The dig Rather than one major campaign of excavation, it was the results from a series of interventions over almost half a century, pulled together by Dr D K Absolon, Curator of the Government Museum in Brunn, Czechoslovakia, during the interwar period. This work of synthesis was then widely publicised from the mid-1920s onwards. The [...]
Koldewey at Babylon
January 25, 2013
Filed Under: Issue 57, Great Discoveries, Iraq
The dig The site of Babylon – one of the oldest, richest, and most fabled cities of Antiquity – had attracted a succession of European antiquarian investigators during the 19th century, but it was not until the arrival of a German Oriental Society (Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft) team led by Robert Koldewey (1855-1925) that scientific excavations were [...]
Yadin at Masada
November 23, 2012
Filed Under: Issue 56, Great Discoveries
The dig Ancient historian Josephus records a dramatic end to the Siege of Masada in AD 73. As the final act of the Jewish Revolt of AD 66-73 – the subject of Josephus’s Jewish War – the writer records the mass suicide of 960 men, women, and children. These hardline revolutionaries – the original Zealots [...]
Alva at Huaca Rajada
September 21, 2012
Filed Under: Issue 55, Great Discoveries, Peru
The discovery of an intact Moche royal tomb was like something out of an Indiana Jones movie. A gang of impoverished local looters entered one of three pyramids at Huaca Rajada, Sipan, a major Moche site near the Peruvian coast.
Layard at Nimrud
July 27, 2012
Filed Under: Issue 54, Great Discoveries, Iraq
On an overland ride from England to Ceylon in 1839, Austen Henry Layard became fascinated by the newly emerging archaeology of Mesopotomia (in modern Iraq).
Petrie at Naqada
May 28, 2012
Filed Under: Issue 53, Egypt, Great Discoveries
Flinders Petrie, an established Egyptologist, excavated three prehistoric sites in Egypt for the Egypt Exploration Fund during the 1890s
7 discoveries that changed the archaeological world
April 24, 2012
Filed Under: Great Discoveries, Seven Wonders
7 game-changing finds that captured the archaeological imagination.
Gustafson at Oseberg
March 30, 2012
Filed Under: Issue 52, Great Discoveries, Norway
Gustafson’s excavation had provided an extraordinary window into the material culture and public appearance of the world represented by the Norse Sagas at the beginning of the Viking Age.
Knossos
January 5, 2012
Filed Under: Issue 51, Great Discoveries, Greece
Results of the excavations at Knossos surpassed all expectations. Evans revealed a vast palace complex of Middle Bronze Age date , 1300 rooms connected by a network of corridors…
Troy: Great Excavations
November 5, 2011
Filed Under: Issue 50, Great Discoveries, Turkey
Heinrich Schliemann has been described as ‘the creator of prehistoric Greek archaeology’, but he was an amateur when he took up archaeology aged 46 after making his fortune in business.
Royal Tombs of Ur
September 3, 2011
Filed Under: Issue 49, Great Discoveries, Iraq
From the underground chambers of the Royal Tombs emerged a picture of a civilisation that was at once dazzling and sinister
Peking Man
July 3, 2011
Filed Under: Issue 48, China, Great Discoveries
Peking Man represents the spread of a new species of hominid, Homo erectus, in an earlier ‘Out of Africa’ migration beginning about a million years ago
Abbeville stone tools
May 3, 2011
Filed Under: Issue 47, France, Great Discoveries
The Abbeville tools – in context – proved the antiquity of human beings
Palatine Hill
March 3, 2011
Filed Under: Issue 46, Great Discoveries, Italy
The remains – remarkably unprepossessing amid the spectacular ruins of classical Rome all around – comprise postholes, wall-slots, and drainage gullies, defining three small structures.
Machu Picchu
January 3, 2011
Filed Under: Issue 45, Great Discoveries, Peru
Machu Picchu symbolises the extent, technical skill, and productivity of the Inca Empire in its heyday.
Petra
November 3, 2010
Filed Under: Issue 44, Great Discoveries, Jordan
Before 1812, Petra was one of the ancient world’s ‘lost cities’: it was known from historical references, but the site had not been located on the ground.
Rosetta Stone
September 3, 2010
Filed Under: Issue 43, Egypt, Great Discoveries
How did a slab of black granite become the key to deciphering hieroglyphs
Pompeii
July 3, 2010
Filed Under: Issue 42, Great Discoveries, Italy
We know more about Pompeii than any other Roman town. It is the benchmark, and yet we still have so much to learn…
Akrotiri
May 3, 2010
Filed Under: Issue 41, Great Discoveries, Greece
Akrotiri is an archaeological monument to the rich commerce, connections, and culture of the Middle Bronze Age Mediterranean
Vindolanda Tablets
March 3, 2010
Filed Under: Issue 40, Great Discoveries, UK
In Spring 1973, Robin Birley made the greatest discovery of his life: a small, thin fragment of wood which unfolded to reveal ink-marks…
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