A 2,600-year-old Chinese tomb containing a rare set of ancient bronze bells is shedding new light on how Zhou dynasty elites used ritual objects to connect with their ancestors and assert political power.

A new study published in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal examines the tomb of Lord Qiu of Zeng, a ruler who governed a small state in present-day northern Hubei, China, between roughly 675 and 625 BC.

Chinglong Tse of the UCL Institute of Archaeology, the study’s sole author, argues that the bells were far more than musical instruments. They served as sacred links between the living and the dead, carrying sounds believed to reach ancestral spirits in another realm.

The bell set, known as the Zeng Gong Qiu bianzhong, was cast around 677 BC. Its inscriptions show that Lord Qiu commissioned the bells to honor two powerful ancestors and invoke their spiritual power against the rival Chu state, which was expanding aggressively across southern China at the time.

Lord Qiu commissioned bells to battle a rival state

The inscriptions also show that Qiu presented himself as a humble “little child” who had not yet earned the virtue of his forebears. This was a standard ritual expression in Zhou culture, meant to show devotion to ancestors and demonstrate worthiness to inherit their authority.

When archaeologists excavated the ancient Chinese tomb, they found the bronze bells scattered in a disordered heap. The wooden rack had been deliberately taken apart, its pieces spread across the burial chamber.

This stood in sharp contrast to how Zhou elites typically buried their bell sets, in careful, patterned arrangements designed to sustain their ritual function in the afterlife.

Tse explains that this deliberate disorder likely reflects a major political shift. At some point during Qiu’s reign, Zeng and Chu ended their rivalry. The Chu king gave his sister in marriage to Lord Qiu, turning the two states from adversaries into allies.

The original purpose of the bells, invoking ancestral power against Chu, had become politically inconvenient.

Bronze bells from a Chinese tomb signal political change

To address this, Qiu’s mourners appear to have intentionally deactivated the bells. They commissioned a new, smaller set of funerary bells, placed in an orderly arrangement and dedicated to the same ancestors, to carry on ancestral rites in the afterlife.

Tse notes that the findings show how ritual objects in the ancient Chinese world were not passive symbols. They held real power to shape relationships between the living, the dead, and their ancestors, and that power could be adjusted when political circumstances demanded it.

Egyptian archaeologists have uncovered part of an ancient cemetery from the Greco-Roman period at Tell Kom Aziza in Egypt’s Nile Delta, offering fresh insight into one of the region’s most historically layered sites. The site sits in Beheira Governorate and spans multiple historical periods stretching back thousands of years.

The Egyptian archaeological mission, working under the Supreme Council of Antiquities, found a wide range of burial types during excavations. Some bodies were placed directly in simple earth pits.

Others were buried in mud brick-framed pits, painted plaster coffins, or barrel-shaped pottery coffins. The barrel-shaped pottery coffin was among the most common burial types during the Ptolemaic era.

Tourism and Antiquities Minister Sherif Fathy said that the site holds value far beyond its burial remains. He described it as a window into settlement patterns, daily life, and how people interacted with their environment over millennia.

Burial diversity points to centuries of ritual evolution

Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Hisham El-Leithy said that early analysis of human remains pointed to a notable variety in burial practices. Some graves were individual, while others were collective.

Burial orientations ran along both north-south and east-west axes. Hand positions ranged from resting at the sides to the crossed-arms “Osirian” pose on the chest.

El-Leithy added that studying the archaeological layers confirmed the Greco-Roman cemetery was built over earlier settlement levels. Artifacts trace human activity at Tell Kom Aziza from the Old Kingdom through the New Kingdom, the Late Period, and into the Greek and Roman eras.

Mohamed Abdel Badie, head of the Egyptian Antiquities Sector, said that excavations produced a broad range of everyday artifacts. These included pottery and stone vessels, bread molds, multi-purpose stone tools, ovens, and storage jars.

Large quantities of fish, bird, and animal bones were also recovered, offering clues about the diet and daily habits of the site’s ancient residents.

Wild boar burials found at Egypt’s Greco-Roman cemetery

Among the more unusual finds, mission chief and Beheira Antiquities Director Khaled Abdel Ghani Farhat reported the discovery of complete wild boar burials within one of the archaeological layers.

He said that this is rare at ancient Egyptian funerary sites, given the pig’s symbolic association with the god Set. The find may suggest the boar played an economic or livelihood role at the site during a specific period of use.

Farhat said that the findings confirm Tell Kom Aziza is more than a burial ground. It is a detailed archaeological record of human life across successive historical eras. Further excavation seasons are expected to uncover more of what the site still holds.

Archaeologists working at an ancient Maya site in southern Mexico have found what they say is the earliest known evidence of Maya kingship and calendar use in the region.

Kenichiro Tsukamoto, an archaeologist at the University of California, Riverside, led the study published in Ancient Mesoamerica. His team analyzed three stone monuments at El Palmar, a site in southeastern Campeche, Mexico.

One of them, Stela 46, carries an inscription dated to A.D. 180. That makes it the oldest confirmed “Long Count” calendar date discovered in the Maya Lowlands.

The Long Count is a dating system the ancient Maya used to record historical events in a fixed chronological order. Before this discovery, a stone monument at Tikal held that record with a date of A.D. 292. The El Palmar inscription predates it by 112 years.

Stone monuments link Maya kingship to an ancient calendar

What distinguishes Stela 46 from earlier finds is its direct connection to historical rulers and events. A king named Ajaw K’al Ubaah acceded to the throne in A.D. 131. Some 49 years later, in A.D. 180, he commissioned the stela as part of a royal ritual.

Alongside the Long Count, the inscription also incorporates the 260-day divinatory calendar, binding the royal event to a specific ceremonial date. No earlier Long Count inscription had ever been linked to a named ruler, the researchers said.

To read the heavily worn carvings, researchers combined traditional photography with photogrammetry and a high-resolution 3D scanner called Artec Spider II. The device captures detail as fine as 0.1 millimeters (0.0039 inches). It uncovered inscriptions that scholars had previously missed entirely.

The carvings also show that the king carried two royal titles, pointing to an already established order of royal authority at the site.

Monument traces El Palmar’s rulers back 17 generations

A second monument, Stela 20, strengthened the picture of Maya kingship at El Palmar. Its text identifies the ruler who commissioned it as the 17th king in a successive royal line.

Using the estimated average reign of 22.5 years for Classic Maya kings, the team calculated that the lineage’s first ruler likely rose to power between A.D. 102 and 154. That closely matches the accession date recorded on Stela 46.

A third monument, Stela 45, records the accession of a ruler named Tz’u Chak Ahk in A.D. 342. Together, the three stelae trace a royal dynasty from the second century A.D. to at least A.D. 884, one of the longest recorded among ancient Maya kingdoms.

Tsukamoto noted that El Palmar rose during a turbulent period. Several large Maya polities collapsed around A.D. 150 due to drought, soil erosion, and political instability. El Palmar appears to have grown as a new power center in their place.

The study concludes that calendar systems did more than track time. At El Palmar, they helped rulers legitimize and hold power for more than 700 years.

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