Cylinder seals were far more than ancient signatures. They fused art, power, and belief into objects that revealed exactly who their owners were. The earliest form of the signature came from ancient Iraq in the form of cylinder seals. Mesopotamians, the ancient inhabitants of the land between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, are credited for [...]

Tutankhamun’s 1925 examination left behind evidence that official accounts largely omitted. A closer look at the records reveals a troubling gap between scientific history and what actually happened. November 2025 marks 100 years since archaeologists first examined Tutankhamun’s mummified remains. What followed wasn’t scientific triumph—it was destruction. Using hot knives and brute force, Howard Carter’s [...]

A rare sandstone spirit reveals the private faith of Rome’s northern frontier.

In the mid-19th century, the remote island of St. Helena, located about 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) off the southwestern coast of Africa, became a receiving point for thousands of enslaved Africans rescued from illegal slave ships by the British Royal Navy. Tragically, about 8,000 died shortly after arriving and were buried in unmarked graves in Rupert's Valley.

Egyptian princesses may have trained extensively with weapons, according to a new archaeological assessment that suggests the weapons buried with their mummies were more than mere symbols.

The researchers examined five mummies of Egyptian Middle Kingdom royal women for a new paper published in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology, finding that their musculature indicates they led physically active lives.

Their work offers new insight into a long-standing question: whether the weapons buried with these royal women served a practical purpose or were simply symbolic grave goods.

Discovering Egypt’s Mummies

“Members of the royal family, especially the women, were active participants in skilled, physically demanding activities such as archery and hunting,” said lead author Dr Zeinab Hashesh. “This conclusion is supported by the way their bones developed to sustain heavy muscle use, which corresponds directly to the weapons discovered in their tombs.”

On a western plateau overlooking the Nile Valley lies the Memphis Necropolis, a 19-mile-long series of funerary complexes. One of these, a collection of pyramids and shaft tombs known as Dahshur, includes the pyramid of Amenemhat III, where two of the mummies were recovered during excavations begun in 1894 by Jacques de Morgan. These first discoveries were King Hor and Princess Noub-Hotep.

Later in 1894, de Morgan began excavating Amenemhat II’s pyramid complex at Dahshur. There, in early 1895, he discovered what would later be identified as four daughters of the pharaoh: Princesses Ita and Khenmet, buried together in one chamber, and Princesses Itaweret and Sathathormeryt in another.

Only the remains of King Hor and Princess Noub-Hotep underwent scientific examination at the time of their discovery. Eventually, all six sets of remains were transferred to the Egyptian Museum in 1915, where they remained lost until their rediscovery in 2020.

Weapons of the Egyptian Dead

The complex was unusual because these women were buried with objects typically associated with men, including bows and arrows, and a dagger placed inside Princess Ita’s coffin.

The mummification techniques used on the remains were relatively crude compared with those employed in later Theban burials. As a result, the remains are poorly preserved, with soft tissues reduced to powder, some bones entirely missing, and the princesses’ skulls lost during the early 1900s. Fortunately, enough skeletal material survived to allow researchers to estimate their height, sex, age at death, illnesses, and injuries.

“Princess Ita was a young woman aged between 28 and 34 with strong upper-body muscle attachments, suggesting she habitually used weapons like maces or daggers,” said Hashesh. “Princess Khenmet was a woman in her late 30s or 40s who showed signs of thinning bones, but had very robust ligament attachments. Princess Itaweret was a young woman aged between 20 and 34 who survived broken ribs and foot fractures; her skeleton shows she was a skilled archer.” 

All four sisters’ bones showed signs of physically active lifestyles consistent with weapons training.

“We found pronounced development in the upper limbs of these individuals, which correlates to repetitive, high-intensity actions like pulling a bowstring or stabilizing a weapon, proving these activities were habitual throughout their lives,” explained Hashesh. “This directly explains the presence of bows, arrows, and maces in the women’s tombs; these were not just symbolic gifts but tools they actively used.”

A Hard Life, Even for Royalty

The researchers suspect that either a blow or a fall caused Princess Itaweret’s broken ribs, and noted that such injuries were common across all the sets of remains. They also discovered evidence of inbreeding, as the sisters’ spinal abnormalities suggest their parents were closely related.

“These injuries were most likely caused by accidents, falls, hard blows, or other impacts linked to an active lifestyle, whether through hunting, military training, or other demanding activities,” said Hashesh. “What is remarkable is that the injuries healed well, which suggests they had access to advanced medical care for their time.”

Work on these mummies remains incomplete, however, hampered by the loss of the skulls. Moving forward, the researchers would like to conduct a stable isotope analysis to better understand the nutritional deficiencies detected in the bones. 

“Our dream would be to go far beyond simply identifying the Dahshur royals,” said Hashesh. “We would try to tell their full life stories, their families, health, and even their political roles, with as much detail as possible. Beyond the science, we would preserve the remains, create 3D prints for teaching and virtual exhibitions, and display them alongside their jewelry, weapons, and funerary objects. All of this would be done with respect, ensuring the remains are presented ethically, just as they were originally buried.”

“Their objects and jewelry are truly fascinating, breathtaking in their craftsmanship. Yet, while archaeologists have long focused on preserving these treasures, the people themselves were often forgotten. Our study seeks to change that.”

The paper, “Bioarcheological Reassessment of Dahshur Royal Skeletal Remains from the Late Middle Kingdom (c. 1850 to 1700 BCE),” appeared in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology on July 17, 2026.

Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.

Archaeologists have debated whether royal women ever used the weapons in their tombs. Their bones may have settled the argument.

It predates rise of modern humans and could have formed a platform

Analysis of six mummies from ancient Egypt challenges the idea that the bows and daggers buried with some royal women were merely ceremonial.

For decades, paleoanthropologists have largely agreed that somewhere along the evolutionary course from apelike ancestors to modern humans, our bodies got dramatically larger. However, one lingering mystery has been when this intense growth began.

Did our ancestors gradually grow bigger over millions of years? Did the shift coincide with the emergence of the genus Homo? Or did it occur later, after some of the earliest human species had already appeared?

A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) argues that the answer is more complex than any single theory has suggested.

Rather than supporting a single long-standing hypothesis, researchers used a sophisticated statistical method to show that human body size likely followed two evolutionary courses simultaneously: a slow, steady increase spanning millions of years, punctuated by a much larger leap in later members of the genus Homo.

The findings help reconcile decades of conflicting research while offering one of the clearest pictures yet of how, and perhaps why, our ancestors evolved into larger-bodied humans.

“Despite its central role in hominin evolution, there is little consensus on how body size increased through time,” researchers write. “We provide strong evidence for a marked size increase in later-occurring Homo, alongside a moderate general increase over time among all hominins.”

Body size is one of the defining characteristics of an organism. In humans and our extinct relatives, it has been linked to everything from brain expansion and walking efficiency to metabolism, hunting behavior, and the ability to travel across increasingly large landscapes. Understanding when body size changed, therefore, helps researchers reconstruct not only what our ancestors looked like, but how they lived.

Yet despite decades of fossil findings, scientists have struggled to agree on the evolutionary pattern behind those changes.

Some previous studies suggested that hominins simply became larger over time. Some contended that body size remained relatively stable until the emergence of Homo. Still others have proposed that the real transformation arose only after early species such as Homo habilis, often regarded as one of the first members of our genus.

According to researchers, one reason for the disagreement is that earlier analyses typically examined these competing ideas independently. They also often failed to account for uncertainties inherent in the fossil record, including disagreements over species classification, differences in body mass estimation methods, and uncertainties in evolutionary relationships among fossil species.

To address those limitations, researchers compiled one of the largest hominin body-size datasets assembled to date, incorporating body mass assessments from 386 fossil specimens representing 21 different taxa.

They then analyzed the data using Bayesian phylogenetic generalized linear mixed models—a statistical approach that accounts for evolutionary relationships while encompassing multiple layers of uncertainty.

The team repeated its analyses across 1,000 different phylogenetic trees and 1,000 separate datasets, allowing them to test whether the overall pattern remained consistent despite uncertainties.

The results pointed to two simultaneous trends.

The first was a modest but persistent increase in body size across the hominin family as a whole. On average, body mass increased by roughly 2 pounds (0.9 kilograms) every million years, suggesting that larger bodies gradually became more common throughout human evolution.

However, the second trend proved far more dramatic.

Instead of all members of Homo becoming substantially larger, the researchers found the strongest evidence for a distinct jump in body size among later members of the genus, particularly species that appeared after Homo habilis. That pattern regularly emerged regardless of how the fossil data were analyzed.

In other words, early members of Homo may not have represented the major biological turning point scientists once assumed.

This finding disputes a common assumption that simply belonging to the genus Homo meant possessing a significantly larger body. Instead, the study suggests that some hallmark features traditionally associated with humans, including larger body size, may have evolved after the genus’s origin.

That interpretation also corresponds to broader changes that occurred later in human evolution.

Researchers note that this period coincides with evidence for more efficient upright walking, greater reliance on meat consumption, and expanding home ranges. Larger bodies may have been both a consequence of and a contributor to those behavioral and ecological shifts.

The study likewise reinforces another growing theme that evolution rarely follows a straight line.

Species such as Homo floresiensis, often nicknamed the “Hobbit” because of its diminutive stature, and Homo Naledi frequently appeared as outliers with unusually small body sizes despite belonging to relatively recent branches of the human family tree. Their existence demonstrates that body size did not simply increase in a uniform march toward modern humans.

Instead, evolution repeatedly experimented with different solutions depending on local environments and ecological constraints.

The researchers also argue that part of the longstanding disagreement over body-size evolution stems from the fossil record itself. Different studies have estimated fossil body masses using different skeletal elements, comparison populations, and statistical techniques, sometimes producing substantially different results for the same individual.

By expressly incorporating those uncertainties into their analysis, rather than treating them as fixed values, the new framework seeks to capture the range of plausible evolutionary scenarios rather than relying on a single interpretation.

Even so, researchers caution that important questions remain unresolved.

Improved fossil discoveries, more accurate body-mass estimation methods, and a better understanding of species relationships could all further refine the picture. The study also does not explicitly account for sexual size differences between males and females, which may have been greater in some early hominin species than in modern humans.

Nevertheless, the wider conclusion is intriguing.

Rather than choosing between competing theories, the evidence suggests both contain elements of the truth.

Body size did increase gradually across the hominin lineage. But the most considerable leap appears to have occurred later, after the earliest representatives of Homo had already evolved.

That conclusion may help settle one of paleoanthropology’s longest-running debates while showing how advances in statistical methods are transforming scientists’ ability to extract new insights from fossils that have often been studied for decades.

“Overall, these findings bring clarity to a fundamental question in human evolution and show how the application of rigorous phylogenetic comparative tools can unlock patterns previously hidden in the fossil record while accounting for multiple sources of uncertainty,” researchers write. “By reconciling conflicting findings within a single framework, our results clarify key evolutionary transitions and highlight the complex nature of body size change in human evolution.”

Tim McMillan is a retired law enforcement executive, investigative reporter and co-founder of The Debrief. His writing typically focuses on defense, national security, the Intelligence Community and topics related to psychology. You can follow Tim on Twitter: @LtTimMcMillan.  Tim can be reached by email: tim@thedebrief.org or through encrypted email: LtTimMcMillan@protonmail.com 

A Maya calendar formula bears the name Sak Tahn Waax, the first known Classic Maya mathematician-astronomer directly credited for such work.

Archaeologists have discovered the remains of at least 37 people, some likely dating from more than 1,000 years ago. A large stone “jar” in northern Laos became their last resting place. Part of the mysterious “Plain of Jars,” it’s one of thousands of similar ancient stone vessels. A local legend says giants used the jars to make rice wine. Researchers now think the newfound jar was a multigenerational burial site for ancestor worship.

That would make the Plain of Jars a vast ancient burial complex. Researchers describe this in the August issue of Antiquity.

The newfound stone jar spans more than two meters (6.6 feet) across. It sits in a forest about 70 kilometers (40 miles) northeast of Phonsavan, Laos, in Southeast Asia. Part of the Xieng Khouang Plateau, this region is dotted with thousands of the stone jars.

The most well-studied groups are around Phonsavan itself. However, the entire plateau is now considered the Plain of Jars.

People had noticed a few of the jars contained bones or some ashes. But it seemed unlikely that so many large stone vessels would have been carved for burial ceremonies. So the jars’ original purpose had been a mystery.

“The big jar we’ve found is unique, and I’ve seen a lot of jars,” says Nicholas Skopal. He’s an archaeologist at James Cook University in the Queensland city of Townsville. This vessel finally confirms that the jars were part of ancient burial ceremonies, he says. But their precise use at different places may have varied.

Many sets of bones inside the newfound jar are separate. They are not part of a full skeleton. That suggests this jar is a “secondary burial” — a spot chosen for bodies that had partially decomposed elsewhere (such as in smaller jars). There are several smaller jars a short distance away.

“Maybe they used those [smaller] stone jars to ‘distill’ the bodies,” Skopal suggests. Remains might have been put in those smaller jars until “all the flesh comes off,” he says. “Then they take the bones and they put them … in this big jar. So it’s like a big crypt, almost.”

The long-standing mystery of the Plain of Jars

French archaeologist Madeleine Colani investigated the stone jars near Phonsavan in the 1930s. Most are just over a meter high (a bit more than 3 feet). Some weigh several tons. Some are lying on their side. A few had stone lids.

Early French explorers had assumed these jars once stored food and water. Colani rejected that. She instead suggested the jars had a burial role.

Scientists largely overlooked this remote region after Colani’s survey. Newer expeditions were hampered by the large number of explosives from the Vietnam War left in this area. Lao officials have been working to clear out the explosives.

Archaeological studies since the mid-1990s found burial pits filled with ancient human remains next to the jars. The remains might have been left there to decompose while awaiting later placement in the jars.

Colani had estimated that the oldest jars could have been made in the 5th century B.C. That would be up to 2,500 years ago. More recent radiocarbon dating indicates the remains are less than half that old — about 1,000 years old. Some jars contained ashes and burned bone fragments, a sign of cremations. This practice is a later, Buddhist tradition. Perhaps the jars were reused for burials after Buddhism took hold in this region, Skopal suggests.

“This is a collective mortuary assemblage,” says Miriam Stark, who did not take part in the new work. “I find that very interesting.” An anthropologist and archaeologist, Stark works at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She says she had been hoping a jar like the newly studied one would be found.

No sign yet exists of which people might have used the jars for burials, she notes. “I do wonder, where did these people live?”

For decades, researchers have debated the subsistence strategies of precolonial societies in the Brazilian Cerrado (tropical savanna): Were they hunter-gatherers or intensive maize farmers, and in either case, how did they organize themselves and interact with the land they inhabited?

As Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey arrives in theaters, archaeologists working off the western coast of Greece say a real-life cult site devoted to the legendary story’s hero has been uncovered.

Local traditions had long told of a stony hilltop on the Greek island of Ithaca that had once been home to a shrine to Odysseus, the legendary Greek king of the isle and main protagonist in Homer’s famous poem.

Now, after close to two decades of archaeological work on the island that served as home to the fictional king in Homer’s epic literature, archaeologists say they have uncovered the most compelling evidence yet that a genuine historical cult site had existed there, dedicated to the famed hero of The Odyssey.

An Ancient Cult Site Devoted to Odysseus

Researchers with the University of Ioannina recently revealed the discovery of new inscriptions and artifacts supporting the existence of a cult element devoted to Odysseus, uncovered at the ancient complex at Agios Athanasios, which had been a public sanctuary devoted to the worship of Homer’s famous hero during the Hellenistic and early Roman periods.

According to a statement released by the Greek Ministry of Culture, the building complex is characterized by a series of robust structures located on terraces, which involve several monumental elements featuring carved architecture and niches for what appear to have been votive offerings or inscriptions, all of which point to its use as a cult site.

Yannos Lolos, one of the project’s lead archaeologists, recently told ArtNet that the site’s role was revealed partially through a reexamination of existing materials found there, which helped reveal what he calls “new and strong inscriptional evidence” linking the site to Odysseus.

Bronze Bust and Inscription Discoveries

Among the most important discoveries at the site were a small bronze bust of Odysseus dating to the first or second century C.E., as well as a roof tile fragment which bore an inscription that reads, “to Odysseus.”

However, an even more compelling discovery involved a second stamped roof tile inscribed with the hero’s name but appearing in the Greek genitive case; this is significant, since it indicates ownership, thereby identifying the sanctuary as “belonging” to Odysseus.

Based on current evidence, organized cult worship is believed to have begun at the site by around the late fourth century B.C.E., which places its use at around 500 years after Homer composed his famous epic poem, and almost a full millennium after the legendary events the epic describes.

The physical sanctuary itself was built onto a massive natural rock formation, and remnants of the ancient structure include a primary tower, a large oblong building, and terraces which were carved directly into the underlying bedrock.

Excavations over the last several years have also revealed the site’s deeper history, which points to evidence of earlier Mycenaean occupation during the 13th and 14th centuries B.C.E., at which time the site had likely served as a strategic center overseeing nearby harbors and local water resources.

A Discovery with Legendary Significance

In a statement, the Greek Ministry of Culture said the two new engravings arrives “in combination with the other available data, to document the development of a prominent public complex at the site,” which it said help to establish the “major role in the religious, social and possibly political life of the Ithacians of the Hellenistic-early Roman periods, but also with a broader pilgrimage character.”

The recognition of this ancient cult site only adds to the existing evidence that already supported worship of Odysseus on Ithaca. Past discoveries have revealed ancient coins depicting the hero, found near ritual offerings at Ithaca, which were also linked to cult activities. However, the identification of the sanctuary offers the most conclusive archaeological evidence to date that Homer’s legendary hero had been the cult’s focus.

Of course, these discoveries fall short of establishing Odysseus as a true historical figure, and most scholars agree that Odysseus was a fictional character born out of traditions that incorporated real places and events into their broader mythos.

However, in at least a few instances, the lines between myth and ancient history have been blurred—a famous example being Heinrich Schliemann’s identification of a site (originally discovered by British amateur archaeologist Frank Calvert, with his identification of the mound of Hisarlik) which helped reveal the archaeological reality behind the city of Troy, which had previously been considered a mythical location.

It was also reported last year that an archaeological discovery resembling the “labyrinth” from Greek mythology had been uncovered on Crete, in a discovery some have called “one of the most important archaeological finds” of the century.

Although the discoveries at Ithaca don’t establish Homer’s Odysseus as a historical figure in this way, they do confirm that centuries after The Odyssey was composed, inhabitants of Ithaca engaged in cult activities to honor the legendary king at a sanctuary on the island, which, according to legend, he once ruled.

Additional details about the site and discoveries made there in recent years can be found at the Greek Ministry of Culture website.

Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.

Archaeological work conducted at the Coves del Fem (Ulldemolins, Priorat)—located within the Serra de Montsant Natural Park—between May 30 and June 28, 2026, has yielded important new evidence for understanding the prehistory of the northeastern Iberian Peninsula. The campaign was conducted by a team of researchers from the Department of Prehistory at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and the Milà i Fontanals Institution for Research in the Humanities of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC-IMF).

A Maya astronomer’s identity has been revealed for the first time, discovered in an inscription at the Xultun site in Guatemala, finally revealing a name behind their storied knowledge.

Despite the Maya’s renowned knowledge of math and astronomy, no individual had ever been directly associated with those accomplishments, unlike figures such as the Greek scholars Ptolemy or Archimedes.

Now, in a recent paper published in Antiquity, an international team of archaeologists has identified a name linked to the Maya’s sophisticated mathematical knowledge: Sak Tahn Waax.

Advanced Maya Knowledge

From around 2000 BCE until the Spanish conquest in the 16th century, the Maya flourished across the Yucatán Peninsula, building a civilization renowned not only for its political and economic power, but also for its remarkable scientific and mathematical achievements. Although relatively few Maya texts survived the Spanish conquest, those that remain—along with archaeological evidence—show that the Maya precisely calculated the length of the solar year and carefully tracked the movements of the Moon and Venus across the sky.

The art, architecture, and glyphic texts of the Classic Maya likewise reflect a sophisticated understanding of the natural world, interwoven with Indigenous cosmological traditions.

That expertise shaped nearly every aspect of Maya society. Their intricate calendars guided agriculture, informed religious observances, and influenced political life. Yet despite the importance of this knowledge, the individuals responsible for developing it have largely remained anonymous.

A Name Revealed

Meaning “white-chested fox,” the name Sak Tahn Waax appears on a wall engraved with mathematical formulas, which archaeologists dated to the eighth century CE using inscribed dates and radiocarbon analysis. Researchers believe the room likely served as either a classroom or a workshop for producing books.

The inscription was first documented shortly after excavations began at Xultun in 2011. Although the team initially focused on other priorities at the site, deciphering the text remained an enduring objective.

Reading the inscription required years of laboratory work using color scans and multispectral imaging. After reconstructing the wall’s faded engravings, the researchers determined that the text contained instructions for synchronizing the planetary cycles of Mars and Venus with the Maya calendar, concluding with the signature, “so says Sak Tahn Waax.”

“It’s really elegant, complex math,” said co-author Heather Hurst, an archaeologist at Skidmore College. “That’s why he’s signing it.”

Maya Signatures

The strangest thing about the discovery may be how common signatures are in other elements of Maya life. Artists and scribes often signed ceramics, while important political and military figures’ names often adorn stelae and buildings. Despite this propensity to name individual Maya on things, those responsible for their legendary knowledge of math and science largely remain unknown.

The archaeologists behind this new study now suggest that those names may be available after all; it is only that researchers have not known where to look.

“There’s good evidence for codex book production,” said lead author Franco Rossi, an archaeologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “So if there’s going to be a name … this would be the most logical place.”

The researchers hope the discovery will inspire a deeper appreciation for Maya history and for the scholars whose work shaped the civilization.

“I would have loved to see Sak Tahn Waax and Ptolemy hanging out,” Hurst concluded. “They would have had a great discussion.”

The paper, “The Identification and Work of an Eighth-Century Maya Mathematician,” appeared in Antiquity on July 14, 2026.

Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.

A blacksmith, a stable boy, a soldier, a slave: The faces and stories of these and other residents of an ancient Roman city in modern Hungary have been brought to life in remarkable fidelity for a new exhibition in Budapest.

A metalworking hub in Gaul reveals a darker side of Iron Age life.

Lithuania was famously the final pagan state in Europe. While the rest of the continent converted to Christianity, Lithuania remained officially pagan until Catholicism was adopted in AD 1387. Despite this, the extent to which Lithuania's population remained pagan or converted to Christianity was unclear, as was the extent of migration from the wider Christian world.

Ancient DNA from Shimao reveals local origins, broad prehistoric connections, a patrilineal social structure, and gender-specific patterns of human sacrifice. At Shimao, a vast stone-walled settlement in northern China, ancient DNA is filling in details that archaeology alone could not fully resolve. The genetic evidence is helping trace where the people of this late Neolithic [...]