A historic coin that dates back more than 700 years has been excavated at an archaeological dig.
Members of the Sussex Archaeological Society unearthed an Edward I silver farthing during the Battle of Lewes metal detecting survey on Sunday, May 19.
The oval-shaped silver farthing measures 12mm by 10mm and dates back to around 1300 to 1310.
Because the coin was issued during the transition between the last years of Edward I’s reign and the start of Edward II’s reign, researchers initially struggled to attribute it to the correct king.
But by using special identification techniques, like assessing what type of crown the king was wearing and the style of lettering on the coin’s inscriptions, experts believe the coin dates from the last seven years of Edward I’s reign, from 1300 to 1307. Read more.
A team of visiting archaeologists from New York’s University of Rochester returns to Smith’s Island this summer hoping to uncover artifacts associated with Bermuda’s first three permanent residents as well as enslaved 17th century Native Americans and Africans.
Headed by Dr. Michael Jarvis and working on Smith’s Island since 2010, the team believes they may have identified the precise location where the “Three Kings of Bermuda” — Christopher Carter, Edward Waters and Edward Chard — lived between 1610 and 1612.
The 61 acre island is located near the northern entrance to St. George’s Harbour and has long been known to have been the site of Bermuda’s first permanent settlement, with Carter, Waters and Chard building rough cabins there. Read more.
Archaeologists in Mexico have found 4,926 well-preserved cave paintings in the north-eastern region of Burgos.
The images in red, yellow, black and white depict humans, animals and insects, as well as skyscapes and abstract scenes.
The paintings were found in 11 different sites - but the walls of one cave were covered with 1,550 scenes.
The area in which they were found was previously thought not to have been inhabited by ancient cultures.
The paintings suggest that at least three groups of hunter-gatherers dwelled in the San Carlos mountain range. Read more.
Anthropologists have discovered a beautiful Greek waterfront paradise once inhabited by generations of Neanderthals up to 100,000 years ago, according to a new study.
This particular population was based at what is known as The Kalamakia Middle Paleolithic Cave site on the Mani peninsula of southern Greece.
Previously, only one other Neanderthal tooth suggested that the now-extinct hominids settled in Greece.
Katerina Harvati, head of paleoanthropology at the University of Tübingen’s Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironments, studied the remains and identified multiple Neanderthals representing a child, a teen and both male and female adults. It is unclear if all were related. Read more.
Villagers installing a water pipe in southwestern Mexico stumbled onto an ancient granite statue depicting a player from a pre-Hispanic ball game, the national anthropology institute said Monday.
The stone had been sliced at the neck, like a decapitation, and buried in a ritual that was common at the time, the National Anthropologyand History Institute said in a statement.
There are indications that the 1.65-meter (5-foot-4) tall statue, which depicts a bow-legged ballplayer with his arms crossed, was built onto an I-shaped ball game field before it was buried and could be more than 1,000 years old.
Excavations at an archaeological site in Bahrain are shedding light on one of the oldest trading civilisations.
Despite its antiquity, comparatively little is known about the advanced culture represented at Saar.
The site in Bahrain, thought to be the location of the enigmatic Dilmun civilisation, was recently discussed at a conference in Manama, the Gulf nation’s capital, organised by the UN’s educational, scientific and cultural body (Unesco).
The meeting was devoted to wide-ranging debate on heritage tourism; Bahrain is a Unesco regional headquarters and one of its key attractions is an abundance of ancient sites. Read more.
The long-reigning king of Egyptian antiquities has been forced into exile—but he’s plotting a return
Zahi Hawass doesn’t like what he’s seeing. Clad in his familiar denim safari suit and wide-brimmed bush hat, the famed archaeologist is standing inside the burial vault of the Step Pyramid of Djoser, a six-tiered, lopsided mound of limestone blocks constructed nearly 5,000 years ago. The huge, gloomy space is filled with scaffolding. A restoration and conservation project, at Saqqara outside Cairo, initiated by Hawass in 2002, has been shoring up the sagging ceiling and walls and staving off collapse.
But the February 2011 revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak—and also ended Hawass’ controversial reign as the supreme chief of all Egypt’s antiquities—is now threatening to unravel Hawass’ legacy as well. With tourists nearly gone, funds dried up and the Ministry of Antiquities leadership reshuffled several times in the past two years, preservation work on the pyramid has ground to a near halt. Read more.
Half a millennium ago, in 1513, the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León departed Puerto Rico for the verdant island of “Bimini”—an uncharted land in what is now the Bahamas. He eventually landed instead in Florida, where he staked a claim for the Spanish Crown and ensured himself a spot in the annals of history.
As legend has it , and as scholars have maintained for centuries, Ponce was in search of the Fountain of Youth, a fabled wellspring thought to give everlasting life to whoever bathed in or drank from it. But new scholarship contradicts the old fable and suggests that Ponce was interested not in longevity but political gain.
The real story goes something like this: In 1511, messy political squabbling forced Ponce to surrender the governorship of Puerto Rico, an appointment he had held since 1509. As a consolation prize, King Ferdinand offered him Bimini, assuming the stalwart conquistador could finance an expedition and actually find it. Read more.
