the Syrian-Japanese Archaeological Expedition uncovered 13 individual graves during their work at the private burial chamber number 129 located near the Northern defensive wall of the ancient city of Palmyra.
The graves were used to bury children that apparently were less than two years old when they died. Some of the graves are simple holes in the grounds containing a coffin, in addition to two graves consisting of medium-sized clay jars containing skeletons of children that are estimated to have been only a few months old when they died.
These graves date …

A new examination of skulls from the royal cemetery at Ur, discovered in Iraq almost a century ago, appears to support a more grisly interpretation than before of human sacrifices associated with elite burials in ancient Mesopotamia, archaeologists say.
Palace attendants, as part of royal mortuary ritual, were not dosed with poison to meet a rather serene death. Instead, a sharp instrument, a pike perhaps, was driven into their heads.
Archaeologists at the University of Pennsylvania reached that conclusion after conducting the first CT scans of two skulls from the 4,500-year-old cemetery. The …

Syria, the land of civilizations and history, is rife with ancient monuments that tell the stories of the many peoples and civilizations that lived in it, whose stories endured in the face of time to tell humanity about their greatness.
“Beneath every footstep in Syria is an ancient civilization,” says Archaeologist Markus Gschwind, head of the Syrian-German Archaeology Expedition working at al-Rafina in Hama. He notes that this saying is repeated around Germany, as most Germans consider Syria the most historically deep-rooted country in the Mediterranean.
In a statement to SANA, Gschwind …

Researchers have come across evidence in the form of microscopic bits of pollen and charcoal in ancient sediment layers which indicate that Alexander the Great was not the first to settle the area along Egypt’s coast that became the great port city of Alexandria.
Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great in 331 B.C. The city sits on the Mediterranean coast at the western edge of the Nile delta.
Its location made it a major port city in ancient times; it was also famous for its lighthouse (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient …

Archaeologists carrying out excavations prior to road-widening near Hamovil junction in northern Israel discovered a weapons cache including submachine guns and ammunition on Monday.
Four submachine guns, made in Egypt and stamped in Arabic “Port Said” and the number “17,” were found inside a tire, wrapped in oiled cloth. With them were 50 submachine gun 9-millimeter bullets and a khaki shirt.
At first the archaeologists thought the guns had been used by Arab soldiers in the battles of 1948. About a year ago outposts were found in digs in the area, …

Archaeologists have unearthed the site of a pharaonic-era sacred lake in a temple to the Egyptian goddess Mut in the ruins of ancient Tanis, the Culture Ministry said on Thursday.
The ministry said the lake, found 12 meters below ground at the San al-Hagar archaeological site in Egypt’s eastern Nile Delta, was 15 meters long and 12 meters wide and built out of limestone blocks. It was in a good condition.
It was the second sacred lake found at Tanis, which became the northern capital of ancient Egypt in the 21st pharaonic …

The ancient footprints of the artisans who built a 1,700-year-old mosaic floor in the city of Lod was discovered recently by the Israel Antiquities Authority.
The mosaic floor is one of the biggest and most remarkable mosaics to be discovered in Israel. The mosaic, spanning 180 square meters, is composed of colorful and detailed depictions of animals, plants and boats.
The impressive mosaic, discovered in 1996, is believed to have decorated the home of a wealthy man during the Roman period.
Following the discovery of the mosaic, it was covered back up …

As usual during the Jewish holidays, the Israeli public has been inundated with reports of “amazing discoveries” in excavations in Jerusalem. One might dismiss them as a combination of public relations and the need to fill the holiday newspapers, but in fact they attest to a worrying process whereby archaeological research in Jerusalem is being made shallow and subordinated to narrow interests of time and place.
After a period of official and programmatic archaeology following the unification of the city in 1967, it appeared that Israeli archaeology had found the correct …

Some sections of Cyrus the Greats’ palace known as Charkhab (čarxāb) located in the Borazjan Plain, in the Persian Gulf’s Bushehr Province has been completely destroyed and the remaining of the edifice is on the verge of total destruction if no action is taken soon, reported the Persian service of CHN.
According to the report, two years ago archaeologists left the site for no apparent reason and the unique early Achaemenid edifice has been left to be destroyed. The director of the team has continuously requested the recommence of some archaeological …

Egyptian coins carrying the name of Joseph, the biblical patriarch whose arrival in Egypt as a slave eventually provided salvation for his family during decades of drought across the Middle East, have been discovered in a cache of antique items shelved in boxes in a museum, according to a new report.
The report from the Middle East Media Research Institute said the coins with Joseph’s name and image were found in a pile of unsorted artifacts that had been stored at the Museum of Egypt.
MEMRI, which monitors and translates reports from …