Archaeology, features and articles | Educational Science

Dec 16, 2022

Egyptian ring featuring 'god of fun' discovered in ancient burial

Archaeologists in Egypt have unearthed stunning gold jewelry, including a ring depicting the god of fun, in a burial that's more than 3,300 years old, the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced. The burial is located in the northern part of the ancient city of Akhetaten (modern-day Amarna), about...

Dec 26, 2022

10 times ancient Egyptian discoveries awed us in 2022

Ancient Egypt has many secrets to tell, and in 2022, archaeologists made some fascinating findings, including the tomb of a previously unknown queen, a falcon shrine with a cryptic message and a massive tunnel beneath a temple. Here are some of the most amazing discoveries at ancient Egyptian archaeological sites...

Jan 20, 2023

Royal tomb discovered near Luxor dates to time when female pharaoh co-ruled ancient Egypt

Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered a 3,500-year-old royal tomb near Luxor. The tomb was likely constructed at a time when Hatshepsut, a female pharaoh, co-ruled ancient Egypt. Partial inscriptions and ceramic evidence suggest this was constructed during the joint-reign of Thutmose III and Hatshepsut, archaeologists said in a statement. The...

Jan 26, 2023

52-foot-long Book of the Dead papyrus from ancient Egypt discovered at Saqqara

Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered a 52-foot-long (16 meters) papyrus containing sections from the Book of the Dead. The more than 2,000-year-old document was found within a coffin in a tomb south of the Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara. There are many texts from The Book of the Dead,...

Jan 27, 2023

Ancient Roman residences with 'pigeon towers' discovered in Luxor, Egypt

Archaeologists have discovered a residential area in Luxor dating to the time when the Roman Empire ruled Egypt. A team of archaeologists from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities found a number of residential buildings, along with workshops and pigeon towers (where pigeons could be raised for eating), according...

Jan 31, 2023

Egyptian mummies covered in gold are rare, and we may have just found the oldest

Archaeologists in Egypt have uncovered a series of tombs dating back around 4,300 years at Saqqara, including a sarcophagus holding the oldest known ancient Egyptian mummy that is covered with gold. The record-breaking tomb had a sealed sarcophagus containing the mummy of a man that a hieroglyphic inscription identifies as...

Jan 31, 2023

Who was Nefertiti, the ancient Egyptian queen depicted like a goddess?

Nefertiti was an ancient Egyptian queen consort who was likely King Tut's stepmother and may have ruled as a pharaoh in her own right. She lived during the 18th dynasty during the 14th century B.C., but the years of Nefertiti's birth and death are not certain. She was the wife...

Feb 1, 2023

Elaborate underground embalming workshop discovered at Saqqara

Archaeologists at Saqqara have finally identified the many embalming ingredients used to mummify the dead in ancient Egypt. They also deciphered how those different ingredients — many of which came from distant lands — were used. In 2016, an international team of archaeologists discovered the underground embalming workshop near the...

Feb 5, 2023

What did the ancient Egyptian pyramids look like when they were built?

The Egyptian pyramids erupting from the sands at Giza are a testament to human ingenuity and engineering. Raised to mark the tombs of ancient pharaohs, these great structures have stood for thousands of years. But over the millennia, the pyramids have changed, largely due to construction workers' repurposing of in-demand...

Mar 7, 2023

Newfound ancient Egyptian sphinx statue may depict Roman emperor Claudius, but not everyone agrees

Archaeologists excavating an ancient temple in Egypt have unearthed a statue of a sphinx whose face may depict the Roman emperor Claudius, the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said in a statement Monday (March 6). However, scholars not affiliated with the research told Live Science that they cannot be...

Mar 23, 2023

Ancient zodiac paintings on Egyptian temple see the light of day after 2,200 years

Gorgeous zodiac paintings decorating the roof and walls of the 2,200-year-old Temple of Esna in southern Egypt have been revealed during a restoration project that's clearing away two millennia's worth of grime, soot and bird poop, researchers announced March 20. Restorers painstakingly cleaned the zodiac artworks, many of which were...

Mar 23, 2023

Ancient Egyptian pharaoh-sphinx statues unearthed at sun temple

Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered broken statues of ancient royalty at a sun temple in Heliopolis, an archaeological site that was once a major city near what is now Cairo. The stone-carved fragments include depictions of Ramesses II (reign circa 1279 B.C. to 1213 B.C.), Ramesses IX (reign circa 1126...

Mar 29, 2023

2,000 mummified rams' heads were gifted to long-dead ancient Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II

More than 2,000 mummified rams' heads have been unearthed at an ancient temple in Egypt. The severed skulls were likely prepared as an offering to the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II, around 1,000 years after he died. The severed heads were uncovered at the Ramesses II temple in Abydos, an ancient...

Apr 1, 2023

Who ruled ancient Egypt after King Tut died?

Tutankhamun, the famed ancient Egyptian boy king who ascended the throne as a child, died when he was around 19 years old, sometime between 1327 B.C and 1323 B.C. But Tut's death was unexpected, and he left no heirs to the throne. So who ruled in the power vacuum that...

Apr 16, 2023

Which ancient Egyptian dynasty ruled the longest?

Ancient Egypt was ruled for millennia by a series of pharaohs. Historians have broken up this period into dynasties, in which the rulers were either related to one another or derived power from a predecessor. But which dynasty lasted the longest? The 18th dynasty of Egypt, which lasted around 250...