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November/December 2026 Issue

Ayanis citadel
© Tolga İldun

Features From the Issue

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  • Features

    Kingdom of Fortresses

    How diverse and far-flung Iron Age chiefdoms united to challenge the Assyrian Empire

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    © Tolga İldun

  • Features

    A Tomb of One's Own

    Life behind the scenes in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings

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    Painted scene from Ipuy's chapel depicting men catching fish from a boat
    © Matjaz Kacicnik/Project TT 217–The Tomb of the Sculptor Ipuy in Context (JGU Mainz, IFAO Cairo)

  • Features

    Outfitting Viking Voyagers

    In Denmark, archaeologists have discovered a massive factory that equipped an innovative fleet

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    Aerial view of excavation of three pit house foundations, Soften, Denmark
    Moesgaard Museum

  • Features

    Stone Age Stargazers

    Did artists 12,000 years ago illuminate a cave in Tajikistan with their vision of the Milky Way?

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    ˝© Nodir Tursun-Zade

  • Features

    Unearthing the Outlanders

    New discoveries challenge ancient prophecies about the peoples living on China’s borders three millennia ago

    Read Article
    Courtesy Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology

Letter from Cape Canaveral

Letter from Cape Canaveral

Dawn of the Space Age

Archaeologists have made surprising discoveries spanning 3,000 years at the birthplace of American space exploration

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The first rocket launched from Cape Canaveral, on Florida's Atlantic Coast—called the Bumper—took flight on July 24, 1950.
Courtesy Cape Canaveral Space Force Museum
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Artifact

Artifacts

Maya Eccentric Flint

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Courtesy Cleveland Museum of Art/John L. Severance Fund 1950.161
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Digs & Discoveries

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Off the Grid

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Off the Grid November/December 2026

San Agustín, Colombia

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Statue of hybrid human-reptile figure, San Agustin Archaeological Park, Colombia Statue of hybrid human-reptile figure, San Agustin Archaeological Park, Colombia
Bruno/AdobeStock

Around the World

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  • EGYPT

    Inscribed sandstone lintel, Tell Abu Saifi, Egypt

  • INDONESIA

    Painted stone plaque

  • PERU

    Remnants of a stone food storage structure, Wancasanga, Peru
More Locations

Dig Deeper

If the articles in this issue caught your imagination, don’t miss some of our favorite ARCHAEOLOGY stories on similar topics—along with some of the books, journal articles, and other resources we drew upon as we researched and wrote the articles in our November/December 2026 issue. Grab a copy on newsstands or subscribe to get one in the mail!

Painted scene from Ipuy's chapel depicting men catching fish from a boat

A Tomb of One’s Own

Life behind the scenes in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings

The Cat and the Fat
Curious notes document an illness that plagued Nebre, a draftsman at Deir el-Medina

Ghosts of the Ancestors
Why a scribe named Butehamun believed that he was haunted by his dead wife’s spirit

The Goldmine Papyrus
Amennakhte, a chief scribe in the Valley of the Kings, created the world’s oldest known geological map

Virtual Tour of the Tomb of Seti I
Go inside the opulently decorated burial of the 19th Dynasty pharaoh

Viking runestone depicting a vessel with a sail

Outfitting Viking Voyagers

In Denmark, archaeologists have discovered a massive factory that equipped an innovative fleet

The Viking Great Army
A tale of conflict and adaptation played out in northern England

Setting Sail for Valhalla
Vikings staged elaborate spectacles to usher their rulers into the afterlife

Top 10 Discoveries of 2020: Largest Viking DNA Study
Genomes reveal the story of where Vikings made their homes

The Vikings in Ireland
A discovery challenges long-held ideas about when Scandinavian raiders arrived on the Emerald Isle

Ayanis citadel

Kingdom of Fortresses

How diverse and far-flung Iron Age chiefdoms united to challenge the Assyrian Empire

The Assyrian Renaissance
Archaeologists return to Nineveh in northern Iraq, one of the ancient world’s grandest imperial capitals

Assyrian Women of Letters
4,000-year-old cuneiform tablets illuminate the personal lives of Mesopotamian businesswomen

When Lions Were King: Mesopotamia
The Assyrian inspiration behind the art of Urartu

The Price of Plunder
Exploring Iron Age Iran’s most famous—and most looted—site

Milky Way Cave in Tajikistan

Stone Age Stargazers

Did artists 12,000 years ago illuminate a cave in Tajikistan with their vision of the Milky Way?

Himalayan High Art
In a remote region of India, archaeologists trace 4,000 years of history through petroglyphs

Remote Sanctuary at the Crossroads of Empire
Ancient Bactrians invented distinct ways to worship their gods 2,300 years ago in Tajikistan

Unearthing an Elusive Empire
Archaeologists have discovered rare evidence of an enlightened medieval dynasty in Central Asia

Reading the White Shaman Mural
Paintings in a Texas canyon may depict mythic narratives that have endured for millennia

Artists of the Dark Zone
Deciphering Cherokee ritual imagery deep in the caves of the American South

Zhaigou tomb

Unearthing the Outlanders

New discoveries challenge ancient prophecies about the peoples living on China’s borders three millennia ago

The Many Faces of the Kingdom of Shu
Thousands of fantastical bronzes are beginning to reveal the secrets of a legendary Chinese dynasty

Top 10 Discoveries of the Decade: Neolithic City of Shimao
Archaeologists in China unearth a remarkably sophisticated 4,000-year-old settlement

You Are How You Cook
An archaeologist explores the Bronze Age origins of Chinese cuisine

Ancient China’s “Pony Express”
Han Dynasty postal horses had hard lives but evocative names

Loess Highland Societies During the Yinxu Period (1300–1050 B.C.): New Evidence from Zhaigou
Antiquity journal article by the archaeologists excavating the site of Zhaigou

The first rocket launched from Cape Canaveral

Letter from Cape Canaveral: Dawn of the Space Age

Archaeologists have made surprising discoveries spanning 3,000 years at the birthplace of American space exploration

Searching for the Fisher Kings
In the waters of southern Florida, the creative Calusa people forged a mighty empire

V-2 Rocket from the Muck
Nazi Germany’s weapon of terror later inspired American rocket engineering

Cape Canaveral, Past and Present: Virtual Tours
Archaeologists at Argonne National Laboratory have brought the Cape’s historic sites to life

Cape Canaveral in 3D
Explore 3,000 years of Canaveral through pottery sherds, missile fragments, and launchpads

Mural depicting corpse biting human, Haukipudas, Finland

Night of the Dangerous Dead

Mutilated remains in medieval burials show how far vampire hunters were willing to go

Vampire-Proofing Your Village
Why were two bodies in a medieval Bulgarian graveyard impaled with sharp metal implements?

Searching for the Witches’ Tower
Archaeologists hunt for evidence of a seventeenth-century English family accused of witchcraft

Top 10 Discoveries of 2016: Salem’s Lost Gallows
Finding where the infamous witch trials reached their grim conclusion

Killing the Dead: Vampire Epidemics from Mesopotamia to the New World by John Blair
An archaeologist investigates history’s great and gory vampire panics

Maya eccentric flint

Maya Ceremonial Knife

Artisans carved complex objects called eccentrics using forgotten techniques

Piecing Together Maya Creation Stories
Thousands of mural fragments illustrate how the Maya envisioned their place in the universe

Jungle Realm of the Snake Queens
How women ascended the ranks in the high-stakes world of Maya politics

Autobiography of a Maya Ambassador
A grand monument and a humble burial chronicle the changing fortunes of a career diplomat

Tomb of the Vulture Lord
A king’s burial reveals a pivotal moment in Maya history

Slideshow: Inside an Egyptian Sculptor’s Tomb

As construction on the tombs of the pharaohs in the Valley of the Kings grew in scale during the 19th Dynasty (ca. 1295–1186 b.c.), the nearby village of Deir el-Medina, on the Nile’s west bank in southern Egypt, became a permanent home for the community of scribes, draftsmen, sculptors, carpenters, and painters who created these lavish royal burial complexes. In their spare time, many of these artisans, including a relief sculptor named Ipuy, put their skills to use building and decorating their own tombs on terraces above the village. When excavators first explored Ipuy’s tomb in the late nineteenth century, they documented surviving murals in its aboveground chapel, which feature rare depictions of Deir el-Medina’s craftspeople and supply staff at work.

A team led by Egyptologist Kathrin Gabler of the University of Mainz is currently investigating Ipuy’s tomb complex for the first time in nearly a century. They have surveyed and documented half the tomb’s chambers, and are assessing previously unearthed but long-forgotten fragments of wall paintings and statuary. This material is helping to illuminate the daily lives of Deir el-Medina’s cadre of dedicated craftspeople. To read our full article on Ipuy's tomb, click here. Get your copy of the November/December 2026 issue of ARCHAEOLOGY on newsstands, and subscribe to explore more.

View of the tomb complex of Ipuy, Deir el-Medina, Egypt
The tomb complex of the relief sculptor Ipuy (left of tent) is one of 53 decorated tombs belonging to ancient artisans in southern Egypt’s village of Deir el-Medina.
Courtyard of the tomb of Ipuy, Deir el-Medina, Egypt
Archaeologists recently surveyed and cleaned the walled courtyard of Ipuy’s tomb complex. A doorway (left) leads into the chapel.
Limestone stele depicting gods (top) and Ipuy, his wife, and their child (above)
In the nineteenth century, excavators investigating Ipuy’s tomb recovered this limestone stele, which measures 15 inches wide by 22 inches tall. It may have decorated a small pyramid that sat atop the tomb’s chapel. At the top of the stele are depictions of a pharaoh and the gods Hathor, Osiris, and Re-Harakhte, while the scene below shows Ipuy’s wife, Duaemerres; Ipuy; and one of their children.
Chamber in Ipuy's tomb, Deir el-Medina, Egypt
This is one of 10 known chambers in Ipuy’s tomb. These rooms and the chapel were all cut from fragile limestone.
Detail of painting from Ipuy's chapel depicting men doing laundry
A scene showing men doing laundry is one of many paintings on the walls of Ipuy’s chapel that depict Deir el-Medina’s residents at work.
Egyptologist Kathrin Gabler (left) and a member of her team study wall painting fragments in Ipuy's chapel
In Ipuy’s chapel, Egyptologist Kathrin Gabler (left) and a member of her team study wall painting fragments that were originally discovered in the early twentieth century. The team has been able to match many of the fragments to preserved parts of the chapel’s murals.
Reconstruction drawing of pieces recovered from the statue of Ipuy, with a photo of the sculpted head overlain
A statue of Ipuy—modeled from mudbrick, covered with linen and layers of plaster, then painted—once stood in the sculptor’s chapel. The tan shaded areas on this reconstruction drawing correspond to pieces of the sculpture that archaeologists have found in the tomb. By chance, a member of Gabler’s team discovered the sculpted head of the Ipuy statue in Florence’s National Archaeological Museum.
Painted cartonnage fragment
A piece of painted cartonnage is among the copious textile fragments that Gabler and her team have recovered from Ipuy’s tomb.

Video: The Last Urartian Speaker

Since 1962, Mehmet Kuşman has worked as a caretaker at the site of the fortress at Çavuştepe in eastern Turkey’s Van Province. Çavuştepe is one of perhaps dozens of such fortresses in a vast network constructed during the Iron Age by the rulers of the Kingdom of Urartu, who controlled parts of eastern Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran from the ninth to the seventh century b.c. For decades, even long after his official retirement, Kuşman has studied, written, read, and spoken the Urartian language. In this video, listen as he reads some of the most famous Urartian inscriptions found at Çavuştepe and carves his own sayings and phrases in Urartian, which is more than 2,500 years old and remains barely known, even today. To read our full article on the Kingdom of Urartu, click here. Get your copy of the November/December 2026 issue of ARCHAEOLOGY on newsstands, and subscribe to explore more.

Slideshow: Cape Canaveral’s Surprising History

On a clear day or night, you can see a rocket launched from Cape Canaveral on Florida’s Atlantic coast from 400 miles away. The flame, the contrail, and the separation of boosters all announce the hubbub in the sky, but there’s also excitement for scientists, including archaeologists, on the ground at Cape Canaveral Space Force Base. Here, the U.S. government built Cold War–era missile test sites and the launch complexes for the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo program rockets that first sent Americans into space in the 1960s. These titanic structures of rocketry and spaceflight infrastructure are now archaeological sites.

Before the rockets, Canaveral had homesteads, a luxury hotel, and a factory for processing shark livers into fad medicine. More than 3,000 years before that, ancient Floridians began fishing and foraging on the Cape. The descendants of those people established settlements, performed ceremonies, traded for food and goods across Florida, and built huge burial mounds. From this 15,800-acre area, archaeologists have a vantage point spanning the recent past to the deep history of Indigenous people on the continent. To read our full article on the archaeology of Cape Canaveral, click here. Get your copy of the November/December 2026 issue of ARCHAEOLOGY on newsstands, and subscribe to explore more.

The first control bunker, or blockhouse, from which technicians initiated the launch of the Bumper rocket at Cape Canaveral
Launch Complex 3 (LC-3) was the site where the first missile was fired from Cape Canaveral as part of Project Bumper, an experimental ballistics program to design a long-range two-stage rocket fueled by liquid propellant. The control bunker or blockhouse (foreground) from which technicians initiated the launch was a temporary shedlike building constructed primarily from wood and tar paper. After the blockhouse was demolished, its location was lost until archaeologists unearthed its concrete flooring slab, pieces of tar-paper roofing, and other remnants of building materials in 2023.
This Navaho experimental missile was launched in 1958 from Cape Canaveral
This Navaho experimental missile was launched in 1958 from LC-9; the test ended in failure. Numerous missiles fired from the Cape also crashed at the site, and archaeologists have been surprised to find debris mingled with, for example, the bricks of a lighthouse built in 1847. When test missiles cratered in the 1950s, the most extensive description reported by ballistics technicians often simply read, “Failure.”
Mace tactical cruise missiles barreled at an angle out of cylindrical chambers at Cape Canaveral
Mace tactical cruise missiles, which were tested at the Cape from 1959 to 1963, barreled at a sharp angle out of cylindrical chambers at LCs 21 and 22.
In 1958, a Juno I rocket launched the first American satellite into space; the launch was supported by this gantry, digitally reconstructed.
In 1958, a Juno I rocket supported by a gantry (digital reconstruction above) carried the first American satellite into space. The gantry now lies disassembled, but archaeologists surveyed its remnants using ground-based lidar and structured-light 3D scanning in order to create digital models of the structure.
The Friendship 7 rocket lifts off from Cape Canaveral
An archival photo shows the launch from LC-14 that took Project Mercury astronaut John Glenn beyond the Earth’s atmosphere on February 20, 1962. LC-14 was largely demolished by a private spaceflight company that leased the land in 2023 and exists now only in photos and in digital models created by archaeologists.
The LC-19 blockhouse at Cape Canaveral
LC-19 was used for all 10 crewed missions of NASA’s Gemini program, the second American spaceflight project helmed by astronauts. Today, weeds sprout through cracks in the reinforced-concrete dome of LC-19’s blockhouse (above), where mission controllers successfully launched Gemini 4 on June 3, 1965, a flight that included the first space walk by an American.
LC-14 and LC-19 were part of a series of launch complexes nicknamed Missile Row.
LC-19 and LC-14 were part of a series of launch complexes nicknamed Missile Row (above, circa 1970), which boosted the enormous Atlas and Titan rockets used for most of the Mercury and Gemini missions.
Burial mound at Burns Site, Cape Canaveral
Archaeologists from the University of Central Florida began excavating at a location known as the Burns Site in 2017. The burial mound at the site was constructed in phases starting around the twelfth century A.D., when Indigenous people belonging to what scholars call the Malabar culture inhabited Cape Canaveral. The mound, which was originally 90 feet long, was largely bulldozed in the 1960s and reconstructed shortly thereafter.
Fossilized whale vertebra
This fossilized whale vertebra is one of several large bones and fossils archaeologists have discovered at Cape Canaveral that washed ashore following recent hurricanes. In 2026, archaeologists found a large bone or fossil, also probably from a whale, deposited at a Malabar-era occupation site. They think that hundreds of years ago the whale’s remains washed ashore, and that people carried it back to the site as a special item.
UCF student archaeologists excavated ancient sites around Cape Canaveral
University of Central Florida student archaeologists excavated ancient sites around Cape Canaveral using traditional fieldwork methods. Among many other artifacts, the students have found tens of thousands of shells, bones, and tooth fragments from animals such as mullet, turtles, and sharks. This has helped researchers understand the diets of fisher-foragers and the region’s ecosystem centuries ago.
Digital model of a pottery fragment
At the Burns Site, archaeologists found pottery fragments such as a sherd (digital model above) from the rim of a vessel. Potters created the checked pattern by pressing carved wooden paddles into the clay before the piece was fired. Much of the pottery used by ancient Indigenous people at Canaveral was made in the area, but some fragments have designs typical of artisans in other parts of Florida, evidence that the people who lived here participated in trade networks across the peninsula.
Cape Canaveral's iconic striped nineteenth-century lighthouse
Cape Canaveral’s iconic striped nineteenth-century lighthouse stands amid launchpads. Local lore has it that Nazi scientist Wernher von Braun, who surrendered to American forces in 1945, and who acted as a technical advisor on Project Bumper, sprinted up its stairs to watch the early missile launches from the Cape.