July/August 2026 Issue

Slideshow: A Tennis-Crazed Land

All you needed to play was a ball, a net, and a couple of friends. Jeu de paume, or “game of the palm,” first became a popular diversion in western Europe during the thirteenth century, and the French got hooked. By the late sixteenth century, everyone played paume, the ancestor of modern tennis—kings and commoners, laypeople and clergy, women and men. The early game was played in fields or city streets. Enthusiasts picked up rackets, put down money on games, and smacked shots off roofs and facades. A slightly more restrained style of paume was played in tennis halls, some built for townspeople, others ensconced in the châteaus of aristocrats. Chroniclers estimated that by 1600 there were more than 250 courts in Paris.

With the discovery of Louis XIII’s (reigned 1610–1643) tennis hall during rescue excavations at the Palace of Versailles in 2006, archaeologists became students of the game. Over the past two decades, they’ve unearthed courts around the country and learned to identify how the floors were paved, the walls were painted, the balls were stitched, and odd in-game targets were positioned. Archaeologists have found courtside amenities such as latrines, changing rooms, and even evidence of possible tonics gulped to soothe aches and sprains. Their findings are a highlight reel of France at play amid the turbulent political, economic, and religious changes that shaped the early modern era. To read our full article on the archaeology of tennis, click here.

Dig Deeper

If you enjoyed the articles in this issue, there are many more like them on our website! We’ve linked to some of our favorite ARCHAEOLOGY stories on similar topics below—along with some of the books, journal articles, and other resources that we drew upon while researching the articles in our July/August 2026 issue.

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Egypt’s First Queen

How a trailblazing ruler pulled her realm back from the brink

A Nubian Kingdom Rises
Excavations at a city on the Nile reveal the origins of an ancient African power

Rediscovering Egypt’s Golden Dynasty
How King Tutankhamun’s family forever changed the land of the Nile

The Rulers of Foreign Lands
Was a new regional power, once thought of as a bloodthirsty invading force, actually a catalyst for ancient Egypt’s most prosperous era?

Inside a Pharaoh’s Coffin
Using CT scanning, archaeologists can finally see the man buried in one of Egypt’s most splendid sarcophagi

The Treasure of the Egyptian Queen Ahhotep and International Relations at the Turn of the Middle Bronze Age (1600–1500 BCE) by Gianluca Miniaci and Peter Lacovara in Middle Kingdom Studies 11
Archaeologists take a fresh look at one of the most important—and puzzling—discoveries in Egyptology

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Secrets of the Serpent

Is a Native American origin story embedded in Ohio’s colossal earthwork?

Artists of the Dark Zone
How archaeologists discovered Native American rock art deep in the caves of Tennessee

People of the Sacred Voice
The Ho-Chunk of Wisconsin maintain a strong connection to their ancestors’ vast network of mounds

Black Drink Beakers
A potent ritual beverage was imbibed at the center of Cahokia in southwestern Illinois

Ohio History Connection
The state historical society of Ohio maintains a trove of information about Serpent Mound

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Slinging Insults

Greek and Roman soldiers fired pointed barbs at their enemies

Siege Weapons
Archaeologists are uncovering evidence of the time when Roman forces besieged Pompeii

Mask Metamorphosis
A bronze mask depicting a hedonistic demigod reveals a hidden sanctuary at the site of Hippos

Learn! A New Type of Inscription on a Sling Bullet from Hippos of the Decapolis by Michael Eisenberg et al. in Palestine Exploration Quarterly
Archaeologists have found 69 lead bullets at Hippos—one made a particular impression

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Inside Africa’s Houses of Stone

Archaeologists are rethinking how kings shared power beyond the great capitals of medieval Zimbabwe

Stone Towns of the Swahili Coast
Along 2,000 miles of the East African coast, the sophisticated trading centers of the medieval Swahili reveal their origins and influences

Africa’s Merchant Kings
The early Christian kingdom of Aksum was at the heart of a great maritime trading network

Great Zimbabwe: Reclaiming a ‘Confiscated’ Past by Shadreck Chirikure
An authoritative account of Great Zimbabwe’s history informed by a deep knowledge of Shona practices

Archaeologist Robert Nyamushosho’s Comprehensive Works
The Queens College archaeologist has published a number of freely available articles on the culture of Zimbabwe

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Tennis, Anyone?

Discovering the origins of the peculiar racket game that swept sixteenth-century France

The Pursuit of Wellness
How the ancients attended to mind, body, and soul

Bringing Back Moche Badminton
How reviving an ancient ritual game gave an archaeologist new insight into the lives of ancient Peruvians

A New View of the Birthplace of the Olympics
Taking an innovative approach to one of ancient architecture’s most intriguing questions

Subeixi Game Balls
Three young men buried in China in the first millennium B.C. went to the afterlife equipped for a ball game

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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

Letter from Lake George: Exploring the Great Warpath
Evidence from forts, hospitals, and taverns in upstate New York is illuminating the lives of thousands of British soldiers during the French and Indian War

Boston 250 Archaeology
The city of Boston’s archaeology department has embarked on a range of projects to shed new light on 1770s Massachusetts. Immerse yourself in its excellent digital info hub

The Jack and Acton Project
Two enslaved craftspeople were part of a rich tradition of pottery at Charlestown. Boston archaeologists are now documenting their work and telling their story

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Ancient China’s “Pony Express”

In Han China, postal horses had hard lives but evocative names—Wandering Hawk, Podgy and Lumpy, and Mr. Red Horse among them

Calm at the Carriage, Kills Bandits, Protects the Stables: Unique Horse Names in Excavated Han Administrative Documents from Xuanquan by Kelsey Granger in Early China
Granger has recorded the names of 115 horses who labored at an ancient frontier postal station—find them here

The Story of the Horse
How its unique role in human culture transformed history

Colonial Connection
Wild ponies roam the barrier islands of Virginia and Maryland. How did they get there?

Han Dynasty Map
Some 2,200 years ago, Chinese cartographers produced sophisticated silk maps

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Native American Dice

About 12,000 years ago, people in North America started playing high-stakes games of chance

A Roll of the Dice: How Native Americans Shaped Gambling and Probability Long Before the Old World, a podcast featuring archaeologist Robert J. Madden
For hunter-gatherers, games of chance could foster relationships and the exchange of information

Spirit Cave Connection
The world’s oldest mummified person is the ancestor of Nevada’s Northern Paiute people

Searching for the Comanche Empire
In a deep gorge in New Mexico, archaeologists have discovered a unique site that tells the story of a nomadic confederacy's rise to power in the heart of North America

Letter from Montana: The Buffalo Chasers
Vast expanses of grassland near the Rocky Mountains bear evidence of an extraordinary ancient buffalo hunting culture

Walking Into New Worlds
Native traditions and novel discoveries tell the migration story of the ancestors of the Navajo and Apache