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© Araldo De Luca -
Letter from Boston
In the Shadow of Bunker Hill
The forgotten lives of the townspeople who lost everything in the early days of the American Revolution
National Gallery of Art -
Features
Tennis, Anyone?
Discovering the origins of the peculiar racket game that swept sixteenth-century France
© Denis Gliksman, Inrap -
Features
The Unexpected World of the Odyssey
Discovering the surprising inspirations behind Homer’s great tales of the Trojan War
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Features
Inside Africa’s Houses of Stone
Archaeologists are rethinking how kings shared power beyond the great capitals of medieval Zimbabwe
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Trending Articles
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Features July/August 2026
Egypt's First Queen
How a trailblazing ruler pulled her realm back from the brink
© Araldo De Luca -
Letter from Jordan November/December 2019
Beyond Petra
After the famous city was deserted, a small village thrived in its shadow
(Ivan Vdovin/Alamy Stock Photo) -
Digs & Discoveries May/June 2019
Cold War Storage
(Courtesy Grzegorz Kiarszys)
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Features May/June 2017
The Wall at the End of the Empire
The long and varied history of life along Hadrian’s Wall
Robert Harding/Alamy
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Features September/October 2021
The Pursuit of Wellness
How the ancients attended to mind, body, and soul
(Brian Jannsen/Alamy Stock Photo) -
Features November/December 2023
China's River of Gold
Excavations in Sichuan Province reveal the lost treasure of an infamous seventeenth-century warlord
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Letter From Albania May/June 2025
The Many Fortresses of Ali Pasha
How a father and son are documenting the architectural legacy of a renegade nineteenth-century warlord
Andronira Burda -
Features November/December 2019
Artists of the Dark Zone
Deciphering Cherokee ritual imagery deep in the caves of the American South
(Alan Cressler)
Around the World
PERU
A newly unearthed enigmatic complex at the ancient coastal settlement of Áspero is believed to be an early astronomical observatory. The site was associated with the Caral culture, one of the oldest civilizations in the Americas, which flourished between 3000 and 1800 b.c. The complex consists of circular stone platforms from which ancient astronomers likely recorded the movements of the sun, moon, and stars. This helped Áspero’s inhabitants anticipate seasonal changes, plan fishing trips, and manage coastal resources.
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SENEGAL
One of the oldest and best-preserved metalworking sites in West Africa recently provided new clues regarding the origin and spread of iron technology in the region. Archaeologists uncovered the remnants of 25 furnaces, 30 tuyeres, or air nozzles, and one ton of metal slag at eastern Senegal’s site of Didé West 1. The workshop likely produced agricultural tools used by local people between 400 b.c. and a.d. 400. Didé West 1’s 800-year history is noteworthy, as similar sites were typically occupied for only a few generations.
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GREECE
After Lord Elgin set sail for Britain from Greece in 1802 in a ship laden with sculptures from the Parthenon, the artworks were nearly lost forever. Elgin’s ship, Mentor, sank off the island of Kythera, sending the sculptures to the seafloor. Divers salvaged most of the items, but some of Mentor’s cargo has remained submerged. Archaeologists recently retrieved a small piece of decorative marble at the wreck site. It likely came from a relief located above one of the Parthenon’s columns.