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Antiquity Journal
@antiquity.ac.uk
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Antiquity is a bimonthly review of world archaeology edited by Professor Robin Skeates. Please be aware that we sometimes share relevant images of human remains. https://antiquity.ac.uk/
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antiquity.ac.uk
Byzantine coin (tetarteron nomisma) of Emperor John I Tzimiskes, found at the late 10th century AD settlement of Ciepłe, Poland #MedievalMonday
They are rare in northern Europe, indicating Ciepłe was a significant early medieval centre with elite connections to Byzantium.

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
Both sides of a gold coin. The obverse sides depicts the bust of a bearded figure (Christ) with a halo around his head and raising his right hand. The reverse side depicts a person wearing a crown and holding a cross (Emperor John I Tzimiskes) next to a woman (the virgin Mary) with a halo, placing her hand on his head.
November 17, 2025 at 2:25 PM
antiquity.ac.uk
Want to learn more about life in the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1069 BC)? Read about the discovery of a major New Kingdom settlement at Kom el-Nugus, previously thought to have only been occupied from the Hellenistic period (332–31 BC) onwards, in Antiquity 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
Trench in a desert containing remains of stone structures, annotated to show which elements are Hellenistic and which are from the New Kingdom. The New Kingdom levels have been damaged by later Hellenistic development.
November 17, 2025 at 1:25 PM
antiquity.ac.uk
Queen Mary I of England died #OnThisDay in AD 1558, succeeded by her half-sister, Elizabeth I.
Metal export increased during Elizabeth's reign, traded as far as the Ottoman Empire. Sediment cores indicate significant rises in lead pollution as a result.

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
Graph showing lead concentration in a sediment core from Aldborough, Yorkshire over time. There is a significant increase from 1555-1608, indicating greater lead production during the Elizabethan Period.
November 17, 2025 at 10:15 AM
antiquity.ac.uk
Millet was domesticated in China, where it was boiled and steamed. This changed as it moved west, with Central Asian communities adapting millet to their bread-baking traditions instead of adopting East Asian cooking practices #NationalHomemadeBreadDay 🥖

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
Diagrams showing variation in millet processing techniques. Left: grinding stone and oven for baking, from the Inner Asian mountain Corridor. Right: tripodal cooking pot over a fire for steaming/boiling, from Monsoonal China.
November 17, 2025 at 8:13 AM
antiquity.ac.uk
Just under a month until the Theoretical Archaeology Group meeting
@tag2025york.bsky.social!
This year's theme is 'Theory in Action', so come along from the 15th-17th December to explore how archaeological theory can make an impact on the world.

Learn more: tag2025.hosted.york.ac.uk/en/

🏺
Megaphone overlaid over a branching river, with the text 'Theory in Action, TAG York 2025'.
November 16, 2025 at 11:00 AM
antiquity.ac.uk
After Islamic State militants took Mosul, Iraq in 2015, they vandalised the Mosul Cultural Museum and its collections. Now, the museum is gradually being brought back to life so that the citizens of Mosul can again identify with and learn from Iraq’s rich cultural heritage.

🏺 #Archaeology 1/2
A man in a suit (Zaid Ghazi Saadallah, Director of the Mosul Cultural Museum) in front of the damaged interior of a building, lecturing to a group of schoolchildren.
November 15, 2025 at 2:28 PM
antiquity.ac.uk
Egypt was heavily exploited for its natural resources during the Hellenistic Period and almost 40 gold mines were opened under the Ptolemies. Excavations at the mining site of Ghozza uncovered shackles, revealing the harsh reality of life as a miner 2/2

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
Iron shackles in situ in a trench.
November 14, 2025 at 9:30 PM
antiquity.ac.uk
Alexander the Great may have been crowned pharaoh of Egypt #OnThisDay in 332 BC. His conquest paved the way for Egypt's Hellenistic Period under the Ptolemaic Dynasty, founded by Alexander's general and successor Ptolemy after Alexander's death 1/2

📷Marie-Lan Nyuyen / CC BY 2.5

🏺 #Archaeology
Ptolemaic silver coin depicting Alexander the Great wearing an elephant scalp, a symbol of his conquest in India. Minted in Alexandria between 305 and 282 BC.
November 14, 2025 at 9:30 PM
antiquity.ac.uk
Stone pounder from c.9030–6741 BP southern China, possibly used to mash taro into poi, which remains a traditional staple in Polynesian diets to this day. Before the cultivation of rice, taro was likely also a staple in the Chinese diet.

🔗 from 2024 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
Red-brown stone object that is narrow towards the top, widening to the base.
November 14, 2025 at 5:15 PM
antiquity.ac.uk
Child in Australia's Northern Territory in 1957, drawing in the sand. Sand drawings are used to relate stories and, especially by children, to create drawing games #ChildrensDay
Did ancient 'finger flutings' on soft cave walls serve a similar purpose?

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
Child with blonde hair wearing a white dress, drawing lines in the sand with their fingers. (Photograph by Gilbert Joyce; image courtesy Library and Archives Northern Territory https://hdl.handle.net/10070/747811; photo number: PH0048/0180).
November 14, 2025 at 3:03 PM
antiquity.ac.uk
What research is being undertaken in the field of maritime and underwater #archaeology? What is the potential for future research? Check out our review of 'Delivering the deep: maritime archaeology for the 21st century' in the latest #NewBookChronicle 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
Cover of a red book.
November 14, 2025 at 1:45 PM
antiquity.ac.uk
#FindsFriday bone comb from the #Pictish site of Buckquoy on the island of Orkney 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
Typical of later Iron Age settlements in Orkney, researchers radiocarbon dated the bone, shedding light on Pictish-Viking interaction in the Northern Isles.

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
Comb made from bone. A central handle is fixed to a wide, flat piece of bone with teeth on both sides.
November 14, 2025 at 8:13 AM
antiquity.ac.uk
Do you have a (hand)axe to grind? Antiquity publishes debate pieces on contentious issues to stimulate #archaeology discussion 🏺

Find out more and submit an #AntiquityDebate here: antiquity.ac.uk/submit
November 13, 2025 at 5:30 PM
antiquity.ac.uk
NEW the late Predynastic and Early Dynastic remains at the cemetery of Tarkhan are pivotal evidence of ancient Egyptian state formation. Reassessment using modern methods sheds light on this foundational period of Egypt's past.

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
Google Earth satellite image of Tarkhan, overlaid with an annotated excavation map of the cemetery, made during excavation by Flinders Petrie in 1912-13.
November 13, 2025 at 2:25 PM
antiquity.ac.uk
At Upper Palaeolithic Helong Dadong 🇨🇳 they loved their obsidian tools! From over 800 27,300-24,100-year-old microblades, 94.7% were made from obsidian, indicating close ties to the obsidian-rich environment of the Changbaishan Mountains.

🔗 from 2024 (£) doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
Different kinds of lithic tools (scrapers, endscrapers & bifacial points), predominantly made from obsidian.
November 13, 2025 at 1:25 PM
antiquity.ac.uk
K’uk’ulkan, the feathered serpent, is a central deity in #Maya mythology #FolkloreThursday 🐍
Reconstruction of the fragmented serpent columns at Chichen Itza’s El Castillo is digitally restoring the pyramid of the iconic Mesoamerican deity.

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
3D model of a square archway supported by two damaged columns. One column has been reconstructed through the addition of several fragmented pieces (coloured green) that reveal its original appearance as a feathered serpent.
November 13, 2025 at 10:45 AM
antiquity.ac.uk
To err is human, and people in the past made mistakes just as often as we do today. Why, then, are archaeologists often reluctant to consider failure as a driving factor when investigating unexpected findings? #WorldQualityDay

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
An excavated stone drainage channel that has had a terracotta channel added to it. The channel likely didn't work initially, so the channel was added to correct the error.
November 13, 2025 at 8:45 AM
antiquity.ac.uk
Barkcloth beaters have been used on Sulawesi to produce cloth from bark for thousands of years.
Their sophisticated designs remained relatively unchanged until the 19th century AD, when the introduction of woven textiles necessitated innovation to compete

(£) doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
15 barkcloth beaters. Two are large 'paddles' made from wood, the others are square blocks of stone fixed into wooden handles. Both the wooden and stone beaters are engraved with different groove motifs and depths based on when in the barkcloth production process they were used.
November 12, 2025 at 9:35 PM
antiquity.ac.uk
Enjoying a roast this #RoastDinnerDay? Spare a thought for the inmates of colonial British institutions. They got roast meat on special occasions like Christmas, but food was generally bland and monotonous.

Learn more about eating in colonial Australia 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
Left: map of Australia, highlighting the locations of New South Wales, the Great Dividing Range and Sydney. Right: map of Sydney, showing the location of the 19th century British colonial institution of Hyde Park Barracks.
November 12, 2025 at 5:35 PM
antiquity.ac.uk
For #HillfortsWednesday the early #medieval hillfort and settlement of Grzybowo, Poland.
The first ruling dynasty of Poland, the Piasts, used hillfort strongholds to expand their influence across Poland and they were likely places of thriving trade.

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
Orthophoto of a hill surrounded by fields. Locations of archaeological trenches and non-invasive surveys are annotated, showing extensive survey over the hillfort strongholds and associated settlement.
November 12, 2025 at 2:25 PM
antiquity.ac.uk
Read the new research in Antiquity 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
Title, authors and abstract of the research article. Abstract image depicts a bone comb.
November 12, 2025 at 1:45 PM
antiquity.ac.uk
If you're into bugs, how about this tiny faience scarab from Tell el-Retaba. Found in a Third Intermediate Period (1070–664 BC) domestic context, it was likely connected to private religious practices.
Learn more 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
Grey-green coloured faience model depicting a scarab
November 12, 2025 at 11:55 AM
antiquity.ac.uk
NEW The Fens of eastern England have been occupied since the Neolithic, but are threatened by environmental change. The Fenscapes project synthesises the region's rich archaeoenvironmental data to support both heritage and environmental preservation.

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
Elevation map of the Fens showing present-day topography and major settlements. Insert: map of Britain with the Fens (an area of eastern England) highlighted.
November 12, 2025 at 10:35 AM
antiquity.ac.uk
The plantation economy, upon which the trans-Atlantic slave trade was predicated, originated on the African island of São Tomé. The first archaeological excavation there reveals the 'bitter legacy' of early sugar plantations and local resistance 2/2

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
The estate house and sugar mill at Praia Melão: the largest sugar mill and estate on the island. A tall stone building stood in a tropical forest, partially overgrown with vegetation.
November 12, 2025 at 8:13 AM
antiquity.ac.uk
Construction was completed on the Wilberforce Monument in Kingston Upon Hull, England #OnThisDay in AD 1835. The monument honours William Wilberforce: a politician and abolitionist instrumental in the campaign to prohibit slavery in the British Empire 1/2

📷 Keith D / CC BY 3.0
Tall, Neoclassical style column on a plinth. At the top stands a statue of a man.
November 12, 2025 at 8:13 AM