CATEGORIES

GHOST TRACKS OF WHITE SANDS

Scientists are uncovering fossilized footprints in the New Mexico desert that show how humans and Ice Age animals shared the landscape

GAUL'S UNIVERSITY TOWN

New excavations have revealed the wealth and prestige of an ancient center of learning

Who Were The Samaritans?

Investigating a once-powerful sect that has preserved its sacred traditions for millennia

Digs & Discoveries

Roman marble cutters, anglo-saxon giant, neanderthal hearing… and much more

SECRET RITES OF SAMOTHRACE

Reimagining the experience of initiation into an ancient Greek mystery cult

LAND OF THE PICTS

New excavations reveal the truth behind the legend of these fearsome northern warriors

The Pursuit of Wellness

How the ancients attended to mind, body, and soul

THE EQUESTRIAN'S CAVE

Recent discoveries in western Mongolia suggest that nomadic horsemen may have invented a revolutionary technology

THE PRICE OF PURPLE

Archaeologists have found new evidence of a robust dye industry that endured on the Mediterranean coast for millennia

IN THE REIGN OF THE SUN KINGS

Old Kingdom pharaohs faced a reckoning that reshaped Egypt’s balance of power

WEAVING FOR THEIR ANCESTORS

For 1,000 years, the Paracas people of Peru expressed their vivid conception of life and death through textiles

The Great Wall of Mongolia

A nomadic medieval dynasty constructed a 450-mile barrier to help manage their sprawling empire

CANADA'S FORGOTTEN CAPITAL

Beneath the streets of Old Montreal, the rubble of a short-lived Parliament building offers a glimpse into a young country’s growing pains

Anubian Kingdom Rises

Excavations at a city on the Nile reveal the origins of an ancient African power

A Rare Egg

Egyptian ostrich egg perfume case

WALKING INTO NEW WORLDS

Native traditions and novel discoveries tell the migration story of the ancestors of the Navajo and Apache

Wealth of a Medieval Power Broker

In England’s far northeast, a commanding bishop built a chapel rivaling the grandest in Europe

SOUTH AFRICA'S FATEFUL SHIPWRECK

A seventeenth-century vessel foundered off the coast and transformed a nation’s history

SIBERIAN ISLAND ENIGMA

It’s hard to imagine that a tiny tree ring could help solve one of the medieval world’s most puzzling mysteries.

RESISTING ROME

How a Celtic tribe fought to defend their Iberian homeland against the emperor’s legions

MOUSE IN THE HOUSE

Mice may have begun infesting European homes at least 2,500 years earlier than previously known.

INSIDE THE ROCK'S SURPRISING HISTORY

Before it was an infamous prison, Fort Alcatraz played a key role defending the West Coast

CLOSING IN ON A PHARAOH'S TOMB

Archaeologists excavating in the Egyptian royal necropolis of Deir el-Bahari, on the west bank of the Nile, believe they have found the long-sought location of the tomb of the early 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Thutmose II (r. ca. 1492–1479 b.c.).

A Sylk Road Renaissance

Excavations in Tajikistan have unveiled a city of merchant princes that flourished from the fifth to the eighth century A.D.

LETTER FROM NORMANDY: THE LEGACY OF THE LONGEST DAY

More than 75 years after D-Day, the Allied invasion’s impact on the French landscape is still not fully understood

Idol of the Painted Temple

On Peru’s central coast, an ornately carved totem was venerated across centuries of upheaval and conquest

THE EMPEROR OF STONES

In the language of the Vikings, Old Norse, rök means “monolith,” and no other runestone stands out from its peers in more ways than Sweden’s Rök.

HAGIA SOPHIA'S HIDDEN HISTORY

Unprecedented fieldwork in Istanbul has revealed new evidence of the cathedral at the heart of the Byzantine Empire

THE POWER OF SECRET SOCIETIES

Clandestine groups throughout history have used shadowy rituals to control the world around them

A Path To Freedom

At a Union Army camp in Kentucky, enslaved men, women, and children struggled for their lives and fought to be free