A dried-up arm of the Nile provides another clue to how Egyptians built the pyramids To understand what environmental issues lie ahead for our warming planet, geographers often look back to the past for answers. A new study published on August 29 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences details how the landscape of …

Did archaeologists discover the grave of Alexander the Great? An Egyptian official has claimed that he has evidence that Alexander the Great’s tomb is in Siwa, Egypt, the Egypt Independent reported on Friday. The report says that Mohamed Omran, the director of Siwa’s Tourism Department, “announced evidence suggesting the potential discovery of the tomb of alexander the …

Untouched and Unlooted 4,400-yr-old Tomb of Egyptian High Priest Discovered Archaeologists in Egypt have made a new tomb discovery — the final resting place of a high priest, untouched for 4,400 years, decorated with hieroglyphics. The secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Mostafa Waziri, described the find as “one of a kind in the …

Book of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ: The ancient Egyptian guide to the afterlife The “Book of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ” is a modern-day name given to a series of ancient Egyptian texts that the Egyptians believed would help the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ navigate the underworld, as well as serve other purposes. Copies of these texts were sometimes buried with the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ.  …

Stone Age discovery shows Homo sapiens survived in the Kalahari Archaeological evidence in a rock shelter at the edge of the Kalahari Desert, South Africa, is challenging the idea that the origins of our species were linked to coastal environments. “Our findings from this rock shelter show that overly simplified models for the origins of …

The mummified face of Pharaoh Seti I hailed for its superior preservation The mummified face of Menmaatre Seti I known as Sety I of the New Kingdom’s Nineteenth Dynasty pleasantly surprised Egyptologists with its superior preservation. His face is regarded as one of the best preserved in the world as well as in Ancient Egypt’s …

New Thoughts on Africa’s Bantu Expansion The study used novel computational approaches and linguistic data from more than 400 Bantu languages to reconstruct the historic migration routes. The project was a collaboration between scientists from the Max Planck Insтιтute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and researchers at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. …

Temple Dedicated to the Sun God Unearthed in Egypt Archaeologists have unearthed the remains of a 4,500-year-old temple dedicated to the Egyptian sun god Ra at the site of Abu Ghurab, about 12 miles (20 kilometres) south of Cairo.  The temple was built sometime during ancient Egypt’s fifth dynasty (circa 2465 B.C. to 2323 B.C.) …

Neolithic Watermelons May Have Been Valued for Their Seeds The oldest known seeds from a watermelon relative, dating back 6,000 years to the Neolithic period, were found during an archaeological dig in Libya. An investigation of these seeds led by biologist Susanne S. Renner at Washington University in St. Louis reveals some surprises about how …