Story Archive
Rock-carved Puma Orqo figure has a broken head and long tail
Rock-carved animal figure at Puma Orqo, has broken head, long tail and toes. A zoomorphic sculpture is carved directly into the rock face at Puma Orqo,, Peru: and is locally…
Mortarless interlocking trapezoidal doorways found beside mortar-bonded Inca walls
Mortarless interlocking trapezoidal doorways found beside mortar-bonded Inca walls. At Puma Orqo the presenter documents megalithic doorways, including a trapezoid-shaped opening,…
Inca double-jam doorway at Puma Orqo lacks the older megalithic joints
Inca double-jam doorway at Puma Orqo lacks the older megalithic joints. A double-jam doorway of Inca construction stands among the megalithic remains at Puma Orqo, separate from…
Presenter reads Gobekli Tepe bull relief as castration and first-hunt ritual
Presenter reads Gobekli Tepe bull relief as castration and first-hunt ritual. The presenter uses Gobekli Tepe as the turning point when humans moved from living within the…
Video argues Siberian mammoth 'cosmic hunt' variant may date to ~40,000 years
Video dates 'cosmic hunt' star myth to ~40,000 years via Siberian mammoth variant. Using the Mythology and Folklore Database, the presenter states the 'cosmic hunt' myth type is…
Video argues creation myths descend from a 70,000+ year old human ascent tradition
Video argues creation myths descend from a 70,000+ year old human ascent tradition. He distinguishes a 'human ascent' creation myth, in which humans emerge from the underworld up…
Video links 70,000-year-old South African rain snake to later dragon-slaying myths
Video links 70,000-year-old South African rain snake to later dragon-slaying myths. The video describes the older dragon myths, the rainbow serpent and the rain snake, as…
Ashurbanipal's library: video discusses a cow-Tiamat Enuma Elish tablet
Ashurbanipal's palace tablets: video notes new Enuma Elish version with Tiamat as a cow. In the question period a participant asked whether Sumerian tablets count as myth, legend…
Nag Hammadi codices: video describes 1948 find of suppressed priest's 'true words of Jesus'
Nag Hammadi codices: video describes 1948 find of suppressed priest's 'true words of Jesus'. A participant described the Nag Hammadi discovery in Egypt: two men digging for…
Video frames Atlantis as an Ice Age civilization destroyed ~12,000 years ago
Video frames Atlantis as an Ice Age civilization destroyed ~12,000 years ago. The video summarizes the Atlantis belief as a technologically advanced civilization existing roughly…
Wood and thumb bone found during Khafre's 1945–46 fumigation
Wood fragment and thumb bone found in Khafre's Pyramid during 1946 fumigation. Herbert Cole fumigated the Pyramid of Khafre in 1946 with hydrogen cyanide gas to deal with an…
Radiocarbon dates Khafre wood to 395-157 BC and bone to 1837-1909 AD
Radiocarbon dates Khafre wood to 395-157 BC and bone to 1837-1909 AD. The relics were sent for radiocarbon dating by Javier Sierra through Dr. Fermin Alonso of the geochronology…
Grave Creek Mound: 70-ft Adena pyramid; Miamisburg and Enon mounds also stand
Grave Creek Mound: 70-ft Adena pyramid; Miamisburg and Enon mounds also stand. Grave Creek Mound in Moundsville, West Virginia stands just under 70 ft tall and 295 ft in diameter,…
Adena trade in Ohio pipestone ran from New England to the Gulf Coast
Adena trade in Ohio pipestone ran from New England to the Gulf Coast. Adena villages lay away from the burial pyramids and typically held 10-30 circular houses with center posts,…
Mount Horeb ring-ditch complex: causeway, platform and central Adena burial mound
Mount Horeb ring-ditch complex: moat, causeway and central Adena burial pyramid. Mount Horeb, the best known Adena ring-ditch site in Lexington, Kentucky, is managed by the…
Adena Mound: 1901 and 1904 excavations, 36 burials and the carved Adena pipe
Adena Mound excavated in 1901: 36 burials and the carved Adena pipe. The Adena Mound, the type site that gave the Adena their name, was originally a 27-ft-tall earthen pyramid on…
Grave 43 at Varna: gold-covered man aged 50-65, possibly a metalworker
Grave 43 at Varna: gold-covered man aged 50-65, possibly a metalworker. Grave 43 held a male skeleton surrounded by gold ornaments, gold fittings apparently intended as decoration…
Lost-wax casting and deliberate gold alloys evidence advanced Varna metallurgy
Lost-wax casting and deliberate gold alloys evidence advanced Varna metallurgy. While some early accounts proposed cold hammering, a study in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal…
2024 diet study finds no link between Varna grave goods and meat consumption
2024 diet study finds no link between Varna grave goods and meat consumption. A dietary study published in 2024 analyzed 60 individuals from the Varna 1 and Varna 3 cemetery…
Varna I necropolis: 3,100 gold objects, two-thirds of them in six graves
Varna I necropolis: 3,100 gold objects, two-thirds of them in six graves. The Varna I cemetery near Varna in present-day Bulgaria dates to about 4600-4300 BC and was used for…
Varna's richest graves without skeletons: gold diadem, bull figures, clay heads
Varna's richest graves without skeletons: gold diadem, bull figures, clay heads. Grave 36 held an exceptional set of valuables but no human skeleton: two golden animals usually…
Mass plague burials found in the catacombs of Marcellinus and Peter
Mass plague burials found in the catacombs of Marcellinus and Peter. In the catacombs of Marcellinus and Peter, archaeologists found rooms stacked with hundreds of bodies,…
Herculaneum skeletons reveal malnutrition, hard labor and an athlete
Herculaneum skeletons reveal malnutrition, hard labor and an athlete. A skeleton excavated at Herculaneum and dubbed the "helmsman" by excavators showed bones stunted by childhood…
Video argues Tarragona's cyclopean boulder base predates the Roman wall
Video argues Tarragona's cyclopean boulder base predates the Roman wall. Ancient Tarraco (modern Tarragona, Spain) became the seat of a Roman provincial capital and a military…
Olèrdola’s Roman polygonal base survives beneath its medieval castle
Olèrdola's Saturnian-style polygonal base survives beneath a medieval castle. Olèrdola lies about 60 km along the coast from Tarragona, on a plateau with commanding views,…
Strabo's 25 BC account and the Old Kingdom dating debate at the Osireion
Strabo's 25 BC account and the Old Kingdom dating debate at the Osireion. Strabo visited Abydos around 25 BC and described the 'Memnonium' (transcribed 'Mimonium') above the city…
Osireion plan mirrors Khafre's Valley Temple, its central island sunk five storeys
Osireion plan mirrors Khafre's Valley Temple, its central island sunk five storeys. The Osireion consists of a central island surrounded by a water-filled moat, built of red…
Osireion's artesian water from a deep aquifer resists pumping and stays cool
Osireion's artesian water from a deep aquifer resists pumping and stays cool. The Osireion was deliberately built to intersect the water table, in contrast to most Egyptian…
Naville's 1913 report judged the Osireion more archaic than Khafre's pyramid
Naville's 1913 report judged the Osireion more archaic than Khafre's pyramid. Flinders Petrie and Margaret Murray began work at the Osireion in 1902, and Edward Naville, a Swiss…
Geologists conclude Yonaguni's offshore 'steps' follow natural sandstone joints
Geologists conclude Yonaguni's offshore 'steps' follow natural sandstone joints. Off the Japanese island of Yonaguni, an underwater formation has broad terraces, straight edges…
Heinrich's 2008 lab study: Klerksdorp 'spheres' are natural mineral concretions
Heinrich's 2008 lab study: Klerksdorp 'spheres' are natural mineral concretions. Small grooved objects found near Klerksdorp, South Africa, had been described as manufactured…
Geology explains Sete Cidades 'library' as sediment layers, not a Phoenician city ruin
Geology explains Sete Cidades 'library' as sediment layers, not a Phoenician city ruin. In northeastern Brazil, the sandstone formations of Sete Cidades National Park include…
Borlase's 1878 stonework leaves the barrow a mix of original and Victorian fabric
Borlase's 1878 stonework leaves the barrow a mix of original and Victorian fabric. After excavating, Borlase built up stonework to display the remains and created the circular…
Ballowall Barrow uncovered from tin-mining waste and excavated by Borlase in 1878
Cornish barrow uncovered under tin-mining waste and excavated in 1878. Ballowall Barrow stands on the clifftop of Balawal Common near St Just, in the far west of Cornwall, not far…
Five cists, concentric walls and an entrance grave form the barrow's core
Five cists, concentric walls and an entrance grave form the barrow's core. The monument comprises a central domed mound ringed by two concentric drystone walls. Inside were five…
Bronze Age dating at the barrow rests on typology and has never been lab-tested
Bronze Age dating at the barrow rests on typology and has never been lab-tested. The site is dated predominantly to the Bronze Age, but the dating is typological rather than…
Presenter argues Yonaguni is an ancient quarry, not a temple site
Presenter argues Yonaguni is an ancient quarry, not a temple site. Dan argues that debunkers of Graham Hancock's 'Ancient Apocalypse' attack individual sentences rather than the…
LiDAR survey maps Austin-area cart ruts; Hugh: Newman notes Malta similarity
LiDAR survey maps Austin-area cart ruts; Hugh: Newman notes Malta similarity. Participants took a spontaneous walking tour of suspected cart ruts in the Austin, Texas area,…
Video claims cart-rut measurements predate Rome and that ruts were made by sleds
Video claims cart-rut measurements predate Rome and that ruts were made by sleds. Mike has LiDAR-scanned cart ruts at sites he has travelled to worldwide and sent the scans to…
Panel highlights research bias: Menkaure's pyramid studied far less than Khufu's
Panel highlights research bias: Menkaure's pyramid studied far less than Khufu's. The panel states that archaeologists use the term 'research bias' to describe uneven attention…
Video alleges marble replacements and artifact theft at Turkish heritage sites
Turkey site marble slabs and artifact black market tied to $700B-a-year heritage tourism. A presenter says he spent ten years travelling to ancient sites worldwide and documenting…
KMT covered hoax statue excavation and Herodotus' pyramid-building machine
KMT covered hoax statue excavation and Herodotus' pyramid-building machine. The presenters reference a 1990s issue of KMT magazine describing a statue that was uncovered as a hoax…
Video argues Sphinx enclosure walls eroded beyond Old Kingdom age
Video argues Sphinx enclosure walls eroded beyond Old Kingdom age. The conventional date given for the Great Sphinx is about 4,500 years, i.e. the Old Kingdom (4th Dynasty), and…
Stepwise block removal from Sphinx enclosure supplied the Sphinx temple
Stepwise block removal from Sphinx enclosure supplied the Sphinx temple. Limestone blocks were removed from the enclosure in a stepwise fashion, leaving horizontal ledges where…
Video argues Sphinx west wall erosion was guided by limestone joints
Sphinx enclosure west wall cross-section shows extreme erosion and joint-guided dissolution. The west wall of the Sphinx enclosure stands about 22 feet above the enclosure floor.…
Video compares karst pavement with Sphinx enclosure erosion
Clints and grikes karst pavement used as analog for rounded Sphinx walls. Clints and grikes are karst pavement features in which slightly acidic water dissolves limestone or…
Megaflood boulder deposits compared between south Sinai wadis and Snake River Canyon
Megaflood boulder deposits compared between south Sinai wadis and Snake River Canyon. Published work on extreme floods in wadis of south Sinai, including Wadi Isla, used boulder…
Sphinx cut from a natural yardang; video argues original head was a lion
Sphinx cut from a natural yardang; video argues original head was a lion. An overhead view of the Sphinx enclosure shows the monument standing within a natural rock outcrop;…
La Jolla cliff retreat and Point Peron peg erosion rates
Intertidal limestone erosion rates from La Jolla cliffs and Point Peron pegs. Emery (1941), using dated inscriptions on gravestones and building cornerstones, estimated the rate…
Tombstones, Bureau of Standards cubes and Watts Bar boulders set limestone solution rates
Tombstones, Bureau of Standards cubes and Watts Bar boulders set limestone solution rates. An 1890 study of gravestones cut from solid unweathered limestone with a date inscribed…
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