Legends of lost treasures are spurring unemployed Greeks to dig for gold. “People who look for gold are maniacs, they never give up until they find something. It’s like gambling,” said one retired treasure hunter.

A 1,700-year-old curse tablet discovered in Antioch in the 1930s has been fully translated by Alexander Hollmann of the University of Washington. Written in Greek, the curse asks the god of the Old Testament to afflict a green grocer named Babylas.

A skeleton, a Civil War uniform button, and a bullet were unearthed at a construction site in Tennessee in 2009. Archaeologists think the young man had European and American Indian ancestors, and that he may have died during troop movements or during a skirmish, since no other burials have been found in the area.

Archaeologist Garrett W. Silliman is looking for artifacts at the site of the nineteenth-century Pace House in Vinings, Georgia because members of the Vinings Historic Preservation Society want to know if the sign on the property carries the correct information about the home’s Civil War history. “Part of our mission is to educate the public,” explained executive director Gillian Greer.

A Portuguese or Dutch ship from the colonial period has been found off the coast of Sri Lanka.

A section of the Avenue of Sphinxes in Luxor will open next March. The project to restore the ancient pathway began five years ago.

Scientists from Bournemouth University have created a virtual Stonehenge within Google Earth so that you can tour the monument as it would have looked in prehistory.

Tombs of the “golden chiefs culture” have been discovered at the El Caño site in Panama. The 1,000-year-old burials contain the remains of high-ranking individuals surrounded by carefully arranged bodies, ceramics, and jewelry made of gold and semiprecious stones. The bones of a poisonous pufferfish were also found in a jar.

A study of teeth taken from a cemetery of mass graves in Rio de Janeiro shows that enslaved Africans imported to Brazil originated from a much wider geographical area than previous thought. The cemetery was in use from 1760 to 1830.

In Pompeii, a pillar in the garden at the house of Loreius Tiburtinus has collapsed. Archaeologists are assessing the damage.

A section of wall from Vietnam’s Thang Long Imperial Citadel was excavated at a construction site in Ha Noi. It will soon be covered with a road.

Science writer Brian Switek examines the claim that a lack of elephant meat drove human evolution at Israel’s Qesem Cave.