Journal
Dispatches from the ancient world: research, mysteries and the tools to test them.
Goseck: The Oldest Solar Observatory We Can Prove
Around 4900 BC, farmers in central Germany built a ring whose gates frame the winter solstice sunrise and sunset. Corrected Sep...
Caral: A City Older Than the Pyramids, Without a Single Wall of War
While Giza rose in Egypt, Caral was already old in Peru: the oldest city we can currently date in the Americas, with pyramids, ...
Arkaim: The Bronze Age Ring on the Steppe, and Our Nearest Miss
A ring-shaped fortified town from around 2000 BC, found ahead of a dam and saved from it, burned before it was abandoned. It al...
Karahunj: Armenia's Stones and the Telescope That Wasn't
Over 200 basalt stones stand on a windswept Armenian plateau, dozens pierced with neat round holes. Ancient observatory older t...
Yonaguni: Monument or Rock? The Case for Reading Carefully
Off a Japanese island lies a stone formation of sharp terraces and flat planes, 25 metres down. Sunken civilisation or natural ...
Nan Madol: The Venice Nobody Can Explain Cheaply
On a Pacific reef, a dynasty stacked basalt columns into ninety-odd artificial islets, up to 750,000 tonnes of moved stone. It ...
Antequera: The Dolmen That Looks at a Face
Most European dolmens face the sunrise. The Dolmen de Menga at Antequera faces a mountain shaped like a sleeping face. Correcte...
Ggantija: Older Than the Wheel, Built by 'Giants'
On the island of Gozo stand two temples raised around 3600 BC and 2900 BC, among the oldest freestanding buildings on Earth, so...
Mohenjo-daro: The City That Invented Plumbing
Mohenjo-daro had gridded streets, covered drains and a bathroom in nearly every house, and we still cannot read a word its peop...
Meroe: The Country With More Pyramids Than Egypt
Sudan has around twice as many pyramids as Egypt, and most of them stand at Meroe, capital of the Kushite kings and candaces wh...
The Ziggurat of Ur: Climbing Toward the Moon God
Ur-Nammu raised a mountain of mudbrick to the moon god Nanna around 2100 BC, and kings and dictators were still rebuilding it f...
Chaco Canyon: Cardinal Walls and a Dagger of Light
In a high desert canyon, Ancestral Puebloans built great houses of between about 600 and 800 rooms, aligned walls to the cardin...