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On 28th September 2009, we started digging the foundations of our house in Kavrochori, Heraklion, Crete. During the final stages of the digging a hollow and faint sound was heard and we came across a hole. We stopped digging and went to see or rather to meet the history of the area coming from the deep past 3000 years ago!
One of the most perplexing mysteries that Egyptologists and Aegean experts are tackling is that of the frescoes of Tell el-Dab’a, also known as Avaris. This site was used as the capital of the Hyksos, at a time when they ruled much of Egypt, from 1640 – 1530 BC. It is on the Nile Delta and would have provided access
Article by Prof. Christos Doumas on the use of salt in ancient times (in Greek).
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In the final months of 2009, the continuation of the excavation by the 25th Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities at Katre street on the hill of Kastelli in the city of Chania, next to the classical fortification of Kidonia, resulted in the discovery of important evidence about the Minoan palatial centre of Chania during the final palatial period (14th-13th
Human ancestors that left Africa hundreds of thousands of years ago to see the rest of the world were no landlubbers. Stone hand axes unearthed on the Mediterranean island of Crete indicate that an ancient Homo species — perhaps Homo erectus — had used rafts or other seagoing vessels to cross from northern Africa to Europe via at least some
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Important information is being inferred about a particularly significant period in Aegean prehistory through the investigation of a 3,200 year old shipwreck by the Hellenic Institute of Marine Archaeology on the islet of Modi, south of Poros.
Poster presented at the International Conference of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture on “Digital Heritage in the new knowledge environment: shared spaces & open paths to cultural content” in 2008.
Evidence for the world’s earliest seafaring has emerged from an archaeological survey in Crete. Tools of Lower Palaeolithic type, at least 130,000 years old, have been found on the Greek island, which has been isolated by the Mediterranean Sea for at least the past five million years, so that any human ancestors must have arrived by boat. At this date,
From the composition of just two human genomes, geneticists have computed the size of the human population 1.2 million years ago from which everyone in the world is descended. They put the number at 18,500 people, but this refers only to breeding individuals, the “effective” population. The actual population would have been about three times as large, or 55,500.
Στα κρητικά ιερογλυφικά, γραφή που υπάρχει από το 2000 π.Χ. στη Μινωική Κρήτη, βρίσκονται στοιχεία της ελληνικής γλώσσας αυτούσια. Πρόκειται για δεδομένο το οποίο καταδεικνύει πως οι Ελληνες υπήρχαν στην Κρήτη τουλάχιστον από την αρχή του μινωικού πολιτισμού, γεγονόςπου το επιβεβαιώνει το σύνολο των σοβαρών ιστορικών πηγών. Η εν λόγω διαπίστωση του μελετητή των Αιγαιακών γραφών, Μηνά Τσικριτσή, είναι αυτοτελώς
Scientists claim to have the first persuasive evidence that Neanderthals wore “body paint” 50,000 years ago. The team report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that shells containing pigment residues were Neanderthal make-up containers. Scientists unearthed the shells at two archaeological sites in the Murcia province of southern Spain. The team says its find buries “the view
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The first small wooden boat found in the Balkans was discovered in the shore of the Great Prespa lake. It is believed that there are many more discoveries to be made in this region and they will enrich what we know about prehistoric sites in the region.
Scientists have analysed DNA extracted from the remains of a 30,000-year-old European hunter-gatherer. Studying the DNA of long-dead humans can open up a window into the evolution of our species (Homo sapiens). But previous studies of this kind have been hampered by scientists’ inability to distinguish between the ancient human DNA and modern contamination.
2009 was a period of intense study for the Cambridge Keros Project, which completed its excavation phase in 2008. In-field study of the pottery – which continued without break through the winter to completion in September 2009 – has clarified the ceramic phases of the excavation as well as the relationship between the two sites excavated – the ritual deposit
New light in the origin of the raw material of the gold objects of the Mycenaean period that have been excavated in the region of Volos has been shed after the laboratory analysis that took place at the Louvre Museum last October.
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