The Archaeologist reveals the top 10 archaeological discoveries of 2022 from its archive.

Greece: Marble head of Hercules’ statue from the Antikythera shipwreck

The Marble head of a male bearded figure, bigger than life size, which at first sight can be identified with Herakles (Hercules) of the so-called Farnese type. It most probably belongs to the headless statue of the so-called “Herakles of Antikythera”, inv. no. 5742 of the National Archaeological Museum, which was retrieved by sponge divers in 1900. Read more here

"Ginesthoi": The Greek word that is believed to be the only surviving handwritten signature of the legendary Queen Cleopatra of Egypt!

A single Greek word, "ginesthoi", meaning "to do as I command" in free translation, written at the bottom of a Ptolemaic papyrus, may have been written by the Egyptian queen Cleopatra VII herself, claims the Dutch papyrologist Peter van Minnen from the University of Groningen. The text was sent to Alexandria on the 26th of the sixth ancient Egyptian / Coptic month of Mesir, also known as Amsir (23 February 33 BC) and later appears to have been reused in order to be made a cartonnage mummy case, as found by a German mission at Abusir in 1904.

It is about a royal ordinance granting tax exemption and financial reliefs to a Roman officer named Publius Canidius, an ally of Marcus Antonius, who would command his land army during the Battle of Aktio (Actium) in 31 BC. Read more here

3,400-year-old city in Iraq emerges after extreme drought

A sprawling 3,400-year-old city emerged in Iraq after a reservoir's water level swiftly dropped due to extreme drought. Kurdish and German archaeologists excavated the settlement in the Mosul reservoir, along the Tigris River in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, in January and February. Read more here

WRECK OF SIR ERNEST SHACKLETON’S ENDURANCE

An expedition team from Endurance22 has announced the discovery of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s, Endurance, off the coast of Antarctica. The Endurance was a three-masted barquentine, despatched on the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent. The ship is sitting upright on the seabed and is largely intact. There is some damage to the fo’c’sle deck and part of her starboard side, but the paintwork and her name “ENDURANCE” are still clearly visible.

World's Oldest Straws

Ancient metal tubes unearthed in 1897 could be oldest surviving drinking straws. A set of ancient gold and silver tubes dating to about 5,500 years ago and unearthed in North Caucasus in Russia could be the world's oldest surviving drinking straws, experts have claimed. The richly furnished mound also contained hundreds of other artifacts, including ceramic vessels, metal cups, weapons, and beads made of semiprecious stones and gold. The tubes, which are hollow and measure around 3.7 feet long and just under a half inch in diameter, were originally thought to have been scepters or poles used to support a canopy.

4,200-YEAR-OLD HAZELNUTS, MARBLE IDOLS FOUND IN TURKEY'S KÜTAHYA

During the excavations in Tavşanlı Mound, located in the central Turkish province of Kütahya, the remains of 4,200-year-old hazelnuts and marble idols were unearthed. Read more here

A GREEK-LANGUAGE 'BLOODY' CURSE INSCRIPTION AGAINST ROBBERS FOUND IN GALILEE, ISRAEL

Dated back to 2nd or 3rd century AD (Late Roman or Early Byzantine period) this painted bloody-looking burial curse inscription was found in a tomb in Beit She'arim Necropolis of Lower Galilee in Israel.  The full text and the story of its discovery were presented at the Northern Conference, held jointly on June 1, 2022 by the University of Haifa and the northern region of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). Though the Beit She’arim necropolis had been studied extensively, the catacomb in which Jacob had been buried had been unknown until last year. This curse was the first inscription archaeologists have found in Beit She’arim for 65 years! Read more here

FIRST SENTENCE WRITTEN IN CANAANITE LANGUAGE DISCOVERED ON IVORY COMB

Archaeologists have identified an entire sentence in Canaanite, engraved on an ivory comb that dates from 1700 BC. On the comb are 17 Canaanite letters in an archaic form from the first stage of the invention of the alphabet script. They form seven words in Canaanite, reading: “May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard.”

ORIGINS OF THE 30,000-YEAR-OLD VENUS OF WILLENDOrf SOLVED

Anthropologist Gerhard Weber from the University of Vienna used micro-computer tomography to analyse the Venus up to a resolution of up to 11.5 micrometres. Together with Alexander Lukeneder and Mathias Harzhauser from the Natural History Museum in Vienna, the team procured comparative samples from Austria and Europe for comparison to geologically determine the origin. Read more here

RESEARCH TEAM CLAIMS TO HAVE DECIPHERED ANCIENT IRANIAN LINEAR ELAMITE LANGUAGE

A mysterious ancient writing system called Linear Elamite, used between about 2300 B.C. and 1800 B.C. in what is now southern Iran, might have finally been deciphered, although some experts are skeptical about the findings. What's more, it's unclear whether all the artifacts used to decipher the writings were legally acquired. Read more here