivors

  "The Clotilda was burned and sunk in an Alabama River after bringing 110 imprisoned people across the Atlantic in 1860. Two years ago, its remains were found."