The most interesting archaeological discoveries of 2024 Part 2

Archaeologists during the restoration of Notre Dame Cathedral after a devastating fire in April 2019 suddenly found two lead sarcophagi hidden deep under the floor. The 700-year-old coffins are now believed to have belonged to a church leader and an aristocrat from the same time.

An X-ray scan of an ornate dagger taken from Tutankhamun’s tomb unexpectedly revealed that the weapon was made from metal taken from meteorite fragments. The researchers did chemical analysis on the dagger as well as digging further into ancient Egyptian literature, eventually finding references to a special dagger wielded by another country’s leader. gifted to King Tutankhamun’s grandfather.

The oldest inscriptions in human history written in Canaanite script have been discovered on an ivory fine-toothed comb. The purpose of this verse, according to its translation, is to describe the effect of the comb. The inscription on the comb is very simple: “May this ivory comb remove all lice from hair and beard.” The inscription on the comb is the clearest evidence that people had daily records 3,700 years ago.

Archaeologists in southern Peru have found something macabre: 192 vertebrae strung together in a chain. These peculiar artifacts date from 1450 to 1650 AD. The archaeological team believes that they may be a reflection of the plundering of colonial graves, to the extent that indigenous people had to make every effort to recreate the full remains of the body.

Scientists say a Homo sapiens fossil found in Ethiopia in the 1960s is at least 233,000 years old, which is 36,000 years older than previous estimates. The revised estimate, based on new analyzes of nearby volcanic ash, showed excellent agreement with most models of modern human evolution.

Archaeologists re-analyzing some pottery found in the Armenian quarter of Jerusalem in the 1960s discovered that some of the pottery may have contained explosives. Therefore, the team concluded, they may have found the remains of Crusader-era “grenades”.

Những khám phá khảo cổ thú vị nhất năm 2022 - Ảnh 11.

Pictured is a pile of mammoth bones newly discovered in New Mexico. This mammoth bone is about 37,000 years old and shows signs of being butchered by humans, which shows that humans were in southwestern North America much earlier than previously thought.

Last year, excavations in the ancient Roman city revealed ‘thermopolium’, essentially a Roman snack. In August this year, archaeologists at Pompeii reported the discovery of several fully furnished rooms in a house in the same area, containing plates, boards and other items. This is said to have been a daily snack bar for the city’s middle class, which disappeared under volcanic ash in 79 AD.