A new paper in the Journal of the British Archaeological Association names two 11th-century abbots as candidates for the skeleton found in a sarcophagus inscribed to a Roman Briton.
Image: Ancient Pages
WESTMINSTER, ENGLAND — For 157 years, according to a report on Ancient Pages, a limestone sarcophagus from Westminster Abbey has presented a puzzle to historians. The study's authors now believe they have made progress in solving it.
The Netherlands' largest megalithic tomb, said to be over 5,000 years old, still guards a sealed chamber and a good many questions.
Image: Atlas Obscura
BORGER, NETHERLANDS — A short walk from the Hunebedcentrum in Borger stands a monument that, according to Atlas Obscura, is the largest dolmen in the Netherlands. Catalogued as D27, the tomb measures more than 22 meters, or 74 feet, in length.
A small Australian-built machine named Gopher has been lowered into boreholes at the Durupınar formation as a 90-day field season ends and laboratory work begins.
Image: Daily Star: Weird News
MOUNT ARARAT, TURKEY — A robot originally designed to explore wombat burrows has been put to work at the Durupınar formation near Turkey's Mount Ararat, a boat-shaped mound that some believers hold to be the resting place of Noah's Ark, according to a report in the Daily Star.
A Reddit post holds that eleven mounds at Watson Brake, built by hunter-gatherers, still puzzle scientists some 5,500 years on.
MONROE, LA. — A post on the r/HighStrangeness forum has drawn fresh attention to a set of ancient earthworks in northern Louisiana, which it says are older than the Great Pyramid of Egypt.
A paywalled preview from Ancient Pages claims a paper-thin metal object has upended long-held assumptions about nomadic peoples of the far south.
Image: Ancient Pages
THE INTERNET — A small copper ornament, thin as paper, is said by the website Ancient Pages to be rewriting the history of early metallurgy in the Americas. The claim appears in a preview written by Conny Waters, with the full article reserved for paying members.
New study suggests the skeleton in a long-puzzling sarcophagus belongs to an 11th-century churchman, rather than the Briton named on its stone.
Image: The Debrief
LONDON, ENGLAND — A Roman sarcophagus unearthed at Westminster Abbey more than two centuries ago may at last have given up the identity of its occupant, according to a report published by The Debrief on a new study in the Journal of the British Archaeological Association.
Researchers report the largest collection of Latin cave inscriptions known from the Roman Empire, pointing to a sanctuary where women took a leading ritual part.
Image: Ancient Pages
COVA DONES, SPAIN — Archaeologists working in eastern Iberia say they have found the largest collection of Latin cave inscriptions ever recorded in the Roman Empire, according to a report from AncientPages.com citing the University of Southampton. The site, Cova Dones, holds at least 120 inscriptions, where only 15 Roman examples were previously known.
A Polish-Peruvian team says laser scanning from drones has revealed more than 2.5 kilometers of forgotten pre-Columbian road on Mount Yanantin.
Image: Ancient Pages
MACHU PICCHU, PERU — A team of Polish and Peruvian archaeologists has located more than 2.5 kilometers of previously unknown roads in the forest near Machu Picchu, according to a report published by Ancient Pages. The team also mapped forgotten terraces, platforms and circular structures.
Archaeologists report a faience factory at the Sanam temple, and say it points to a distinctly Kushite form of royal control.
Image: The Debrief
KARIMA, SUDAN — An international team of archaeologists has uncovered what it describes as a complete faience workshop at the Sanam temple in northern Sudan, and argues that the find challenges the old notion that the Kingdom of Kush merely imitated its northern neighbour, Egypt. The findings were reported in the journal Antiquity, according to The Debrief.
A teaser for a members-only article describes cold spots, phantom chanting and unexplained magnetic readings, though the island itself goes unnamed.
Image: Ancient Pages
THE ATLANTIC COAST — A small, windswept island and its lonely graveyard are the subject of a new piece from Ancient Pages, which describes the site as a silent record of a nation's hidden past. According to the article's public preview, the weathered stones mark royal burials, sudden violence and an old curse.
A podcast episode revisits the tale of David Lang, whose children were said to have heard his cries from a circle of grass months afterward.
Image: Weird Darkness
GALLATIN, TENN. — According to an episode of the Weird Darkness podcast, farmer David Lang waved to two men in a buggy on the afternoon of September 23rd, 1880, took one more step across his open pasture near Gallatin, and was gone in the middle of it.
A University of Kansas-led team reports that tools and living areas at Shég' Xdaltth'í' may link the peoples on either side of the Beringia Land Bridge.
Image: The Debrief
EAST-CENTRAL ALASKA — Archaeologists led by Kelly Graf of the University of Kansas report new findings from a site in east-central Alaska that they date to roughly 13,800 years ago, according to an article in The Debrief. The team says the evidence may help explain how early peoples crossed from Asia to the Americas, a question the report describes as hotly debated.
Archaeologists with Mexico's INAH report that a vast complex at Teteles de Ávila Castillo served as a solar observatory some 2,500 years ago.
Image: Ancient Pages
SIERRA NORTE, PUEBLA, MEXICO — Archaeologists from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) have confirmed, according to a report from Ancient Pages, that a large architectural complex in the Sierra Norte of Puebla functioned as a solar observatory more than 2,500 years ago. The settlement, known anciently as Tetelihtic, is said to have been laid out according to the movements of the heavens.
Marine archaeologists report a Bronze Age wreck near Kekova Island that, if the dating holds, displaces a Greek find as the earliest on record.
Image: Ancient Pages
KEKOVA ISLAND, TURKEY — Marine archaeologists have located what they describe as the world's oldest known shipwreck on the southern Mediterranean coast of Turkey, near Kekova Island, according to a report published by Ancient Pages.
A digest of recent reports ranges from Norse landings and an Inuit carving to a sunken ring at Alexandria, a pharaonic burial puzzle and a crocodile at the Sphinx.
THE INTERNET — The Anomalist, a digest of unexplained and unsettled history, has gathered a handful of recent reports on the ancient world. They begin with a question that has long troubled the schoolroom: why does Columbus receive the credit for reaching the Americas when others came first?
A moss-draped wall of stone columns in Vinh Son, Vietnam, resembles a citadel but is said to be millions of years old and entirely natural.
Image: Atlas Obscura
VINH SON, VIETNAM — Deep in the remote mountains of Vinh Son stands a wall that has given travellers cause to doubt their eyes. According to a listing published by Atlas Obscura, Ta Kon Citadel resembles at first glance the forgotten ruins of a colossal fortress swallowed by primeval jungle.
The Daily Grail's roundup for October 14 spans a 2,500-year-old Mexican observatory, a vampire older than Dracula, and a cavern said to lurk beneath the lunar surface.
Image: The Daily Grail
THE INTERNET — The Daily Grail, a website devoted to the unexplained, published its Wednesday news briefs on October 14, offering readers a brisk selection of items to carry them past the middle of the week.
An expedition has reached the remote Pacific island, where a five-day inspection of the so-called Taraia Object is to begin.
Image: Unexplained Mysteries
NIKUMARORO, PACIFIC OCEAN — An exploration team has arrived at the remote Pacific island of Nikumaroro to begin a search for traces of aviator Amelia Earhart, who vanished in 1937, according to a report by T.K. Randall of Unexplained Mysteries, which cites BBC News.
Archaeologists at Hunnfeltet, near Fredrikstad, report circles of 9, 11, 13 or 15 stones whose purpose remains unsettled.
Image: Ancient Pages
FREDRIKSTAD, NORWAY — Beneath the topsoil of eastern Norway, a prehistoric puzzle is said to be growing larger. According to a report by Jan Bartek of Ancient Pages, archaeologists at the Hunn burial ground (Hunnfeltet), near Fredrikstad, have uncovered a series of stone circles that had no visible marks on the surface.
Excavators at Kayalıpınar report that a 3,400-year-old Hittite archive records an epidemic, a dead infant princess and generals pleading for reinforcements.
KAYALIPINAR, TURKEY — Archaeologists working at Kayalıpınar, in the Yıldızeli district of Sivas Province, have uncovered a Hittite royal archive of 184 cuneiform tablets and fragments, according to a report by The Debrief. The team, led by Koç University in collaboration with Turkey's Ministry of Culture and Tourism, recovered 131 of them this season, adding to 53 found in earlier years.
Divers working among the drowned ruins of Antirhodos have found what is said to be the first known signet ring depicting the vanished Wonder of the ancient world.
Image: The Debrief
ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT — Nearly 2,000 years after a royal palace slipped beneath the Mediterranean, archaeologists have brought up a small bronze ring engraved with the image of a monument that no longer stands. According to The Debrief, the engraving depicts the Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
An archaeologist calls the site a place and ecosystem that 'shouldn't exist,' as a digest of antiquity news also surveys glyphs, a possible female king and Mycenaean burials.
BEARTOOTH MOUNTAINS, MONT. — The long-argued story of how people came to inhabit the Americas has acquired another wrinkle, according to a digest published by The Anomalist, which draws on a report originally carried by Popular Mechanics. The report, by writer Tim Newcomb, holds that Clovis people lived some 9,000 feet up in the mountains of Montana at an earlier date than had been believed.
Heritage charity invites the public to help explain a 1,500-tile floor pattern and the curious behaviour of sunlight at St Mary's, Itchen Stoke.
Image: Ancient Pages
ITCHEN STOKE, ENGLAND — A redundant church in Hampshire has revealed a floor labyrinth that, according to Ancient Pages, went largely unnoticed for more than a century, and the Churches Conservation Trust is now asking the public for help in understanding it.
An international team reports that ornaments on 18,000-year-old mammoth-ivory figurines from Mizyn echo the natural growth lines of the tusk itself.
Image: Ancient Pages
MIZYN, UKRAINE — An international research team says it has identified the source of the ornamentation on eighteen female figurines carved from mammoth ivory some 18,000 years ago, according to a report by Ancient Pages on a study in the journal npj Heritage Science.
A premium article from Ancient Pages recounts a sighting of giant, blue-skinned figures and asks whether such beings are an earthly hidden people or visitors from the stars.
Image: Ancient Pages
THE INTERNET — A teaser published by the website Ancient Pages, under the byline of Ellen Lloyd, announces a tale of a nocturnal encounter with giant "Blue Men," though the full account lies behind a membership wall and was not available to this newspaper.
A fresh look at skulls held at Cambridge suggests that at least 39 percent of those examined may have met violent ends beside Egypt's earliest royal tombs.
Image: Ancient Pages
ABYDOS, EGYPT — A reassessment of skulls taken from burials beside the First Dynasty royal tombs at Abydos indicates that members of the royal household may have been deliberately killed after the deaths of their kings, according to a report published on Ancient Pages. The study appears in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology.
Nearly 600 wooden remains and impressions from Abric Romaní include possible spears, a mace-like object and the makings of a kitchen platform, researchers report.
BARCELONA, SPAIN — Neanderthals, long remembered chiefly for their stone tools, may have been accomplished woodworkers as well, according to a study published in Science Advances on October 7, 2026. The report, as summarized by The Debrief, concerns the Abric Romaní rock shelter near Barcelona.
A post to r/UFOs asserts that the Office of Alien Properties sent a recovered Tesla drive to Ohio to test-fly craft from the Battle of Los Angeles and Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
THE INTERNET — A Reddit user posting to r/UFOs has put forward a claim concerning the autumn of 1945, a Tesla invention and a pair of recovered unidentified craft. The post, which carries a title but no body text, is a link or image submission, and the material behind it is not described in the source.
The Wood Street Steps, says Atlas Obscura, are the sole remnant of ten or more public stairways commissioned to give citizens access to the Delaware wharves.
Image: Atlas Obscura
PHILADELPHIA, PA. — A flight of stairs on Wood Street in Philadelphia is the last of its kind, according to an entry on Atlas Obscura. The listing describes the Wood Street Steps as the only surviving example of ten or more stairways commissioned by the city's founder, William Penn, along the original Delaware riverbank.
Archaeologists in Halden report a 4,000-year-old cist grave with a mosaic-like floor, an amber bead and arrowheads, but no trace of its occupant.
Image: Ancient Pages
HALDEN, NORWAY — Archaeologists working on the Svinesund Plateau in Halden, Norway, have uncovered a stone coffin of about 4,000 years, dating to the Neolithic, according to a report by Ancient Pages citing the University of Oslo's Museum of Cultural History and the broadcaster NRK.
Egypt's antiquities officials say the signet, found among the sunken ruins of the royal island of Antirhodos, is the first of its kind.
Image: Ancient Pages
ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT — Underwater archaeologists working in the Eastern Harbor of Alexandria have recovered a bronze seal ring engraved with the likeness of the fabled Lighthouse of Alexandria, according to an announcement by Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.
