Articles by: Tom Metcalfe

Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" is thought to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine cloth merchant.

Did Leonardo da Vinci's 'quick eye' help him capture Mona Lisa's fleeting smile?

By Tom Metcalfe

The oldest of the two Viking longhouses at Stöð dates from around A.D. 800, several decades before the commonly accepted date of the settlement of Iceland in A.D. 874.

Oldest Viking settlement possibly unearthed in Iceland

By Tom Metcalfe

Archaeologists have unearthed what may be the oldest Viking settlement in Iceland.

The Newgrange passage tomb is one of the earliest and most elaborate Neolithic monuments in Ireland, but several hundred others are found throughout the country.

Famous Irish tomb yields a surprise — a king born of brother-sister incest

By Tom Metcalfe

Human bones in the famous Newgrange tomb in Ireland belonged to king born of first-degree incest, researchers say.

The excavations also revealed two brick beer cellars, which are thought to have belonged to an inn at the site.

London's 'oldest theater,' built just 3 years after Shakespeare's birth, discovered

By Tom Metcalfe

The "Plaza Tree of Pueblo Bonito" was thought to be a living "world tree" for ancestral Puebloans. But researchers have found that it grew 50 miles away and was dead when it was hauled there.

Chaco Canyon's famous 'tree of life' might have just been a bench

By Tom Metcalfe

New research reveals that the "Plaza Tree of Pueblo Bonito," once thought to be a living "tree of life," may have been just a big, dead tree that came from somewhere else.

Sonar scans show the wreck is broken in two parts on the seafloor. This scan shows the submarine's conning tower and bow section.

Explorers find Cold War-era submarine wreck off the coast of Oahu

By Tom Metcalfe

A team of explorers have found the wreck of a United States Navy submarine that sank more than 60 years ago in deep water near the Hawaiian island of Oahu.

Precautions have prevented coronavirus reaching the German icebreaker Polarstern, drifting with Arctic sea ice near the North Pole.

How a research ship drifting near the North Pole avoided a coronavirus disaster

By Tom Metcalfe

Archaeologists and volunteers are working to preserve human bones exposed by recent storms in an ancient cemetery above a beach on the Orkney Islands.

Scottish storms unearth 1,500-year-old Viking-era cemetery

By Tom Metcalfe

Powerful storms on Scotland's Orkney Islands exposed ancient human remains in a Pictish and Viking cemetery.

The sword was mistakenly thought to be medieval. It is now thought to come from eastern Anatolia and to be about 5000 years-old – one of the oldest swords ever found.

Student discovers 5,000-year-old sword hidden in Venetian monastery

By Tom Metcalfe

A keen-eyed archaeology student made the find of a lifetime when she spotted one of the oldest swords on record, mistakenly grouped with medieval artifacts in a secluded Italian monastery.

Archaeologists have surveyed the Mayan road with airborne LIDAR technology to reveal the ancient structures along its length.

Maya warrior queen may have built the longest 'white road' in the Yucatán

By Tom Metcalfe

A ruthless Maya warrior queen may have ordered the building of an elaborate road more than 1,000 years ago to invade a distant city and to counter the rising power of another.

The remains of the RMS Titanic are rapidly corroding at the bottom of the North Atlantic. But a proposal to cut the ship’s telegraph machine from the wreck has drawn fierce criticism.

Titanic's iconic telegraph 'voice' may be recovered. But some say the salvager is a 'greedy treasure hunter.'

By Tom Metcalfe

Frantic distress messages were sent over the machine after the cruise liner slammed into an iceberg in 1912.

The temple at Lachish is the first ancient Canaanite temple found in more than 50 years and is extraordinarily well preserved, say archaeologists.

3,000-year-old Canaanite temple discovered in buried city in Israel

By Tom Metcalfe

A 3,000-year-old temple, built by the Canaanites around the time of the ancient Israelite invasion, has been unearthed in southern Israel.

A 3D laser scan image showing the location of the tomb (in yellow) buried beneath the steps to the Curia Julia, or Senate House, in the Roman Forum.

Tomb of Rome's mythical founder Romulus unearthed

By Tom Metcalfe

A tomb that was buried thousands of years ago and revered by ancient Romans as the resting place of their city's mythical founder Romulus has now been rediscovered beneath the Forum in Rome.

The cave of Els Trocs in the Spanish Pyrenees, indicated here by an arrow, was the scene of a brutal massacre about 7,300 years ago.

Bones of Neolithic immigrants killed in massacre found in Spanish cave

By Tom Metcalfe

Vicious attack has the hallmarks of a "xenophobic" clash between enemy groups.

The Soviet spy radio was found buried beside a path through a former forest near the German city of Cologne, a few miles from a nuclear research center and a military airbase.

Sophisticated Soviet spy radio discovered buried in former forest in Germany

By Tom Metcalfe

Archaeologists have found a sophisticated Soviet spy radio that was buried in a former forest in Germany shortly before the fall of the Iron Curtain.

The spiral patterns that appear prominently in the rock carvings are thought to be a symbol among ancestral Pueblo peoples for the sky or the sun.

800-year-old spiral rock carvings marked the solstices for Native Americans

By Tom Metcalfe

The Pueblo people created rock carvings in the Mesa Verde region of the Southwest United States about 800 years ago to mark the position of the sun on the longest and shortest days of the year.

One artifact was said to show the earliest depiction of the Christian crucifixion, but experts said its iconography was much later than its supposed date in the third century A.D.

Trial begins for archaeologist accused of forging earliest portrayal of Jesus' crucifixion

By Tom Metcalfe

Yamashita's buried hoard of gold and other valuables, if it exists, is reported to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars today.

Treasure hunters search for fabled gold on Philippines island. Hoard may not even exist.

By Tom Metcalfe

Excavations by treasure hunters searching for a hoard of gold in the Philippines, said to have been hidden by a Japanese World War II general, are threatening to cause landslides in a remote village.

The mummified body of the ancient Egyptian priest Nesyamun underwent medical scans in 2018 so that a copy of its vocal tract could be made.

Egyptian mummy speaks again after 3,000 years

By Tom Metcalfe

The voice of an ancient Egyptian priest has been heard for the first time in more than 3,000 years, thanks to a detailed reconstruction of his vocal tract from his mummified remains.

The leader of the excavation, archaeologist Daniele Morandi Bonacossi, and one of the panels of Assyrian carvings unearthed in the northern Kurdistan region of Iraq.

Ancient Assyrian rock carvings in Iraq show procession of gods riding mythical animals

By Tom Metcalfe

Stunning ancient rock carvings that portray an Assyrian king paying homage to his gods amid a procession of mythical animals have been unearthed in the Kurdistan region in the north of Iraq.

Mirabilite deposits often beneath the waters of the Great Salt Lake in winter, but this is the first time it has formed exposed mounds above the surface.

Strange 'Martian' Mineral Mounds Rise Up from Utah's Great Salt Lake

By Tom Metcalfe

Rare mounds of a crystalline mineral have emerged above the surface of Utah's Great Salt Lake, where they're expected to remain just a few months before disappearing again.

A column of ash surrounds the crater of Taal Volcano as it erupts on Jan. 12, 2020, with lightning in the background, as seen from Tagaytay city, in the Philippines.

Philippines Volcano Could Erupt Again in Hours or Days, Threatening a Million People

By Tom Metcalfe

Taal volcano in the Philippines has erupted, and scientists are worried it could soon erupt even more violently, putting almost a million people at risk.

Scientists Are Racing to Figure Out Why This Giant Glacier in Antarctica Is Melting So Fast

By Tom Metcalfe

A robotic submarine is about to descend into a dark, water-filled cavern in Antarctica, to try to find out why one of the continent's largest glaciers is melting so fast.

The instruments on NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory can reveal the intense magnetic fields generated by the sun that tangle as it rotates.

First New Sunspots in 40 Days Herald Coming Solar Cycle

By Tom Metcalfe

Two new sunspots have ended a long period of relative quiet on the surface of our blazing host star, heralding the start of a new 11-year cycle of sunspot activity.

Teenage T. rex were more lightly built and faster than the much larger, lumbering, bone-crushing adults they would grow into.

6-Foot-Tall T. Rex Skeletons Not a New Pygmy Species, Just Teenagers

By Tom Metcalfe

Two 6-foot-tall dinosaurs, nicknamed "Jane" and "Petey," have been confirmed as Tyrannosaurus rex teenagers with years of growth ahead of them, and not a pygmy dinosaur species as some had argued.