A joint Guatemalan and American team of archaeologists has discovered a 1,600-year-old temple decorated with massive stucco masks depicting the phases of the sun as it moves across the sky. The temple rests beneath a pyramid at the Maya site of El Zotz, and was dedicated to Pa’Chan, the founder of the city’s first dynasty, who was buried under the pyramid. “The sun was a key element of Maya rulership. It’s something that rises every day and penetrates into all nooks and crannies, just as royal power presumably would,” explained Stephen Houston of Brown University.

A charred olive pit dating to the first century BC has been found in a well at the site of Silchester in Hampshire, England. The olive pit is the oldest to have been found in Britain, and was eaten some 100 years before the arrival of the Romans in 43 AD. Iron Age Silchester had paved streets, a drainage system, stores, houses, workshops, and a thriving trade in luxury goods, such as exotic Mediterranean foods and a small dog whose skeleton was found in the foundations of a very large home.

Archaeologists from Austria’s University of Innsbruck claim to have discovered four women’s bras dating to the fifteenth century among 2,700 textile fragments from Lengberg Castle. It had been thought that bras with cups originated just 100 years ago. “Even we didn’t initially believe it ourselves. We viewed it as impossible that something like this would have already been worn in the Middle Ages,” said archaeologist Beatrix Nutz.

The foundation of the first courthouse built in Stafford, Virginia, has been unearthed. Built in 1783 and torn down in 1910, the courthouse quartered Union soldiers during the Civil War. A nearby well was used to water horses. The site is being redeveloped with a pedestrian plaza.

These photographs show one of the largest tombs ever discovered in Mexico–a three-room burial complex located at the site of Atzompa in Oaxaca. The walls of one of the rooms are decorated with Zapotec murals related to the Mesoamerican ball game.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Friday, July 20, 2012. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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