UC faculty have been involved in multiple research projects concerning ancient Maya culture for more than a decade. This latest Maya study from Lentz focuses on Cerén, a farming village that was smothered under several meters of volcanic ash in the late sixth century.

The recipe and process for preparing Maya Blue, a highly-resistant pigment used for centuries in Mesoamerica, were lost. We know that the ingredients are a plant dye, indigo, and a type of clay known as palygorskite, but scientists do not know how they were ‘cooked’ and combined together. Now, a team of chemists from the University of Valencia and the Polythecnic University of Valencia (Spain) have come up with a new hypothesis about how it was prepared.

The Italian farmer resolutely tilling his soil may have no idea he’s standing atop the remains of an ancient villa.

But seated at his desk at Duke University, Maurizio Forte knows. Using satellite photos and high-tech imaging technology, he can see what the farmer cannot. And this semester, his students are creating a virtual replica of the hidden villa.

The Djehuty Project, led by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), has discovered on the hill of Dra Abu el-Naga in Luxor (ancient Thebes), the burials of four personages belonging to the elite of the 17th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, who lived about 3.550 years ago.

The Maya are famous for their complex, intertwined calendric systems, and now one calendar, the Maya Long Count, is empirically calibrated to the modern European calendar, according to an international team of researchers.

Hunter-gatherers living in glacial conditions produced pots for cooking fish, according to the findings of a pioneering new study led by the University of York which reports the earliest direct evidence for the use of ceramic vessels.

Analysis of a bronze battering ram from a 2,000 year-old warship sheds light on how such an object would have been made in ancient times.

Operation Nightingale – which has been recognised by the British Archaeological Awards for its innovation – has seen soldiers excavating the remains of a Roman building at Caerwent Training Area near Newport.

During an archaeological excavation, the Israel Antiquities Authority have announced the discovery of a rare ritual bath (miqwe) that dates to the late Second Temple period.

19th c. shark tooth weapons reveal 2 shark species no longer native to Gilbert Islands.

Research from the University of Cincinnati shows that perhaps the ancient Puebloans weren’t as into the maize craze as once thought.

A study has been able to accurately determine the age of the Neanderthal remains found in the El Sidrón cave (Asturias, Spain) for which previous studies had provided inexact measurements.