In 2021, during excavations at the Amiens-Renancourt site in northern France, a group of archaeologists discovered something extraordinary: the carved head of a woman with a detailed face and an elaborate hairstyle or headdress, sculpted about 27,000 years ago. The piece, which belongs to the Gravettian culture, one of the oldest in Europe, is an […]
Art
Posted inArt, Travel
The Keyhole That Lets You See Three Countries in a Line from the Aventine Hill in Rome
Hidden on the peaceful Aventine Hill in Rome lies one of the city’s most curious and popular attractions: a simple keyhole. But what lies beyond this ordinary keyhole is what makes it so extraordinary. The keyhole is part of the Villa of the Priory of Malta, one of the two institutional headquarters of the Sovereign […]
Posted inArt, Prehistory
Shakōkidogū, the Enigmatic Humanoid Figurines with Glasses from Prehistoric Japan
From the late prehistoric Jōmon culture in Japan, which extends approximately from 14,000 to 400 BCE, numerous small humanoid figurines have been found, known as dogū (literally, clay figure). They have been discovered throughout the country except in Okinawa Prefecture, and they all share a similar style, ranging in size from 10 to 30 centimeters, […]
Posted inArt, Stone Age Archaeology
Enigmatic Stone Alignments of Carnac Revealed as the Oldest Megalithic Monuments in Europe
The mysterious stone alignments of the Carnac region in Brittany, France, are, along with Stonehenge, Menga, and the megalithic temples of Malta, among the most iconic prehistoric monuments in Europe. Now, for the first time, a team of researchers has succeeded in precisely dating part of these formations and shedding new light on their possible […]
Posted inArt, Prehistory
The Prehistoric Stepped Pyramid of Monte d’Accoddi in Sardinia, Built a Millennium Before Egypt’s Pyramids
In 1954, a curious structure was discovered in the northwest of the island of Sardinia, near the town of Porto Torres: a massive stone platform whose oldest parts date from around 4000–3650 BCE, that is, earlier than, for example, Stonehenge, and approximately a thousand years older than the pyramids of Egypt. Not surprisingly, it is […]
Posted inArt, Iron Age Archaeology
A Mysterious Carpetani Relief Rewrites the History of the Iberian Peninsula in the Iron Age
A team of archaeologists reexamined the findings from the El Cerrón site in Illescas (Toledo, Spain) and found that the local elite of ancient Carpetania (the territory of the ancient Carpetani in the southern plateau of the Iberian Peninsula) was not as marginal as previously thought. A terracotta relief decorated with Mediterranean motifs, found at […]
Posted inArt, Classical Archaeology
Three Exceptional Roman Mosaics Discovered Near the Ancient Ovilava in Austria
A team of archaeologists from OÖ Landes-Kultur GmbH and the University of Salzburg discovered three exceptionally well-preserved Roman mosaics during the excavations of a building complex of more than one thousand square meters near the site of the ancient Roman city of Ovilava, present-day Wels in Austria. The excavation, which began in 2023, has revealed […]
Posted inArt, Medieval Archaeology
Pregnant Viking Women Were Depicted with Weapons, Study Reveals
A team of researchers from the Universities of Nottingham and Leicester has conducted the first study on motherhood in the Viking Age, discovering that pregnant women were depicted in art and literature with martial equipment, while newborns entered a hostile world where they did not always receive a burial and, in some cases, were not […]
Posted inArt, Iron Age Archaeology
The Giants of Mont’e Prama, Iron Age sculptures found in Sardinia, could represent people with acromegaly
The Giants of Mont’e Prama are enormous sculptures between two and two and a half meters tall created by the Nuragic civilization that inhabited the island of Sardinia between the 18th and 2nd centuries BCE. The first were found in a necropolis in the municipality of Cabras in 1974, where more have continued to be […]
Posted inAncient Greece, Art
The Mystery of the Parthenon’s Interior Lighting System in Antiquity Revealed
The Parthenon temple on the Acropolis of Athens housed a colossal statue made of gold and ivory, carved by the famous sculptor Phidias in 438 BC. Its view from the entrance of the temple must have been impressive, but this was also enhanced by a carefully designed lighting system and effects that included complex openings […]
