Hacker News with Generative AI: Ancient History

First pharaoh's tomb found in Egypt since Tutankhamun's (bbc.com)
Egyptologists have discovered the first tomb of a pharaoh since Tutankhamun's was uncovered over a century ago.

Archeology, Egypt, History, Ancient History

4 points by below43 2 days ago | 1 comments

Seeing Through the Spartan Mirage (worldhistory.substack.com)
If you’re American, you’ve probably seen it on the rear window of a car or perhaps on a too-tight T-shirt on a muscly guy: two Greek words, “ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ.”

Ancient History, Greece, Culture

103 points by crescit_eundo 2 days ago | 102 comments

Who carved South America's mysterious ancient tunnels? [pdf] (unesp.br)

South America, Archaeology, Ancient History, Mysteries

100 points by Qem 4 days ago | 45 comments

Major discovery of a pre-Roman necropolis in Trento (heritagedaily.com)
Archaeologists in Trento, Italy, have discovered a monumental pre-Roman necropolis containing high-status tombs and associated grave goods.

Archaeology, History, Italy, Ancient History, Necropolis

4 points by meraxes 9 days ago | 0 comments

Ancient Celtic tribe had women at its social center (npr.org)
Ancient DNA reveals that during the Iron Age, women in ancient Celtic societies were at the center of their social networks — unlike previous eras of prehistory.

Ancient History, Archaeology, Genetics, Celtic Culture, Women's History

11 points by rbanffy 31 days ago | 0 comments

Derveni Papyrus (wikipedia.org)
The Derveni papyrus is an Ancient Greek papyrus roll that was discovered in 1962 at the archaeological site of Derveni, near Thessaloniki, in Central Macedonia.

Ancient History, Greece, Archaeology

13 points by Hooke 32 days ago | 0 comments

2,100-year-old Alexander the Great mosaic analyzed for restoration (phys.org)
In 333 BCE, near the small Pinarus River along the modern-day borders of Turkey and Syria, a fierce battle took place between the forces of Alexander the Great and the Persian king Darius III.

History, Archaeology, Ancient History, Restoration

47 points by pseudolus 33 days ago | 9 comments

Byzantine-Sassanian War (602-628 CE): The Last Great War of Antiquity (2023) (thecollector.com)
After many years of conflict, the Sassanians and Byzantines fought one last great war that nearly destroyed both empires.

Byzantine Empire, Sassanid Empire, Military History, Ancient History, War

136 points by teleforce 36 days ago | 83 comments

Ancient DNA may rewrite prehistory in India (bbc.com)
New research using ancient DNA is rewriting prehistory in India - and shows that its civilisation is the result of multiple ancient migrations, writes Tony Joseph.

Ancient History, India, Genetics, Archaeology, Migration

4 points by akbarnama 46 days ago | 1 comments

Reading the Unreadable: Seales and Team Reveal Dead Sea Scroll Text (uknow.uky.edu)
LEXINGTON, Ky. (July 23 2020) — It’s a 25,000-piece puzzle that researchers have longed to solve. That’s because the 25,000 fragments represent the Dead Sea Scrolls, and inside are ancient secrets — mysteries that have been locked away for 2,000 years.

Archaeology, History, Ancient History

3 points by handfuloflight 52 days ago | 0 comments

Storing 3D scans in a grain of wheat (wafaabilal.com)
Splicing ancient Mesopotamian civilization with post-cultural planetary futures through a poetic act of preservation, my latest work, In a Grain of Wheat, is an interdisciplinary artwork that archives the 3,000 year-old Winged Bull of Nineveh inside the DNA of Iraqi wheat seeds.

Art, Biotechnology, Archaeology, Ancient History

20 points by whoisstan 56 days ago | 4 comments

Ancient Indus Valley Script Deciphered (indusscript.net)
The official Indus inscriptions repository

Ancient History, Archaeology, Linguistics, India

8 points by samagra14 57 days ago | 2 comments

Ancient clay remedy may have potential to boost modern gut health (phys.org)
A team of scientists has discovered that an ancient medicinal clay known as Lemnian earth (LE) could inspire new understanding of how to support present-day gut health.

Ancient History, Gut Health, Medicine, Science

11 points by pseudolus 65 days ago | 2 comments

Study reveals mammoth as key food source for ancient Americans (uaf.edu)
Scientists have uncovered the first direct evidence that ancient Americans relied primarily on mammoth and other large animals for food.

Archaeology, Food, Ancient History, North America, Paleontology

108 points by stevenwoo 71 days ago | 75 comments

Precursors of Copernicus' heliocentric theory (wordpress.com)
Sometime between 410 and 420 AD, Martianus Capella came out with a book saying Mercury and Venus orbit the Sun, while the other planets orbit the Earth!

Astronomy, History, Science, Ancient History

54 points by chmaynard 77 days ago | 21 comments

Ancient texts reveal how Mesopotamians experienced emotions in their bodies (phys.org)
From feeling heavy-hearted to having butterflies in your stomach, it seems inherent to the human condition that we feel emotions in our bodies, not just in our brains. But have we always felt––or at least expressed––these feelings in the same way?

Ancient History, Anthropology, Psychology, Emotions

16 points by arto 79 days ago | 0 comments

Ancient Sumerians created the first writing system (lithub.com)
In the middle of the fourth millennium before Christ, men and women could feed themselves and their families, much of the time, but almost nobody else. They did not yet have the wheel. They could fight, but they did not have the capacity to make war. They could not read or write, for there was no writing. Without writing, there was no history. There were stories but no literature.

Ancient History, Writing Systems, Mesopotamia

164 points by HR01 86 days ago | 188 comments

A Dark Age Beacon (2019) (archaeology.org)

Archaeology, History, Ancient History, Dark Ages

32 points by Petiver 87 days ago | 7 comments

Evidence of oldest known alphabetic writing unearthed in ancient Syrian city (hub.jhu.edu)
What appears to be evidence of some of the oldest alphabetic writing in human history is etched onto finger-length, clay cylinders excavated from a tomb in Syria by a team of Johns Hopkins University researchers.

Archaeology, Ancient History, Writing Systems, Syria

359 points by Someone 90 days ago | 265 comments

German WWII Soldier Grave Found with Mesolithic Tools, Roman and Byzantine Coins (labrujulaverde.com)
The Tuchola Forest in northern Poland continues to reveal its secrets as archaeologists explore its vast woods and lakes.

Archaeology, History, Poland, Ancient History

117 points by petethomas 94 days ago | 133 comments

Pre-Greek Substrate (wikipedia.org)
The pre-Greek substrate (or substratum) consists of the unknown pre-Greek language or languages (either Pre-Indo-European or other Indo-European languages) spoken in prehistoric Greece prior to the emergence of the Proto-Greek language in the region c. 3200–2200 BC, during the Early Helladic period.

Linguistics, History, Greece, Ancient History, Pre-Indo-European Languages

25 points by diodorus 101 days ago | 3 comments

Cornish monument is 4k years older than was thought and 'without parallel' (theguardian.com)
An enigmatic stone and turf structure on Bodmin Moor that was previously thought to be a medieval animal pen has been found to be 4,000 years older – and unique in Europe.

Archaeology, History, England, Monuments, Ancient History

54 points by zeristor 104 days ago | 14 comments

Corinthian Bronze (wikipedia.org)
Corinthian bronze, also named Corinthian brass, aes Corinthiacum, or Grilver was a metal alloy in classical antiquity.

Ancient History, Metallurgy, Archaeology

12 points by diodorus 106 days ago | 1 comments

DNA from Pompeii Victims Reveals Surprising Relationships Amidst the Chaos (gizmodo.com)
A handful of people in Pompeii that were killed by the devastating eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 are not who experts thought they were, according to a team of researchers that recently collected DNA from the individuals’ remains.

Archaeology, Genetics, Ancient History, Italy

79 points by rntn 106 days ago | 26 comments

Gladiators in ancient Anatolia lived to entertain the masses (archaeology.org)

Ancient History, Archaeology, Entertainment

82 points by diodorus 109 days ago | 51 comments

Top discoveries about ancient people from DNA in 2023 (johnhawks.net)
This year saw a lot of research consolidation, with continued progress along well-established lines. This year saw many research studies that are in this category of “filling in the map” of ancient DNA, especially within the last 3000 years.

Genetics, Archaeology, Ancient History

91 points by softwaredoug 110 days ago | 9 comments

Mysterious Nazca Glyphs Have Just Been Revealed (sciencealert.com)
In the desert of southern Peru, a mystery has been unfolding over decades.

Archaeology, Peru, Ancient History, Mysteries

12 points by kickout 150 days ago | 6 comments

Cold war spy satellites and AI detect ancient underground aqueducts (newscientist.com)
Most of the ancient underground aqueducts that enabled humans to settle in the world’s hottest and driest regions have been lost over time. Now, archaeologists are rediscovering them by using artificial intelligence to analyse spy satellite images taken during the cold war.

Archaeology, Artificial Intelligence, History, Ancient History, Satellites

119 points by Brajeshwar 157 days ago | 20 comments

One of the worlds forgotten ancient wonders hidden in plain site in Armenia [video] (youtube.com)