The Most Impactful Archaeological Discoveries of 2024

The ancient Bronze Age town al-Natah was identified by archaeologists under an oasis in the Saudi Arabian al Madinah province earlier this year.

Slowly occupied from 2400 BCE until 1500 BCE (at the latest, 1300 BCE), the ancient town was constructed as the area pivoted from nomadic cattle-herding to permanent settlement. It would have been home to roughly 500 residents across 3.7 acres, containing a central district and nearby residential settlement protected by ramparts. Building foundations at the site were strong enough to support one- to two-story dwellings. Additionally, a cluster of graves containing metal weapons such as axes and daggers along with agate and other stones were also found near the town.

There being few well-preserved archaeological sites in northern Arabia, al-Natah provides greater insight into early urbanization efforts in the region, which appears to have favored small fortified towns that may have established an early trade network for spices, frankincense, and myrrh between southern Arabia and the Mediterranean.

A Nabataean temple was discovered off the coast of Pozzuoli, Italy—a rather unusual find, as most Nabataean architecture is situated in the Middle East. The bustling port city Puteoli, as it was known, was a trading hub across the Mediterranean under the Roman Republic. Volcanic eruptions caused the port to sink into the ocean.

Archaeologists discovered there a 2,000-year-old temple dedicated to the Nabataean god Dushara, the only example of its kind outside the Middle East. Unlike most Nabatean temples, this one contains an inscription written in Latin, as well as an architectural style that reflects its Roman influence. Measuring 32 by 16 feet, the temple had two large rooms with marble altars decorated with sacred stones.

An ancient Egyptian tomb with 11 sealed burials was excavated by archaeologists in Luxor in the South Asasif necropolis, next to the Temple of Hatshepsut, along the west bank of the Nile River. There, archaeologists found coffins for men, women, and children dating back to the Middle Kingdom (1938 BCE–1630 BCE). Experts believe it was used as a family tomb for multiple generations from the 12th through the beginning of the 13th Dynasty.

Though most of the wooden coffins and linen wraps that would have been customary for these kinds of burials were destroyed by ancient floods, jewelry from the women’s burials were recovered. One well-crafted necklace containing 30 amethyst and two agate beads around a hippo-head amulet was among the finds. Two copper mirrors were also found; one featured a lotus-shape handle, and the other boasted the design of Hathor, the goddess of the sky, women, fertility, and love among the ancient Egyptians.

An elaborate throne room and hall were found at Pañamarca, an archaeological site that was once a religious and political center of the ancient Moche culture. Dating to 650 CE, the hall is decorated with elaborate snake murals, complete with a throne that has a worn backrest. The paintings within the newly discovered chamber show a woman seated on the throne while receiving visitors. There are also depictions of a crown, the crescent moon, sea creatures, and a weaving workshop.

Another chamber was decorated with paintings of large serpents with human legs, as well as images of warriors and an unidentified mythical creature. The motifs featured here are unlike those seen in previously discovered Moche art, reinforcing experts’ consensus that Moche culture was not, in fact, male-dominated.

After a blaze nearly destroyed Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in 2019, archaeologists had a rare opportunity to dig beneath the building. There, they found as many as 1,035 artwork fragments, as well as a hundred graves, increasing the cathedral’s total record to more than 500 burials. Many of the coffins, along with scattered bones, remain unidentified. A lead sarcophagus, however, may belong to the poet Joachim du Bellay, among some of the more notable burials.

Life-size heads and torsos of limestone statues, including one of Christ, were also unearthed. A 13th-century jube, or rood screen, that previously isolated the choir and sanctuary from public view was among the more significant architectural finds. Researchers also came to better understand how Notre Dame was originally constructed by artisans in the Middle Ages. 

Three 5,000-year-old jade dragons of varying colors and sizes stood out among more than 100 Stone Age jade artifacts discovered at the Yuanbaoshan archaeological site in China’s Chifeng city. An emerald green specimen roughly the size of a human hand is the largest of its kind ever unearthed in northern China.

The objects have been linked to the Hongshan culture, which thrived in inner Mongolia and the nearby provinces of Liaoning and Hebei during the Stone Age. That culture produced some of the earliest known jade objects in the world, typically for burial rituals. Scientists believe the two populations likely exchanged goods over long distances, with the ancient culture thought to have moved south due to climate change roughly 4,000 years ago.

Experts identified a prehistoric calendar memorializing a comet strike at the Göbekli Tepe archaeological site in Turkey. Göbekli Tepe is a 12,000-year-old temple-like complex with intricate carvings depicting symbols. Researchers believe that the carvings were developed to record comet fragments that hit the Earth roughly 13,000 years ago. The engravings on the monument track both moon phases and sun cycles—making this site the world’s earliest lunisolar calendar by more than a millennium.

The comet strike brought with it a miniature Ice Age that led to the extinction of many large animals. As such, early humans may have been demarcating a lifestyle change from hunting and gathering to agriculture and the birth of civilization in the Fertile Crescent of West Asia.

Greek writing previously unreadable inside a 2,000-year-old scroll that burned during the 79 CE eruption of Mount Vesuvius has been deciphered, thanks in part to the Vesuvius Challenge. The scroll hails from the luxury Roman villa Herculaneum and is one of more than 1,785 intact papyri turned carbonized ash, known as the Herculaneum scrolls, excavated from a residential complex known as the Villa of the Papyri in the 18th century. 

Using artificial intelligence technology, as part of the Vesuvius Challenge contest, participants uncovered a previously unknown philosophical work on senses and pleasure. The text discusses music, the taste of capers, and the color purple, along with a description of a possible known flautist Xenophantus who has been mentioned in texts by the ancient authors Seneca and Plutarch.

A wild pig painted with crude red pigment, standing at peace beside three humanlike figures some 51,200 years ago on the ceiling of a limestone cave, was discovered on the Indonesian Island of Sulawesi. The discovery of this artwork marks the world’s oldest known cave painting, surpassing the previous record holder by more than 10,000 years.

The scene in the Leang Karampuang cave in the Maros-Pangkep region of South Sulawesi province features a pig measuring 36 inches by 15 inches. The pig is shown standing upright by a group of people. Several smaller images of pigs were also found in the cave, and were similarly dated using a laser to assess the age of calcium carbonate crystals that develop organically on the pigment. These works represent the earliest example of narrative storytelling in visual art. 

In the ancient village of Thorikos, outside the city of Lavrion in southern Athens, archaeologists discovered what is thought to be one of the earliest Iron Age houses in Greece. The area was once home to the Mycenaeans who would have constructed the dwelling, which contained five or possibly six rooms and what was likely a paved courtyard in use between 950 BCE and 825 BCE. The presence of a millstone and an “intricate layout” suggest the home was used by members of a “highly developed civilization or a well-established social structure.”

The fossilized footsteps of Early Cretaceous creatures—of the two- and four-legged reptilian type—were identified trailing alongside a collection of petroglyphs in Brazil’s Serrote do Letreiro site, known since 1975 as a rich repository for ancient and primordial findings. Experts determined that a coarse instrument was used to carve circular figures containing radial lines on the stone surface: “Despite the profusion of identified petroglyphs, no overlap was observed between these inscriptions and the fossilized footprints. In none of the cases was it found that the creation of a petroglyph resulted in damage to the existing footprints, suggesting thoughtfulness by the makers.”

As archaeologists continue to excavate the ancient Roman city famously preserved in ash following the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, they’ve made a number of notable discoveries this year—primarily frescoes and human remains.

The first occurred in March with the unearthing of a fresco depicting Greek mythological siblings Phrixus and Helle. The brother and sister are refugees whose stepmother forced them to flee. The fresco depicts Helle in the moment before she is overcome by the waves and drowned, her face obscured as she reaches for her brother, who is fleeing on the ram of the golden fleece. It was found in the House of Leda, which has been undergoing construction since 2018. Archaeologists also uncovered two new domus nearby.

The following month came the unveiling of a large banquet hall. Frescoes lining the room’s black-painted walls depicted mythological characters and subjects from the Trojan War. Guests would have been entertained in the “Black Room” in the evening, where burning lamps brought the paintings to life in the shimmering light. The room’s well-preserved white mosaic floor comprised more than one million tiles. The room is just one in a larger house within a residential and commercial block in region nine, which yielded the discovery of a laundromat and a bakery the year prior.

In June, a shrine room depicting female figures was found. The 86-square-foot sacrarium contained painted blue walls decorated with female figures representing the four seasons, as well as allegories symbolizing agriculture and shepherding. Notably rare is the room’s color, which would have denoted it as a place of importance for ritual activities and sacred object storage. The room held 15 transportable amphorae and a bronze set of two jugs and two oil lamps. The room sits in region nine in the city’s center, and would have been a bustling residential area thought to house more than 13,000 rooms among 1,070 housing units.

In August, the remains of a man and woman with a small cache of treasure were found inside a temporary bedroom during the renovation of the home. They became trapped there during the eruption and died as a result of being buried by hot gas and volcanic matter. Impressions of objects left in the ash by decomposed organic matter enabled archaeologists to reconstruct the home’s furnishings and their exact positions at the time of the eruption, including a wooden bed, a stool, a chest, and a marble-topped table with bronze, glass, and ceramic objects on it; a large bronze candlestick holder had fallen over in the room.

In October, a small house with erotic frescoes was discovered. The works include a painting of Cretan princess Phaedra, who fell in love with her stepson, Hippolytus, and later accused him of sexual assault when he refused her advances. Another shows Venus and Adonis, who were also the subjects of a tale of unrequited love. The house itself was unique in construction, lacking a traditional atrium that was common among such Roman structures in the first century CE.