Google Just Released an A.I. Tool That Helps Historians Fill in Missing Words in Ancient Roman Inscriptions
Known as Aeneas, the tool was trained on an extensive dataset of Latin epigraphy. Experts hope it will help decipher segments of text that have been lost to history
An Archer Shot This Bronze Age Human in the Back. 4,000 Years Later, the Arrow Is Still Embedded in the Victim’s Rib Bone
The attack took place during a period of conflict between groups living in the Pyrenees mountains in modern-day Spain
Archaeologists Discover Site Where George Washington Stopped a Friendly Fire Incident by Blocking Muskets With His Sword
In 1758, during the French and Indian War, the future president saved lives by stepping into the middle of a deadly skirmish in Pennsylvania
A Tiny Typo May Explain a Centuries-Old Mystery About Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’ and ‘Troilus and Criseyde’
The medieval writer made puzzling references to a story called “The Song of Wade,” which has been lost to history. Only a few lines quoted—or perhaps misquoted—in a 12th-century sermon survive
Have Eagle-Eyed Experts Found This 316-Year-Old Stradivarius Violin That Was Looted During World War II?
Eight decades after the 1709 violin known as the “Small Mendelssohn” disappeared, experts think they’ve located it in Japan
Mysterious ‘Red Sprite’ Appears in NASA Astronaut Photo From the Space Station. What Is This Strange Electrical Flare?
Red sprites are among a class of enigmatic weather phenomena that appear over thunderstorms, known as Transient Luminous Events
Four Bewildering Bronze Lions’ Heads With Slightly Different Facial Expressions Found in Ancient Roman Grave in Israel
Similar examples of ancient lion artifacts appear to have been used as door knockers. But the newly discovered discs may have served a different purpose
Ancient DNA Reveals That Men Moved in With Their Brides’ Families in This Neolithic Settlement
A new study suggests that a 9,000-year-old society in Catalhoyuk, a proto-city in southern Anatolia, may have established a “female-centered” social structure
Astronomers Detected a Mysterious Radio Burst. It Turned Out to Be From a Dead NASA Satellite
The signal detected last year came from Relay 2, a communications satellite that has been defunct since 1967
Mysterious Radio Pulses Found in Antarctica Seem to Defy Physics, and Researchers Are Trying to Trace Their Origins
Strange signals detected by a NASA instrument more than a decade ago have continued to confound scientists, but a new paper rules out cosmic neutrinos as a source
These Gold Coins May Solve the Mystery of the ‘World’s Richest Shipwreck,’ Confirming Its Identity as a Legendary 18th-Century Galleon
Minted in Peru in 1707, the money bolsters the evidence that the wreck is the Spanish ship “San José,” which sank off the Colombian coast in 1708 with treasure worth billions on board
Untold Stories of American History
Tattered Pages Discovered in Storage Reveal an Enslaved Man’s Daring Bid for Freedom—and His Second Life at Sea
Historians are investigating the haunting handwritten manuscript, which chronicles Thomas White’s escape from slavery in Maryland and adventures around the world nearly 200 years ago
Archaeologists Are Recreating the Long-Lost Recipe for Egyptian Blue, the World’s Oldest Known Synthetic Pigment
Created 5,000 years ago, the mysterious color has been found on artworks and artifacts throughout the ancient world. But the pigment’s recipe was eventually lost to history
Stolen Paintings Linked to Retired Couple Who Supposedly Moonlighted as Art Thieves Returned to New Mexico Museum After 40 Years
Victor Higgins’ “Aspens” and Joseph Henry Sharp’s “Oklahoma Cheyenne” had been missing since March 1985, when they were snatched in broad daylight
Archaeologists Discover More Than 100 Structures Linked to a Mysterious Pre-Columbian Civilization in the Remote Peruvian Andes
Based in high-altitude urban centers, the Chachapoya resisted conquest by the Inca Empire for centuries
Banksy Unveils New Lighthouse Mural With the Words ‘I Want to Be What You Saw in Me’ in France
The anonymous street artist announced the uncharacteristically personal artwork on May 29. It’s located on a wall in the French city of Marseille
This Bewildering Byzantine Bucket Stumped Archaeologists for Decades. Now, They’ve Finally Discovered Its Purpose
Fragments of the bucket were first found at England’s Sutton Hoo burial site in 1986. New research has revealed that the 1,500-year-old artifact was probably used as a cremation vessel
The Shipwrecks From John Franklin’s Doomed Arctic Expedition Were Exactly Where the Inuit Said They Would Be
In May 1845, 129 British officers and crew members set out in search of the Northwest Passage on HMS “Erebus” and HMS “Terror.” None returned
These Ancient Scrolls Have Been a Tantalizing Mystery for 2,000 Years. Researchers Just Deciphered a Title for the First Time
Mount Vesuvius’ eruption preserved the Herculaneum scrolls beneath a blanket of ash. Two millennia later, X-ray scans show that one of them is a philosophical text called “On Vice”
Birds Are Dying Mysterious, Violent Deaths in This Northern California Neighborhood—and No One Can Explain Why
Residents of Richmond, a city in the Bay Area, say they have watched dozens of birds drop dead in recent months
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