They were found at a residential development project at Calthorpe Gardens, on the outskirts of the historic market town Banbury in southern England. The contractor Orbit Homes, which is overseeing the development, announced the find in a press release.

A group of Mesolithic flint tools dating from 10000 BCE to 4000 BCE were among the oldest artifacts found.

The remains of a small settlement from the Late Bronze Age or the Middle or Late Iron Age was also unearthed, as was an Anglo-Saxon cemetery from the early Medieval period. There, the remains of 52 people have been identified, along with a variety of such goods as beaded necklaces, pendants, and weapons. Among those items was a gold pendant with an intertwined serpent design.

“This is a once-in-a-decade site … with once-in-a-lifetime kinds of finds that are coming up—it’s incredible,” BA field archaeologist Hayley Parsons said in video released by Orbit Homes.

“I think the potential of the site is to show people were here over a very long period of time, doing different things at different times,” McLeish said. “We’ve been so lucky at Calthorpe Gardens, we’ve been totally spoiled with the finds that have been recovered.”

The 86-square-foot sacrarium features painted blue walls decorated with female figures depicting the four seasons of the year, along with allegories of agriculture and shepherding. The room’s color is notably rare, and would have demarcated it as a place of importance for ritual activities and storing sacred objects.

“Pompeii is truly a treasure chest that never ceases to surprise us and arouse amazement because, every time we dig, we find something beautiful and significant,” Italian culture minister Gennaro Sangiuliano told Euro News.

In the room were 15 transportable amphorae and a bronze set of two jugs and two oil lamps.

Also found at the site were construction materials that were ready for renovations, including the remains of oyster shells, which would have been crushed and added to plaster and mortar mixes.

The discovery is one among many in an ongoing excavation in Regio IX in the city’s center. In its heyday, it was a residential area believed to include more than 13,000 rooms among 1,070 housing units.

Experts are trying to improve on the “protection of the vast Pompeiian heritage” and to make the site “more effective and sustainable,” the culture ministry told CNN.

This is just the latest in a string of notable finds made in the ancient city. Recently announced at the House of the Chaste Lovers was the identification of violent children’s sketches of gladiators and hunters, along with the remains of two people, presumably a couple, discovered outside of the nearby House of the Painters at Work. Also recently found was an unusual small painting of a hooded boy believed to be the deceased son of the building’s owners.

In the same area, a banquet hall with black frescos depicting the Trojan War was discovered earlier this spring.

The items were presented to Italy’s Carabinieri police force by several US representatives: ambassador Jack Markell; Matthew Bogdanos, head of the antiquities trafficking unit of the New York District Attorney’s Office; and several members of the US Homeland Security investigations department.

In a statement, Markell said that the US government was committed to returning loot “to where it belongs” and views Tuesday’s handoff as a signal of its respect for Italy’s cultural heritage.

“We know that safeguarding this history requires care and vigilance, and this is why we do what we do,” he said.

As first noted by the Guardian, missing from the artifacts repatriated was Victorious Youth, a classical Greek bronze statue at the center of a decades-long litigious dispute between Italy and the Getty Museum based in California. In 2018, Italy’s top court, the Court of Cassation, ruled that the work must be returned to Italy. At the time of the ruling, a spokesperson for the Getty said museum leadership would “continue to defend [its] legal right to the statue,” and cited a prior court decision that found “no evidence of Italian ownership.” 

Bogdanos and homeland security officials said in a statement that the statue is part of an ongoing investigation.

Among the oldest repatriated artifacts are several Etruscan vases, a life-sized bronze figure, and bronze heads, all dating from the 9th century BCE to the second century. Other returned works include oil paintings from the 16th and 19th centuries variably looted from Italian museums, religious institutions, and private residences.

One of the most valuable pieces of the lot was a 4th-century Naxos silver coin featuring the Greek god of wine, Dionysius, nabbed from an illegal excavation site in Sicily sometime around 2013 and trafficked into the United Kingdom. According to Bogdanos, the coin was discovered as part of an investigation into a British coin dealer, who had offered it for sale for $500,000.

“Looting is local,” Bogdanos said, as locals “know when the security guards come on, they know when they come off. They know when the security guards are guarding particular sites and not others. They know when there are scientific, proper, approved archaeological excavations, and then they know when those archaeological excavations close, for example, for the winter or for lack of funding.”

He added: “Our job is to minimize it, increase the risk to those who would engage in this traffic, convict them and where appropriate, sentence them.”

Archaeologists believe the skeleton belonged to an aged leader—something like an ancient mayor—a community that dated as far back as 4800 BCE, according to a statement from Florian Eibl, the district archaeologist leading the excavation.

The discovery has caused local archaeologists to rethink theories on when people settled and began cultivating the region—until now the so-called “Ötzi the Iceman,” who died in modern-day Bavaria some 5,300 years ago, was the oldest uncovered mummy.  

“This sensational discovery shows us that there was fertile soil in the district 4,500 years ago. This discovery enables us to explore the past a little further,” district administrator Werner Bumeder said in a statement.

The Neolithic period lasted from approximately 10,000 BCE to 2,000 BCE and was a momentous chapter in human history, as nomadic hunter-gatherer societies adopted agriculture cultivation and animal domestication, allowing them to establish permanent settlements. Few skeletons from the period have survived to the present day.

“In Bavaria, there are fewer than 10 such body graves from this period,” Eibl said during a press conference according to local news outlet Passauer Neue Presse, and first quoted by Newsweek.

The grave contained artifacts such as containers for liquids, dyes (likely for body painting), and a stone axe. A small bag decorated with two halves of a boar’s tusk and containing fire-starting instruments indicated the individual’s high standing in the community. In a statement, archaeologists noted that such an elaborate burial—or any burial—was further evidence of that the person was once revered.   

“[The bag] may have contained a colored stone as well as pyrite and flint as a lighter. The bag trim consisted of a split boar’s tusk—a badge of rank at that time,” Eibl added.

During the handover ceremony, Nelida Pozo Kudo, director of the Chilean National Heritage Service, praised the cooperation between Morocco and Chile.

“Chilean customs’ seizure of these Moroccan-origin fossils and their return to the kingdom is a clear example of both countries’ commitment to combating illicit access to cultural property in accordance with international law,” said Pozo Kudo.

“Smuggling of antiquities and fossils dating back millions of years may be worse than drug trafficking,” added Kenza El Ghali, Morocco’s ambassador to Chile. The representatives of the countries closed the ceremony by signing a cultural collaboration agreement.

Morocco is among the countries to in recent years renew efforts to reclaim looted and trafficked cultural property. In 2021, France handed over some 25,000 archaeological objects. Those objects had been confiscated by French authorities via a series of raids on suspected antiquities traffickers conducted over more than a decade.

Between 2019 and 2023, national and regional authorities raced to preserve and study the archaeological remains before they were looted or again lost to rising water levels. The site previously flooded in 1957 and has not been accessible since then.

According to a report from the country’s Ministry of Culture, archaeologists found quite the hoard: a megalithic dolmen; the complete cartography of the Roman city Augustobriga; three stone boars made by the Vettones, a pre-Roman people; Chalcolithic burial sites; Roman altars; Medieval coins; and board games.

In September 2019, the Institute of Cultural Heritage of Spain (IPCE) received notice about the emersion of the Guadalperal dolmen megalithic complex. The 140 granite slabs comprising the structure form a burial chamber 16 feet in diameter and a corridor nearly 33 feet long and 5 feet wide. The structure is flanked by quartzite boulders that form a circular ring. In 2021, more than 100 archaeological objects were collected, dating between the fifth and third millenniums BCE. The site is believed to be a rural Roman settlement that specialized in olive oil production.

At the late Medieval convent Alazra, experts identified a coin minted during the reign of Alfonso X (1252-1284), as well as remaining walls erected before the monastery.

Two decorated Roman stelae and an alquerque board game were also found in the nearby area El Roncadero.

In 2021, a detailed analysis of the urban planning of Augustobriga was conducted via intensive archaeological prospection and three-dimensional photogrammetry with drones. Using this technology, experts were able to create a detailed plan of the ancient city and find previously unknown artifacts such as an ashlar cut and dressed stone with a fascinum or divine phallus carved on a seat within the baths. A 2021–22 study confirmed the city was more than 54 acres, with a wall, a forum, and public baths. They also had an aqueduct, sewers, and large areas with housing structures. Outside of the city limits were burial sites, among other structures.

On the walls of the Santos Mártires church was a funerary epigraph in Latin, which translates to “Marco Villius, son of Marco, of the Papiria tribe, emeritense [a native of Mérida], here lies.”

Along the reservoir banks in the castle of Alija, the team discovered two stone boars made by the Vettones.

Another pre-Roman sculpture of a pair of boars was found nearby. Measuring at 48 inches long and 26 inches wide, with a weight of 1,477 pounds, it is the first known sculpture of its kind with a female boar.

A partially looted slab tomb was also identified in the area, with a number of human remains.

“It was a doubly enriching process. On the one hand, the intrinsic value of a joint strategy to safeguard a heritage that had been under water. On the other, the interpretation resulting from four years of collaboration between this department and the agents, institutions, and actors of various administrations, united under the objective of preserving in the best possible conditions an archaeological heritage that belongs to all,” said Isaac Sastre de Diego, general director of the Ministry’s Heritage, Culture and Fine Arts department.

Most of the finds were sent to the Museum of Cáceres, where they will be exhibited.

The researchers, a joint team of researchers from Higashi Nippon International University, Tohoku University, and Egypt’s National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics, scanned below the sand’s surface in a “blank area” of Giza’s Western Cemetery alongside the Great Pyramid of Khufu.

The Western Cemetery is, according to the researchers, “an important burial place of members of the royal family and high-class officers” that is densely populated with mastabas, a type of tomb with rectangular funerary chapels that give way to shafts connected to underground burial chambers. However, there is the afforementioned blank space in the center of the cemetery with no aboveground structures and on which no noteworthy excavations have been conducted.

Over two years beginning in 2021, the team conducted a geophysical survey, using a combination of ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) to see under the surface. The surveys revealed anomalies they believe “could be vertical walls of limestone or shafts leading to a tomb structure”.

The team then made a further series of surveys using another kind of ground-penetrating radar to determine the shape of the large anomaly. The results indicated an L-shaped structure roughly 33 by 49 feet that lay six-and-a-half feet below the ground.

The researchers are still unsure of its purpose. It may have served as a tomb entrance or a construction site later backfilled with sand. However, it seems to be connected to another 33 by 33-foot structure up to 33 feet beneath the ground. Without further excavation its function ultimately remains unclear.

Geography teacher Graham Senior was gardening when he found the sandstone inscribed in ogham, an alphabet for writing in the Irish language that dates to the early Medieval period.

The ogham writing system, comprised of groups of parallel lines typically found on such materials as stone, was used by the Irish before the availability of vellum manuscripts and use of Latin insular script.

Inscribed on three of its four sides, the stone is four inches long and weighs less than half a pound. It is believed that the inscription may be a person’s name, along with information about where that individual came from.

When Senior found the carved stone just four to five inches beneath the ground, he washed it and sent pictures to a local archaeologist and relative Teresa Gilmore, who encouraged him to contact the Portable Antiquities Scheme. There, they record archaeological artifacts found by the public.

“This is an amazing find,” Gilmore, a finds liaison officer for Staffordshire and West Midlands based at Birmingham Museums, told the Guardian. “The beauty of the Portable Antiquities Scheme is that people are finding stuff that keeps rewriting our history. This particular find has given us a new insight into early medieval activity in Coventry, which we still need to make sense of. Each find like this helps in filling in our jigsaw puzzle and gives us a bit more information.”

Gilmore then contacted a professor of Celtic Studies at the University of Glasgow, Katherine Forsyth, who confirmed that it was an early ogham script dating between the fourth to sixth centuries.

Finding such a stone “in the Midlands is actually unusual,” said Gilmore, who believes people coming from Ireland or traveling to early Medieval monasteries may be the reason for the stone’s existence there. It’s possible that the area may have been a major transportation route, with proximity to the River Stowe.

The rock may have been a portable commemorative object, but its purpose ultimately remains unclear.

The artifact has been donated to the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum in Coventry, where it will be included in the forthcoming “Collecting Coventry” exhibition opening on May 11.

That billionaire, Ankur Jain, and fitness trainer Erika Hammond reportedly paid to have those sites closed down for their wedding, a weeklong celebration that is estimated to have cost upward of $3 million. The event, which has since gone viral on TikTok, offered guests a private tour of the pyramids and the sphinx without interruption, as well as a close look at a statue of Ramses II.

The couple also hosted a party at the Grand Egyptian Museum, which is thought to be the largest constructed museum in the world devoted to a single civilization. That institution, which cost $1 billion to build, is still not open to the public, though it is expected to begin welcoming visitors later this year.

Jain and Hammond wed at sunset between two of the pyramids before celebrating with a star-studded reception with performances by Robin Thicke, Lance Bass, and Lindsey Stirling.

Accounts of the wedding events have generated hearty debate across multiple social media platforms, with many claiming that the event was needlessly extravagant.

Jain is the founder and CEO of Bilt Rewards loyalty program. Hammond is a former WWE champion and fitness mogul.

The event was supported by the country itself. Egypt Independent reported that Egypt’s minister of Tourism and Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, was among those who attended the wedding. Per that publication, Jain and Hammond paid $200,000 to host a party near a sculpture of Ramses II.

Frescoes lining the room’s painted black walls depicted mythological characters and subjects from the Trojan War. In one scene, Paris, the prince of Troy, stands before the Spartan princess Helen. In another, the god Apollo stands with a lyre in an attempt to seduce the Trojan priestess Cassandra, who ultimately rejects his offer and is doomed to proclaim prophecies that go unbelieved.

Guests would have been entertained in the “Black Room”, as it has been dubbed, in the evening, where in the shimmering light burning lamps would have brought the paintings to life. The well-preserved mosaic floor, by contrast, was comprised of more than one million white tiles.

“The walls were painted black to prevent the smoke from the oil lamps being seen on the walls. People would meet to dine after sunset; the flickering light of the lamps had the effect of making the images appear to move, especially after a few glasses of good Campanian wine,” Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the Director of the Archaeological park of Pompeii, said in a statement. 

“The mythological couples provided ideas for conversations about the past and life, only seemingly of a merely romantic nature. In reality, they refer to the relationship between the individual and fate: Cassandra who can see the future but no one believes her, Apollo who sides with the Trojans against the Greek invaders, but being a god, cannot ensure victory, Helen and Paris who, despite their politically incorrect love affair, are the cause of the war, or perhaps merely a pretext. Who knows? These days, Helen and Paris represent us all: each day we can choose whether to focus solely on our own private lives or whether to explore the way our lives are entangled with the broad sweep of history, thinking for example, not just of war and politics, or of the environment, but also of the atmosphere we are creating in our society, communicating with others in real time and on social networks”, he continued.

The room is just one of a larger house within a residential and commercial block in region nine, which has been undergoing archaeological excavation over the last year. The house featured a reception room and garden. Next door was a bakery with a shrine and a laundromat.

Skeletons belonging to a child and two adults from the 79 CE eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which lead to the Pompeii’s demise and preservation in ash, were previously found in the bakery. They may have been slaves crushed by falling stones during the eruption.

Archaeologists believe that the house, bakery, and laundromat were owned by the same person. They believe these areas were undergoing renovation due to the presence of roof tiles, pots of lime mortar, and trowels that were left behind.

On walls and millstones, experts found the initials “ARV” short for Aulus Rustius Verus, who was a wealthy politician in Pompeii, reported the BBC. They believe he may have been the building’s owner.