Letters From
Letter from Greece September/October 2025
Searching for Washingtonia
How archaeologists located a forgotten nineteenth-century utopian community
RECENT Letters From
Letter from Williamsburg July/August 2025
A New Look at an Old City
Archaeologists are reconstructing the complicated 400-year history of Virginia’s colonial capital
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
Letter from the Levant March/April 2025
On the Origin of the Pork Taboo
Exploring ancient people’s shifting beliefs about rearing and eating pigs
Letter from Uzbekistan January/February 2025
An Oasis City’s Origin Story
Searching for the earliest history of a fabled Silk Road metropolis
MORE Letters From
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Letter from El Salvador November/December 2023
Uneasy Allies
Archaeologists discover a long-forgotten capital where Indigenous peoples and Spanish colonists arrived at a fraught coexistence
(Courtesy Roger Atwood) -
Letter from Vesuvius September/October 2023
Digging on the Dark Side of the Volcano
Survivors of the infamous disaster rebuilt their lives on the ashes of the a.d. 79 eruption
(Courtesy Girolamo Ferdinando De Simone) -
Letter from Patagonia July/August 2023
Surviving a Windswept Land
For 13,000 years, hunter-gatherers thrived in some of the world’s harshest environments
(Courtesy Raven Garvey) -
Letter from the American Southeast May/June 2023
Spartans of the Lower Mississippi
Unearthing evidence of defiance and resilience in the homeland of the Chickasaw
(Kimberly Wescott and Brad Lieb, Chickasaw Native Explorers Program 2015) -
Letter from the Faroes March/April 2023
Lost History of the Sheep Islands
New evidence shows that the remote North Atlantic archipelago was settled hundreds of years before the Vikings reached its shores
(Polhansen/Adobe Stock) -
Letter from Ethiopia January/February 2023
Exploring a Forgotten Jewish Land
Using oral history, texts, and survey, archaeologists search for traces of a once-vibrant religious community
(Courtesy JewsEast Research Project)