Smart News History & Archaeology

Bogong moths were traditionally ground into pastes or cakes. Pictured here are a single moth (left) and thousands of moths resting on a rock (right).

Cool Finds

Aboriginal Australians Dined on Moths 2,000 Years Ago

The discovery of an ancient grindstone containing traces of the insect confirms long-held Indigenous oral tradition

Enemy combatants likely captured and bound the ruler before delivering a series of fatal blows.

CT Scans Suggest Egyptian Pharaoh Was Brutally Executed on the Battlefield

During the 16th century B.C., multiple Hyksos soldiers assaulted the captive Seqenenre-Taa-II, inflicting serious facial and head injuries

The bronze Cupid figurine carries a flaming torch.

Cool Finds

2,000-Year-Old Figurine of Roman Love God Cupid Found in England

Archaeologists say the petite statue, discovered ahead of construction of highway, may have been a religious offering

This mural—found on the east wall of the south transept in the Augsburg Cathedral—depicts the beheading of St. John the Baptist.

Cool Finds

1,000-Year-Old Bavarian Frescoes Depict Life and Beheading of John the Baptist

The paintings, which adorn the Augsburg Cathedral in southern Germany, are among the oldest of their kind in northern Europe

Rome's Basilica dei Santi Apostoli has housed bones said to belong to St. James and St. Philip since the sixth century A.D.

Bones Venerated as St. James the Younger's Don't Belong to the Apostle, Study Suggests

Researchers dated the femur fragments to between 214 and 340 A.D.—at least 160 years after the saint's lifetime

The brewery “may have been built specifically to supply the royal rituals that were taking place inside the funeral facilities of the kings of Egypt,” says lead archaeologist Matthew Adams.

Cool Finds

World's Oldest 'Industrial-Scale' Brewery Found in Egypt

Located in an ancient necropolis, the 5,000-year-old facility was capable of producing up to 5,900 gallons of beer at a time

The Bayeux Tapestry dramatizes William the Conqueror's victory over Harold Godwinson in 1066.

Explore Every Stitch of the Famed Bayeux Tapestry Online

Viewers can peruse a high-resolution image of the 224-foot medieval masterpiece, which chronicles the 1066 conquest of England

A bell previously recovered from the wreck of the Whydah pirate ship

Cool Finds

Six Skeletons Found in Wreck of 18th-Century Pirate Ship Sunk Off Cape Cod

The "Whydah" sank off the coast of Massachusetts in 1717, killing all but two people on board

Researchers recorded striking similarities between Stonehenge and a razed stone circle at the Waun Mawn archaeological site in Wales.

Cool Finds

How a Stone Circle in Wales Paved the Way for Stonehenge

New research suggests early Britons used megaliths from a dismantled Welsh monument to construct the iconic ring of standing stones

Villa Adriana, or Hadrian's Villa, is a Unesco World Heritage Site in Tivoli, Italy, that spans 200 acres and was built around 210 A.D. by Roman leader Hadrian.

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Discover Ruins of Emperor Hadrian's Ornate Breakfast Chamber

In the second century A.D., the Roman ruler entertained his guests on a raised marble platform surrounded by elaborate fountains

The Covid-19 pandemic has exacted a heavy toll on Native American communities. In this May 2020 image, Navajo elder Emerson Gorman (R) sits with his (L-R) daughter Naiyahnikai, wife Beverly and grandchild Nizhoni near the Navajo Nation town of Steamboat in Arizona.

$1.6 Million Grant Will Support Digitization of Native American Oral Histories

The newly announced funding will help universities make decades-old interviews widely available

Archaeologists are conducting excavations ahead of a controversial tunnel plan set to move this highway, the busy A303, underground.

Newly Unearthed Bronze Age Graves Underscore Stonehenge Tunnel's Potential Threat to Heritage

A critic of the controversial project points out that construction could lead to the loss of half a million artifacts

A number of terracotta heads were found separated from the rest of their bodies.

Cool Finds

2,000-Year-Old Terracotta Figurines of Deities, Mortals, Animals Found in Turkey

Some of the petite sculptures still bear traces of the pigments used to decorate them

The newly discovered face cream represents the earliest known instance of a Chinese man using cosmetics.

Cool Finds

This 2,700-Year-Old Chinese Face Cream Combined Animal Fat and 'Moonmilk'

Researchers found the ancient moisturizer in a nobleman's tomb

Archaeologists uncovered the coins in 2019 but only examined them recently due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Cool Finds

Trove of 650 Coins Bearing Likenesses of Caesar, Mark Antony Unearthed in Turkey

Minted between 75 and 4 B.C., the silver currency was probably buried by a high-ranking Roman soldier during Augustus' reign

Crafted in Venice, these blue beads traveled all the way to northern Alaska in the mid-15th century.

Cool Finds

Venetian Glass Beads May Be Oldest European Artifacts Found in North America

Traders likely transported the small spheres from Italy to northern Alaska in the mid-15th century

Featured in the museum's first temporary exhibition, the Fisk Jubilee Singers introduced spirituals to audiences around the world.

A New Museum in Nashville Chronicles 400 Years of Black Music

The culmination of two decades of planning, the National Museum of African American Music opened its doors last month

Prisoner barracks at the Stutthof concentration camp, pictured here after liberation in May 1945

95-Year-Old Nazi Camp Secretary Charged as Accessory in 10,000 Murders

The woman, identified as Irmgard F., claims she didn't know about the mass murders taking place at Stutthof

Artist Simon Berger created the portrait by strategically hammering cracks into a pane of glass.

Kamala Harris Portrait Draws Inspiration From the Glass Ceiling She Shattered

Artist Simon Berger created the unconventional likeness of the vice president in just one day

Domínguez, who was executed by General Francisco Franco's fascist forces in 1936, was a teacher, writer and political thinker.

Is This the Body of a Woman Mayor Murdered During the Spanish Civil War?

Born into poverty, María Domínguez Remón overcame abuse to fight for women's and workers' rights

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