The main problem in understanding the Bronze Age Collapse is that we don’t really know what happened. This may look like an oversimplification but it is not. It is, instead, the simple truth. Of the four great civilizations that faced disaster in this 12th century BC collapse: the Mycenaean Greeks, the Hittites, the Assyrians and
Remember last week when we reported that the first Egyptian Royal Tomb in a century had been discovered? Well, the team who found the tomb of Thutmose II may just have done it again. Last week Piers Litherland, leader of a team of archaeologists exploring the mountains near the famous Valley of the Kings close
The 18th Dynasty of Egypt was the start of its last golden age as a superpower. Its founder, Ahmose I, rose to control the whole of the Nile, expelling the mysterious semitic Hyksos rulers in the north and freeing Egypt from their rule for the first time in generations. The pharaohs of the 18th Dynasty,
A team of archaeologists and researchers have found something in the valley holding Peru’s, (and South America’s) oldest civilization. A new pyramid has been found in the Supe valley, home to the truly ancient Caral culture, and it may be older than the Great Pyramids of Egypt. The Caral were among the very first civilizations
Archaeologists from the University of Barcelona excavating the ancient Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus have uncovered a cache of mummies dating to the Ptolemaic period. Some of the mummies, which seem to have escaped the attentions of looters down the centuries, have golden tongues. Oxyrhynchus, known today as Al-Bahnasa, has been under excavation since 1992, producing
A new analysis of a vase from ancient Egypt has revealed what we think everyone already knew: ancient Egyptians loved their psychedelics. The vase, fashioned in the likeness of the Egyptian party god Bes, contains a heady cocktail of hallucinogens and other mind-altering substances. The study, headed up by Professor Davide Tanasi of the University
