Global Cargo
Found in the waters off a small Dutch island, a seventeenth-century shipwreck provides an unparalleled view of the golden age of European trade (Kees Zwaan/Courtesy Province of…
Cleopatra’s Lost Tomb: The Greatest Unsolved Mystery in Archaeology`
She is the most famous woman in the ancient world. Her face appeared on coins across the Mediterranean. Her name was spoken in the courts of Rome…
A Child and a Wolf in the Dark: The 26,000-Year-Old Footprints That Refuse to Give Up Their Secret
There are objects that tell you about the past, and then there are traces that drop you straight into a single, fragile moment. The footprints inside Chauvet…
800 Skeletons at 16,000 Feet: The Himalayan Lake That Has No Explanation
At nearly 16,000 feet above sea level, in a bowl of rock and snow in the Indian Himalayas, there is a small glacial lake less than 50…
Stonehenge: 5,000 Years Old, and Still No One Knows Why
On the morning of the summer solstice, just before sunrise, a line drawn from the center of Stonehenge through the Heel Stone points precisely to the spot…
The Medieval Bra: The 600-Year-Old Undergarment That Rewrote Fashion History
For centuries, the history of women’s clothing said the same thing: the modern bra was invented in 1914, when a New York socialite sewed two handkerchiefs together…
Chianti’s Secret: The Famous Red Wine Region Once Grew Only White Grapes
You know Chianti for red wine. The dark bottles, the rolling Tuscan hills, the Sangiovese grape. It is one of the most recognisable wine regions on Earth…
Wear in Beauty and Happiness”: The 1,500-Year-Old Message Hidden on the Sole of a Sandal
The inscription was not meant to be read by the world. It was carved into the inside face of a wooden sandal — the surface that rests…
The Antikythera Mechanism: The 2,000-Year-Old “Computer” That Shouldn’t Exist
In 1901, sponge divers working off a tiny Greek island brought up a corroded lump of bronze and wood, crusted with two thousand years of sea-floor sediment….
A 500-Year-Old Treasure Ship Surfaced in the Namib Desert — and the Real Story Is Stranger Than “Lost in the Sand”
Picture a wooden sailing ship — hull, masts, a fortune in its belly — lying half-buried in the sand of one of the driest deserts on Earth,…