News from the ancient world
Burial is one of the oldest human practices that archaeologists can study directly. Tombs and graves record how people treated their dead, from simple pits to stone chambers, pyramids and decorated vaults. They survive from the Stone Age onwards on every inhabited continent. Grave goods, bones and the buildings around burials tell us about belief, rank, family and health in societies that left few or no written records.
Recent finds in our stories cover many of these questions. Ancient DNA from chambered tombs in Caithness and Orkney, used between about 3800 and 3200 BC, shows that many men buried together were paternal relatives. At Valdelasilla near Toledo, a planned cemetery about 6,000 years old suggests inland Iberia built monumental tombs as early as its coasts. In York, chemical tests found Tyrian purple, a very costly dye, on cloth from 1,700-year-old Roman baby burials. At Saqqara, the tomb of the Old Kingdom official Weni held bronze tools that may be medical, although no inscription in his burial chamber calls him a doctor.
Prehistory · Neolithic (not yet dated) · Serengeti National Park, Northern Tanzania, Tanzania
The same Polish-Tanzanian expedition found the fossil skull of an extinct giraffe that may be a new species, and worked at four Middle Stone Age sites.
Wider World · Late 5th century AD · Nishikaminomiya site, Isesaki, Gunma Prefecture, Japan
The late 5th-century haniwa from Gunma Prefecture still carries red paint on its face, sash and bracelets, and goes on show from 28 October.
Egypt · Old Kingdom · Saqqara, Giza Governorate, Egypt
The decorated tomb of Weni, a mayor and priest, also held two rare wooden statues, and his skeleton shows marks of repeated heavy physical strain.
Egypt · c. 2280 BC · Saqqara, Giza Governorate, Egypt
The Old Kingdom official was buried beside King Merenre's pyramid, and although his tomb held the instruments, no inscription in his burial chamber calls him a doctor.
Prehistory · c. 3000 BC · Fanshan, Liangzhu, Zhejiang, China
Post holes at Fanshan outline three wooden buildings next to China's highest-ranking Neolithic graves, built about 5,000 years ago.
Prehistory · 4th–3rd millennium BC · Atbai Desert, Sudan
Built across the Atbai Desert between the Nile and the Red Sea, the excavated examples held people buried with cattle and sheep, in a tradition older than Egypt's pyramids.
Prehistory · late 5th–3rd millennium BC · Valdelasilla, Illescas, Toledo, Castilla-La Mancha, Spain
Wood and clay burial chambers around a ditched central tomb at Valdelasilla suggest inland Iberia began building monumental tombs as early as its coasts.
Rome · Late 3rd or early 4th century AD · York, North Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom
Chemical tests on plaster burials found Tyrian purple, a dye so costly that a Roman pound of purple silk cost as much as three pounds of gold.
AI & Archaeology · AD 79 · Pompeii, Porta Stabia necropolis, Campania, Italy
The image, made with the University of Padua, is the Pompeii park's first created with AI tools and is called an experimental prototype, not a definitive likeness.
Greece · c. 2000–1500 BC · Kolona, Aegina, Attica, Greece
Austrian archaeologists found gold pendants, beads and carnelian from what was probably one necklace beside a Middle Bronze Age wall at Kolona, but no tomb.
Egypt · Roman period · El Bahnasa (Oxyrhynchus), Minya Governorate, Egypt
At ancient Oxyrhynchus, a Spanish-Egyptian team also found jars of cremated human remains wrapped in cloth with cat bones, a rite rarely seen in the area.
Prehistory · c. 3000 BC · Bury, Oise, Hauts-de-France, France
The farming population buried near Bury, north of Paris, collapsed around 3000 BC and was replaced by newcomers with genetic roots in southern France and Iberia.
Prehistory · c. 3800–3200 BC · Caithness and Orkney, Highland and Orkney, Scotland, United Kingdom
Genetic study of chambered tombs in Caithness and Orkney, used between about 3800 and 3200 BC, finds many men buried together were paternal relatives.
Prehistory · c. 9000–8500 BC · Lüchow, Duvenseer Moor, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
CT scans show the wild ox skull was impaled on a pine post, and archaeologists consider it possible that more skull-topped posts once surrounded the grave.
Rome · Imperial period to late antiquity · Via Ostiense, San Paolo Fuori le Mura, Rome, Lazio, Italy
Preventive digging on the Via Ostiense found five vaulted imperial-era tombs, probably for cremation urns, and a much more modest late antique cemetery behind them.
Prehistory · c. 1300–800 BC · Esperstedt, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
Most people studied in Central Germany grew up locally, and communities seem to have tried millet for a time before going back to wheat and barley.
Egypt · c. 1070–715 BC · Qurna, Luxor, Luxor Governorate, Egypt
The coffins still hold their mummies, date to Egypt's Third Intermediate Period, and most bear titles, chiefly 'singer of Amun', instead of their owners' names.
Prehistory · c. 9290–8925 BC · Heaning Wood Bone Cave, Great Urswick, Cumbria, England, United Kingdom
The child from a Cumbrian cave was aged 2.5 to 3.5, and radiocarbon dates place her burial between 9290 and 8925 BC.
Egypt · Third Intermediate Period, Twenty-second Dynasty · Tanis (San al-Hagar), Egypt
A French team found 225 figurines inscribed for the Libyan king at the foot of an uninscribed sarcophagus, which probably belonged to him.
Greece · 14th century BC · Hala Sultan Tekke, Larnaca District, Cyprus
Two 14th-century BC tombs at the copper port of Hala Sultan Tekke were reused for generations and held imports from Egypt, the Aegean, Sardinia, India and the Baltic.
Near East · c. 740–690 BC · Karaağaç Tumulus, Bozüyük, Bilecik province, Turkey
The elite burial lies more than 100 miles west of the Phrygian capital Gordion, and the study's lead author thinks power in Midas's kingdom was spread among regional centres.
Greece · 3200–2000 BC · Rafina, Attica, Greece
The pithos tomb in eastern Attica held two people covered by large stones, and two metres away lay a burnt pit containing a complete equid skeleton.
Prehistory · c. 7500 BC · Hora 1, Mount Hora, Northern Region, Malawi
An adult woman was burned on a large, tended pyre some 6,000 years before Africa's next known cremations, and people lit fires on the spot for centuries afterwards.