In central Sudan, archaeologists have uncovered what may be the oldest structure in the ancient city of Meroë. It dates to about 900 B.C. “The very earliest Meroë, I suppose, would have been the capital of some sort of local chiefdom or kingdom,” said Krzysztof Grzymski of the Royal Ontario Museum.

A 2,000-year-old drainage channel in Jerusalem has yielded a section of a Roman soldier’s sword still encased in its leather scabbard and a stone engraved with an image of a menorah. The channel is said to have served as a hiding place during the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans.

Archaeologist Nick Luccketti had hoped to find early colonial artifacts in Kempsville, Virginia, at a road construction site, but there were no intact layers from the eighteenth century, when Kempe’s Landing had been an important port town on the Elizabeth River.

Archaeology students are excavating the basement of the historic Abraham Hasbrouck House in New Paltz, New York. They found two coral beads that may indicate the presence of enslaved Africans in the house. “This room was where the cooking would have been done. For the enslaved Africans in the eighteenth century, it was the center of activity in the household,” said historic preservation officer P.J. Preuss.

Here’s more information on the investigation of a prisoner of war camp in Riding Mountain National Park. “We do know that the prisoners on the whole were delighted to be captured as PoWs and brought to Canada, taken out of brutal conditions and brought to a paradise compared to where they’d been before,” said Adrian Myers of Stanford University.

A sixteenth-century ship, possible part of the Spanish Armada, has been discovered off Ireland’s Donegal coast.

A second section of a 200-year-old ship has been found in the eighteenth-century landfill at the World Trade Center site in New York City. “It does give us a much better sense of the boat’s original dimensions,” said archaeologist Michael Pappalardo.

Excavations at Isa Khan’s Tomb in Delhi, India, have revealed a sunken garden. “Over the years gardens have come up at the level of the monuments, but this garden has revealed that here it was originally three to four feet below the monument with the tomb sitting high,” said Amita Beg of the World Monuments Fund.

A study of cemeteries in Austria offers clues to the status of the elderly during the Bronze Age.

A five-foot drop in the water level in the Richland Chambers Reservoir in Texas has revealed the location of a cemetery for freed slaves. Most of the graves were moved in the 1980s.