Researchers have used ancient DNA from grape seeds to trace the origins of wine-making traditions that still shape modern viticulture, finding a direct genetic thread connecting an Etruscan settlement in Italy to wine regions across Europe today.

Oya Inanli of the University of York led a team that studied 80 waterlogged grape seeds from two wells at Cetamura del Chianti, a site in Tuscany dating to around 300 BC.

The seeds span the Etruscan and Roman periods up to roughly 1200 CE. The study was published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

More than a quarter of the seeds belonged to a single variety, identical in genetics, and maintained without change for at least 362 years. Direct radiocarbon dating confirmed this variety was present from the Etruscan period through Roman occupation.

Researchers identified it as a clonal lineage, meaning winemakers repeatedly propagated the same vine without allowing it to reproduce sexually. This practice remains common among winemakers today.

One grape variety survived unchanged for over three centuries

The DNA of the dominant variety also pointed to a significant discovery. Genetic markers associated with berry color showed a 92 percent likelihood that the clonal variety produced white grapes.

A new study decodes ancient grape DNA, tracing a single wine variety through over 362 years and connecting Roman-era viticulture to modern European winemaking traditions. pic.twitter.com/mRRzkTyCuF

— Tom Marvolo Riddle (@tom_riddle2025) June 12, 2026

This makes Cetamura del Chianti one of the earliest known sites with genetic evidence for white wine production in the pre-Roman Mediterranean. Two other seeds showed markers linked to dark berries, suggesting red wine was also part of life at the settlement.

Researchers found genetic links stretching well beyond Tuscany. A Cetamura seed closely matched a grape seed recovered from a first-century Roman farm in Mont Ferrier, France. This points to the Romans moving specific vine varieties deliberately across their empire.

A separate Cetamura seed from the transitional Etruscan-Roman period showed a sibling-level genetic relationship with a modern Hungarian variety called “Baratcsuha szurke.” That variety belongs to a broader family of old European grapes, including a vine in Slovenia said to be more than 400 years old.

Ancient grape DNA traces modern wine’s origins across Europe

The team applied multiple methods, including ancient DNA analysis, near-infrared spectroscopy, geometric morphometrics, and radiocarbon dating.

Seeds from deeper layers of the wells preserved more genetic material, pointing to stable, waterlogged conditions as a key factor in DNA survival.

The research provides concrete evidence that agricultural traditions of the Etruscans and Romans laid the groundwork for wine culture across Europe.

Scientists have discovered a massive whale necropolis deep beneath the Indian Ocean, at depths reaching nearly 7,000 meters (22,966 feet), stretching almost 1,200 kilometers (746 miles) along the seafloor and containing hundreds of fossils dating back more than five million years.

The findings, published in Nature, offer a rare look at one of the ocean’s most extreme and least understood environments.

The site sits in the Diamantina Zone, a rugged underwater fracture zone in the southeastern Indian Ocean, at depths between 4,616 and 7,001 meters (15,144 and 22,969 feet).

Lead author Xiaotong Peng of the Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Sanya, China, and a team of researchers made 32 deep-sea dives using the submersible “Fendouzhe” from February to March 2023.

Whale necropolis beneath the Indian Ocean pushes known depth limits

Researchers found 476 fossilized whale remains and five active whale-fall communities, the ecosystems that form around carcasses sinking to the ocean floor.

The deepest of these communities was found at 6,789 meters (22,274 feet), extending the known depth range of whale-fall habitats by more than 2,500 meters (8,202 feet).

In some areas of the zone, whale remains reached densities of up to 759 individuals per square kilometer (1,966 per square mile).

All five active whale-fall communities are in what scientists call the “sulfophilic stage,” a prolonged phase where bacteria break down bone fats and release sulfide compounds that sustain surrounding life.

The team identified 35 animal species at these sites, including bone-eating worms, brittle stars, and chemosynthetic bivalves, creatures that draw energy from chemicals rather than sunlight. Molecular analysis showed that most of these species may be entirely new to science.

Researchers examined 43 fossil specimens and identified five ‘beaked whale’ species and one ‘baleen whale’ species. Two of the ‘beaked whale’ species still inhabit those waters today, while others have been extinct for millions of years.

One fossil belongs to a previously unknown species, named “Pterocetus diamantinae” after the Diamantina Zone.

Bones preserved for millions of years on the seafloor

Using strontium isotope dating, researchers found that whales have been sinking to this seafloor for at least 5.3 million years.

This whale necropolis survives largely because of the region’s very low sedimentation rate, which means bones are not buried quickly and can remain exposed for hundreds of thousands of years. Iron and manganese minerals gradually coat the bones, protecting them from further decay.

Peng and colleagues noted that the Diamantina Zone’s deep V-shaped underwater valleys likely funnel sinking carcasses into concentrated areas at the bottom. Beaked whales, which dive deeper than nearly any other mammal and can stay submerged for over an hour, likely died from the physical strain of extreme foraging dives.

The discovery also provides new insight into beaked whales, whose behavior and population sizes remain poorly understood because they are rarely seen and are known mostly from occasional strandings.

Researchers further suggest that this stretch of whale falls may act as a biological corridor, connecting deep-sea ecosystems across the southern Indian Ocean.

A small clay figurine, broken and seemingly unremarkable, may hold one of the earliest known examples of numerical notation in the ancient world. Researchers studying a Guatemala figurine have found what appears to be an early form of Mesoamerican writing on its surface, potentially pushing back the timeline of symbolic notation in the region by centuries.

The artifact comes from the Middle Preclassic site of La Blanca in San Marcos, Guatemala. It dates to roughly 750 to 650 BC and features 11 small dots arranged into three vertical columns on what appears to be its headdress.

Julia Guernsey of the University of Texas at Austin led the study, published in Latin American Antiquity. Researchers argue these dots may represent the number 11 in an early dot-based numerical system.

La Blanca was once a major urban center on the Pacific Coast of Guatemala, reaching its peak between 1000 and 900 BC. It controlled a large regional system and was marked by significant social stratification and some of the largest Middle Preclassic architecture in Mesoamerica.

Eleven dots on ancient artifact hint at number system

The artifact belongs to what researchers call the “tab” type, a recurring form at La Blanca in which a tapered, abstract projection replaces a naturalistic human head.

More than 300 such figurines have been found at the site. What sets this one apart is the presence of 11 impressed dots, split into one column of three and two columns of four.

Guernsey notes that the dots were pressed into the clay before the figurine was fired, pointing to deliberate planning by the maker. Their placement in the head region also carries meaning.

Across ancient Mesoamerica, the head and headdress served as the primary space for conveying identity. Symbols placed there often carried names, calendar dates, or other markers tied to personhood.

Guatemala figurine pushes back the timeline of Mesoamerican writing

Numbers were deeply connected to the human body in ancient Mesoamerican cultures. The K’iche’ Maya word for “person” also means 20, a reflection of the 10 fingers and 10 toes at the core of their counting system. Calendar dates at birth often determined a person’s destiny and character, according to the study.

Guernsey argues the figurine from Guatemala stands as the earliest securely dated example of potential dot-based Mesoamerican writing or numeration found anywhere in the region.

While the dots lack an accompanying calendar glyph, their odd total and deliberate grouping hint at numerical intent.

Purely decorative motifs in early Mesoamerican art typically favored symmetry and even numbers, making this arrangement difficult to dismiss as mere decoration.

Archaeologists at an ancient site in Iraq have uncovered rare cuneiform tablets, mass graves, and evidence of a large-scale siege nearly 4,000 years old, giving researchers what they call the clearest record yet of Bronze Age urban warfare in the region.

The site, Kurd Qaburstan, lies in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq and is believed to be the ancient city of Qabra. Tiffany Earley-Spadoni, an associate professor of history at the University of Central Florida, led the excavations over two field seasons in 2024 and 2025 with U.S. National Science Foundation support.

Inside a structure called the Lower Town East Palace, researchers recovered 20 cuneiform tablets and more than 100 administrative sealings, the largest tablet find yet made on the Erbil Plain.

The records include palace administrative texts and a letter tied to a senior official. Several bear dates cluster within the same few days, a pattern consistent with the city’s documented fall. Earley-Spadoni said the tablets offer a detailed look at palace operations and the city’s economy in its final days.

Iraq’s rare palace tablets found alongside ancient mass graves

Within the same destruction layers, researchers found the remains of 17 people. Bioarchaeologist Andrea Zurek-Ost of Michigan State University is studying the individuals.

None had been given a formal burial or left with belongings, and some appear to have died where they lay. One person was found collapsed across a stone basin.

A dig in northern Iraq has yielded rare cuneiform tablets, mass graves and a 4,000-year-old siege record that brings a forgotten ancient city back to life. pic.twitter.com/VGssXIZjt0

— Tom Marvolo Riddle (@tom_riddle2025) June 11, 2026

The site also showed two overlapping destruction events matching historical records of Qabra’s siege and conquest by Assyrian king Shamshi-Adad. Charred debris, fallen walls, and broken pottery point to a prolonged assault, making it the most complete archaeological case of Middle Bronze Age siege warfare identified in northern Mesopotamia.

Earley-Spadoni said the rare tablets, mass graves, and other findings from the Iraq site make clear that northern cities like Qabra were as organized and politically significant as the more familiar southern centers of ancient Mesopotamia.

Survey uncovers fortified walls matching an ancient monument

A magnetic survey of more than 80 hectares uncovered a large fortification wall with towers encircling the site, matching the layout shown on the “Victory Stele of Dadusha,” an ancient monument tied to the siege.

Researchers also found a preserved street with an engineered drainage system and spaces used for food preparation and textile work.

Laboratory analysis is continuing, including DNA and isotopic testing on the 17 individuals to trace their origins and determine whether they were related.

Researchers once dismissed ancient face pots and battle axes from northern Europe as purely local creations, with no broader significance. A new study published in the Danish Journal of Archaeology challenges that view. It finds that these objects from the fourth millennium BC were part of a wider cultural movement linking societies across Europe.

Sebastian Schultrich, an archaeologist at the ROOTS Cluster of Excellence at Kiel University in Germany, studied pottery and stone weapons from the late Funnel Beaker Culture, roughly 3300 to 2600 BC.

His findings suggest communities in northern Germany and southern Scandinavia were far more connected to the rest of the prehistoric world than previously recognized.

The face pots rank among the most striking artifacts of the period. Made primarily on the Danish islands around 3000 to 2900 BC, they feature raised eyebrow arches, a central nose, and circular eye markings.

Most have come from collective burial sites. For decades, researchers treated them as a uniquely local art form.

Face pots and battle axes mirrored pan-European cultural trends

Schultrich argues they were a local response to a pan-European cultural impulse. Around the same period, anthropomorphic art was emerging in southern France, northern Italy, and the Paris Basin.

Stone carvings and stelae depicted human figures alongside daggers and axes. The near-simultaneous appearance of human imagery across such distant regions suggests a shared “spirit of the age,” one that each society expressed in its own distinct way.

Battle axes reveal a parallel story. The double-headed stone axes found across northern Germany and Scandinavia carry a distinctly regional character. But battle axes as a broader category spread across Western, Central, and Northern Europe during this period.

Schultrich draws comparisons between these axes and weapons like daggers and halberds found in Italian graves. Both types used copper or stone, appeared in rock art, and showed up increasingly in burial contexts from the mid to late fourth millennium BC.

Loose Atlantic links laid the groundwork for bell beaker networks

The study also uncovers early signs of an Atlantic exchange network that predates the Bell Beaker phenomenon. Battle axes resembling French designs appeared in Galicia. Scandinavian flint axes reached the British Isles.

Pottery styles in Brittany echoed those developing in the Lower Rhine region. Schultrich describes these as loosely connected networks along the Atlantic coast, ones that would eventually grow into the broader Bell Beaker exchange system of the third millennium BC.

The Danish face pots and the eye motifs on Iberian pottery are most likely unrelated directly, Schultrich notes. But both reflect a broader cultural shift toward human representation in material objects.

The study adds to growing evidence that pre-Beaker societies built wide-reaching connections long before the migrations and cultural upheavals of the third millennium BC reshaped prehistoric Europe.

Researchers have expanded the known Sidetic alphabet to 31 letters, moving the field closer to decoding one of Anatolia’s lost languages. The new findings come from active excavations at Side Ancient City in Antalya’s Manavgat district.

The work is led by Prof. Dr. Feriştah Alanyalı, excavation director and archaeologist at Anadolu University, in collaboration with Italian linguist Alfredo Rizza and Austrian linguist Michaela Zinko. Funding comes through the Culture and Tourism Ministry’s Heritage for the Future Project.

Sidetic sits within the Luwian branch of Anatolian Indo-European languages, a grouping that also includes Lycian and Carian. Decipherment has moved slowly because the surviving inscriptions are few and most span only one or two lines.

Alanyalı said that the thin body of material has made it hard to reconstruct grammar, vocabulary, and structure with any confidence.

New excavations yield longer texts and bilingual comparisons

New excavations have brought a shift. Researchers have now recovered inscriptions running as long as 30 to 40 lines, well beyond anything previously available. Bilingual texts written in both Sidetic and Greek have also come to light.

Alanyalı said that those texts have renewed optimism because matching content across two languages helps researchers assign meaning to unknown signs and connect recurring words to known concepts.

One finding in particular has drawn attention. Researchers now think the Sidetic terms “Siruawn” and “Siruawan” refer to Side itself.

Since the Greek word “Side” (Greek:Σίδη) translates to pomegranate, a fruit that featured prominently on the city’s ancient coinage, Alanyalı said that the name likely carried the same meaning in the native language.

She described this as a significant finding for understanding the city’s origins and identity.

An ancient city that held its language for centuries

Side is typically known through its Greek and Roman structures, but Alanyalı said that the city’s history runs deeper.

Ancient accounts record that settlers from the Greek city of Kyme arrived at Side and, over time, abandoned their own language in favor of the one spoken by local residents.

Alanyalı said that tradition points to a community whose culture was firmly rooted long before outside groups arrived.

That cultural foundation held even after Alexander the Great brought Greek influence into the region during the fourth century B.C.

The inscriptions show that Side’s residents continued writing in Sidetic for roughly two centuries into the Hellenistic period, with the language appearing to fade only around the late second century B.C.

Alanyalı said that the persistence of Sidetic complicates the idea that Greek culture quickly swept away what came before it.

Assyrian and Babylonian seals point to ancient eastern ties

Archaeological finds also point to Side’s connections with civilizations to the east. A Neo-Assyrian seal turned up during excavations at the site.

Separately, Italian researchers obtained a Neo-Babylonian seal from residents of the area before the Turkish War of Independence. Alanyalı said that the two objects together point to cultural ties with Mesopotamia dating back to the seventh century B.C.

A bilingual inscription tied to the city’s Serapis Temple adds another dimension. Alanyalı said that the text documents how the temple was financed, listing the names of donors and the sums each contributed, all written in Sidetic.

31 letters bring researchers closer to Anatolia’s lost language

The use of the local language for a public record of that kind confirms it was still understood and used in everyday civic life.

With the alphabet now standing at 31 known letters, up from 26, researchers working on this lost Anatolian language have a sharper set of tools.

Alanyalı said that the international team continues its work, and each newly identified letter brings the field a step closer to a fuller reading of inscriptions that Side’s people worked for generations to preserve.

A military campaign launched by the Frankish ruler Charlemagne in the late 700s set the foundations for Europe’s east-west divide, shaping the continent’s political landscape for more than a thousand years, according to new research published in the Austrian History Yearbook.

Helmut Reimitz, a historian at Princeton University, argues that Charlemagne’s conquest of the Avar people in Central Europe in 795 CE did far more than expand a medieval empire. It drew a line between east and west that would later echo in everything from medieval church politics to the Iron Curtain of the 20th century.

The Avars were a steppe people who had controlled Central Europe for roughly 200 years before Charlemagne’s armies marched east. Carolingian propaganda portrayed them as the ultimate enemies of Christendom and the campaign as a holy war.

In 791, Charlemagne sent three armies into Avar territory. Before crossing the river Enns, the entire army fasted for three days, held masses, and prayed for divine protection.

The conquest that erased an empire from the map

The initial campaign produced little. The armies marched deep into Avar territory and found almost no resistance. In 796, Charlemagne’s son Pippin finally conquered the Avar capital and seized a vast treasure. Charlemagne distributed it across Europe to cement his image as the most powerful Christian ruler of the West.

The conquest, however, created a lasting problem. The Avars, unable to maintain their political identity under a Christian Frankish emperor, simply disappeared. By 822, their name no longer appeared in Carolingian records. With no Avar client kingdom as a political partner, Carolingian rulers lost their footing in Central Europe.

Reimitz notes that the religious ideology driving the conquest also made practical governance harder. Alcuin, a close advisor to Charlemagne and head of the palace school, warned that forcing rapid conversion on conquered peoples was a serious mistake.

He argued that Christianization required careful instruction, not battlefield compulsion.

When Christian laws drew a line across Europe’s east-west divide

The strict Christian rules the Carolingians imposed also blocked flexible diplomacy. Church guidelines even forbade Christians from dining or celebrating with non-Christians, cutting off a key tool for building political alliances.

These tensions deepened in the 860s when Byzantine missionaries Cyril and Methodius arrived in Central Europe with a Slavonic alphabet and liturgy, directly challenging Frankish church authority.

Frankish bishops accused them of using an unauthorized language. The dispute hardened the region’s divisions even further.

Reimitz concludes that the east-west divide born of Charlemagne’s conquest remained a powerful force shaping Europe’s politics well into modern times, from early conflicts against the Ottoman Turks to the Iron Curtain itself.

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.

On Tuesday, engineers working inside a Himalayan mountain completed the final blast of a critical tunnel that links India’s Kashmir Valley to its Ladakh frontier with China, marking a key step in the country’s push to secure year-round access to one of its most sensitive border areas.

The Zojila Tunnel, stretching 13.14 kilometers (8.2 miles) beneath the mountains, will become India’s longest road tunnel once finishing work is done, with full operation expected by 2028.

Road Minister Nitin Gadkari remotely triggered the last detonation at the eastern portal near Minimarg in Ladakh, joining excavations driven from both ends of the mountain over more than five years.

Gadkari described the project as far more than a transport link, saying it serves as a vital lifeline for communities cut off by winter weather.

Project engineer Manmohan Singh said the team completed the job without a single accident despite working through extreme cold and difficult conditions around the clock.

Himalayan tunnel gives India year-round access near China

The Zojila Pass, which the tunnel cuts beneath at an elevation of 11,578 feet, currently shuts down every winter under heavy snowfall that can pile well above the roof of a large truck, blocking road travel between Srinagar and Leh for months. More than 3,000 workers have been involved in excavation since October 2020.

In Photos | Zojila Tunnel Poised for Historic Breakthrough

Security personnel stand guard outside the Zojila Tunnel in Minamarg ahead of the landmark breakthrough ceremony of the ₹6,500-crore project. Set to provide all-weather connectivity between Kashmir and Ladakh, the… pic.twitter.com/PkM4tqDIC3

— Kashmir Observer® (@kashmirobserver) June 9, 2026

This tunnel is one of four major passages in a $712 million road corridor that also includes the 6.5-kilometer (4 miles) Sonamarg tunnel, with all components targeted for full operation by 2028.

Beyond road access, India launched a $3.9 billion railway from its lowland plains to Kashmir in June 2025, as reported by Al Jazeera, featuring the Chenab Rail Bridge, currently the world’s tallest railway bridge.

The 272-kilometer (169 miles) line starts at Udhampur, the base of the Indian Army’s northern command.

Billions in rail and roads back India’s border push

The push behind all these projects traces to a deadly confrontation in Galwan Valley in June 2020, when Indian and Chinese soldiers fought hand-to-hand at high altitude, killing 20 Indian troops.

The clash set off an accelerated construction race on both sides of the 3,500-kilometer (2,175 miles) shared border.

The Himalayan tunnel is central to India’s effort to close the infrastructure gap with China, where both countries completed troop disengagement at contested frontier points in October 2024, as reported by The Diplomat.

Kashmir has been split between India and Pakistan since the end of British rule in August 1947, with both countries claiming it in full.

Greek women are having their first children later than ever. The average age of first-time mothers in Greece reached 31.2 years in 2024, according to new data from Eurostat. The figure places Greece well above the European Union average of 29.9 years and among the highest in the bloc.

That number marks a sharp climb over two decades. In 2001, the average age at which Greek women had their first child stood at 27.7 years. It crossed 30 for the first time in 2014. By 2021, it had surpassed 31. Since then, Greece’s first-time mothers have continued aging upward year by year.

The country’s standing in Europe reflects a broader pattern. Italy posted the highest first-birth age in the EU at 31.9 in 2024, followed by Luxembourg at 31.6 and Spain at 31.5.

Greece, at 31.2, sits alongside Ireland at the same level, within a cluster of countries where having a first child after 30 has become the standard.

First-time mothers in Greece having their firstborn at the age of 31

The age at all births, not just the first, has moved in the same direction. Greek women averaged 32.2 years at childbirth in 2024, up from 29.3 in 2001. Over those two decades, the average rose by nearly three years. The EU average for all births stood at 31.3 in 2024, placing Greece notably above it.

In the EU, the mean age of women at the birth of their first child was 29.9 years in 2024. ⁠
⁠⁠
Learn more https://t.co/UXznIQAcaV pic.twitter.com/KZLowpImTu

— EU_Eurostat (@EU_Eurostat) June 7, 2026

These numbers in Greece sit against a wider backdrop of declining fertility across Europe. The EU’s total fertility rate dropped to a record low of 1.34 live births per woman in 2024, down from 1.46 in 2022 and from 1.57 in 2008.

Eurostat notes that a rate of 2.1 is the level required to sustain a population without migration. A rate below 1.3 carries the label “lowest-low fertility.”

Greece remains among the EU countries yet to recover above that threshold, alongside Spain, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Finland, and Estonia.

EU fertility hits record low, Greece still below threshold

The broader birth count tells the same story. The EU recorded 3.55 million births in 2024, compared to 6.8 million at the peak in 1964. That figure has fallen by roughly half over six decades.

For Greece, the Eurostat data makes the direction clear. Women in the country are becoming mothers for the first time at a later age than at any point on record, and the gap between Greece and the EU average continues to widen.

OpenAI confirmed Monday it has confidentially filed an IPO with U.S. regulators, joining rival Anthropic as the AI sector moves toward public markets. No timeline, share count, or pricing was announced.

The company said the move preserves the option for an earlier listing, while some decisions are easier to handle as a private firm.

Reuters reported OpenAI is targeting a valuation near $1 trillion for a debut possible as early as September. Anthropic filed for a U.S. IPO on June 1 after a $65 billion funding round valued it at $965 billion.

SpaceX is also pursuing a $75 billion offering at a $1.75 trillion valuation. Analysts say the simultaneous push by three major AI companies toward public markets is the most significant development of its kind for technology investors in a decade.

$2 billion monthly revenue signals rapid growth beyond ChatGPT

In March, OpenAI raised $122 billion from SoftBank, Amazon, and Nvidia at a valuation of $840 billion to $852 billion. ChatGPT had exceeded 900 million weekly active users and 50 million paying subscribers.

Monthly revenue stood at $2 billion, up from roughly $1 billion per quarter at the end of 2024, growing nearly four times faster than Alphabet and Meta at comparable stages. Internal projections put the company’s break-even point no earlier than 2030.

JUST IN: OpenAI confidentially files for IPO. pic.twitter.com/sAORVBWEy1

— Whale Insider (@WhaleInsider) June 8, 2026

Beyond ChatGPT, OpenAI launched tools for government, healthcare, and finance, a web browser, consumer hardware plans, and an AI coding agent. It added a lower-cost $8 subscription tier and advertising as new revenue sources.

The Information reported in April that OpenAI projects 122 million subscribers this year and expects advertising to lead revenue by 2030.

A renegotiated Microsoft deal, covering $13 billion in investment since 2019, enabled growth at Azure and opened new agreements with Amazon and Alphabet.

OpenAI files its IPO amid legal battles and market pressure

Gil Luria of D.A. Davidson warned that large AI listings and Google’s recent secondary share sales could reduce the capital available for smaller offerings.

Michael Ashley Schulman of Cerity Partners said OpenAI appeared to be keeping its options flexible while Anthropic moved ahead in the IPO filing process. Prediction markets had expected OpenAI to file first.

OpenAI began as a nonprofit in 2015 and later added a for-profit arm under nonprofit oversight, a structure that drew attention when CEO Sam Altman was ousted by its board and reinstated within days in late 2023.

The company announced plans to convert to a public benefit corporation in December 2024. Early backer Musk filed a lawsuit alleging Altman and others redirected the organization from its founding mission for personal benefit.

A jury ruled against Musk in May, removing what analysts described as a significant legal obstacle ahead of the OpenAI IPO filing. His attorneys plan to appeal. Separate lawsuits link ChatGPT to shootings and suicides, and public skepticism toward AI persists.

Ancient DNA from the bones of Iron Age Iberians shows that these people held onto their genetic roots despite centuries of Greek, Phoenician, and Carthaginian influence along the Mediterranean coast.

A study published in iScience traced genetic changes across northeastern Spain from 775 BC to 50 CE, marking the first time researchers have systematically analyzed Iberian communities from the early Iron Age all the way through Roman conquest.

Daniel R. Cuesta-Aguirre of the Faculty of Biosciences at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona led the research. Because Iberian adults were cremated, their remains left no usable DNA.

Researchers instead turned to newborn burials found beneath house floors and work areas at three sites: the Vilars fortress, Sant Miquel d’Olèrdola, and El Camp de les Lloses. Of 54 newborns examined, 22 yielded genome-wide data, and nine more contributed mitochondrial markers.

From fortress to Roman hub: three windows into the Iberian past

The three sites covered distinct phases of Iberian history. The Vilars fortress, home to the Ilergetae tribe, was occupied from the 8th to the 3rd century BC and captured the shift from pre-Iberian to full Iberian culture.

Sant Miquel d’Olèrdola, linked to the Cessetani tribe and active from the 4th to the 2nd century BC, reflected an established community with active trade connections.

El Camp de les Lloses, tied to the Ausetani tribe and dated from the late 2nd century BC to the 1st century CE, documented the period of growing Roman presence.

Genetic analysis placed most individuals from the Vilars fortress and Sant Miquel d’Olèrdola firmly within the local Bronze Age population. Their ancestry combined Western Hunter-Gatherers, Anatolian Neolithic farmers, and Steppe-related groups.

Steppe-related ancestry was somewhat higher in Iron Age individuals than in earlier Bronze Age populations from the same region, suggesting gradual internal shifts rather than large outside migrations.

Iberian DNA and Greek and Mediterranean influence

The DNA record of Iberians showed only limited traces of Greek and other Mediterranean genetic influence before Roman arrival. A few individuals carried ancestry linked to North Africa or southwestern Asia, but these were not widespread.

One newborn at Sant Miquel d’Olèrdola had a maternal lineage associated with North Africa. Researchers interpreted this as possibly reflecting a child born to a local parent and someone with Punic or Carthaginian ancestry, consistent with the large amounts of Punic pottery recovered at the same site.

The study also settled a long-standing archaeological debate. Two newborns at Sant Miquel d’Olèrdola, OLE04 and OLE06, were buried with their legs intermingled and no sediment between them, leading earlier researchers to believe they were twins.

DNA analysis proved they were completely unrelated and even carried different maternal haplogroups.

Roman military activity brought new genes to Iberian settlements

At El Camp de les Lloses, the pattern shifted noticeably. Five of the nine individuals showed clear genetic differences from earlier Iberian populations, carrying North African or Iranian Neolithic ancestry absent in previous generations.

Researchers connected this directly to Roman military and commercial activity, as the site served as a logistical hub tied to Roman infrastructure.

Taken together, the results point to a population that stayed genetically stable for centuries before Roman expansion fundamentally reshaped its makeup.

Volunteer divers have recorded what researchers believe is the first footage of a great white shark filmed underwater in the Mediterranean, captured during a ghost net removal dive near a shipwreck in the Strait of Sicily.

Derk Remmers, a technical diver with Ghost Diving, was about 40 meters (131 feet) below the surface between Sicily and Tunisia when the shark appeared. He filmed the encounter. The footage and photographs were released on June 8 to mark World Oceans Day.

Remmers said that the odds of meeting such an animal underwater are far lower than winning the lottery, and that his hands were shaking as he filmed.

The shark circled the group, then turned and moved back toward the divers. Remmers said that its behavior appeared calm and curious, not aggressive. When the team released air from their regulators, the shark picked up speed and disappeared from view.

First great white shark sighting in the Mediterranean stuns researchers

Marine biologists who reviewed the footage called the sighting rare and scientifically significant.

Dr. Carlo Cattano, a researcher at the Sicily Marine Centre of the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, said that most knowledge of great white sharks in the region has come from dead animals caught accidentally in fishing nets, and that direct observations help researchers better understand the species.

A great white shark circled divers in the Mediterranean as they worked to pull deadly ghost nets from a shipwreck in the Strait of Sicily. pic.twitter.com/tdJKJ37TMY

— Tom Marvolo Riddle (@tom_riddle2025) June 9, 2026

He said that prior research had already identified the area as a key location for threatened species and that this sighting reinforces its conservation value. Researchers cautioned that broader conclusions would require further study.

The mission was organized by the Healthy Seas Foundation, along with Ghost Diving and the Society for the Documentation of Submerged Sites. The wreck’s location is being kept confidential.

Ghost nets, fishing gear lost or abandoned at sea, continue killing marine life long after leaving a vessel. Previous dives at the site documented loggerhead sea turtles and large fish species caught in the gear.

Shipwrecks attract marine life, and when ghost nets settle on them, those structures become underwater traps.

Ghost nets turn shipwreck ecosystems into ongoing ocean traps

Veronika Mikos, director of Healthy Seas, said that the sighting is a reminder of how much marine life still exists in offshore Mediterranean waters and how much is at risk from discarded gear and overfishing.

Remmers said that between 1% and 10% of all fishing gear worldwide is lost each year, possibly adding more than 500,000 metric tons of abandoned nets to the ocean annually.

He said that the shark’s presence near the wreck signals an abundance of prey, and that those same animals face entanglement risk. Volunteer cleanups alone cannot resolve the problem, he said, and stronger action against industrial and illegal fishing is needed.

The mission also included environmental DNA sampling and underwater monitoring. Healthy Seas said that it plans to release additional footage and scientific material in the coming weeks.

A federal judge ruled on Monday that the $100,000 fee Trump imposed on H-1B visa applications was unlawful, striking down one of the administration’s key immigration measures targeting skilled foreign workers.

U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin of Boston found the payment was a tax, not a penalty, and that the president lacked authority to impose it without congressional approval. His 42-page ruling also barred the State Department and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services from enforcing the requirement.

Sorokin, appointed by former President Barack Obama, applied reasoning from a February Supreme Court decision that struck down Trump’s tariffs issued under emergency authority. He concluded that immigration law, like the emergency statute in that case, does not permit the president to levy taxes.

Inside Trump’s case for the $100,000 H-1B visa fee

The H-1B program allows U.S. companies to hire foreign workers for specialized roles. Applicants must hold at least a bachelor’s degree. Visas are approved for three years with a possible three-year extension.

Each year, the program makes 65,000 visa slots available, along with a separate pool of 20,000 set aside for applicants holding advanced degrees.

Trump's $100,000 H-1B visa fee has been blocked by a judge.

Judge Leo Sorokin ruled the new fee for highly skilled foreign workers is unlawful and that it amounts to an unauthorised tax. pic.twitter.com/v1J9Np5qyV

— Pubity (@pubity) June 9, 2026

Employers typically paid $2,000 to $5,000 in fees before the order. Economists say the program helps American companies stay competitive and creates domestic jobs.

Trump announced the $100,000 H-1B visa requirement in September, saying the program had been misused to replace American workers with cheaper foreign labor.

The fee did not apply to foreign nationals already in the country on student visas, who represent a significant portion of new applicants.

The requirement saw little uptake. USCIS recorded only 85 payments as of Feb. 15, according to a March court filing.

Attorneys General celebrate as administration vows to appeal

Twenty Democratic attorneys general filed the lawsuit in December. California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who led the group, said that the ruling protects the country’s ability to attract skilled workers, on which the economy depends.

New York Attorney General Letitia James said that it blocked what she called an unlawful effort to undermine the program and the jobs it supports.

The administration defended the policy as a lawful use of presidential authority over immigration. White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said that the ruling would be appealed, adding that the president has the authority to restrict the entry of foreign nationals deemed harmful to American interests.

Justice Department spokeswoman Natalie Baldassarre said that the department would continue holding companies accountable for misusing the program.

At least three lawsuits have targeted the fee. A federal judge in Washington ruled in December in favor of the administration in a separate case brought by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is appealing that outcome.

The administration has also called for stricter applicant screening and put forward a revised selection process designed to give priority to foreign workers with higher qualifications and better pay.

Researchers have confirmed that an underwater helmet hoard off Spain’s eastern coast near Benicarló is medieval rather than Ancient Roman as long assumed. The finding places the collection in the late 14th to early 15th century, during a period of intense maritime conflict along the Valencian coast.

The study was led by Manuel Frallicciardi, a doctoral student jointly supervised by the University of Alicante and the University of Salerno, and published in the journal Antiquity. It marks the first time radiocarbon dating has been applied to iron helmets from an underwater site.

Divers recovered the helmets in 1990 from Piedras de la Barbada, a submerged site about six meters (20 feet) deep near Benicarló in eastern Spain. At least forty-three helmets were identified. Split between two institutions, most of the helmets are stored at the Museu de Belles Arts de Castelló, while two conserved ones are on display at the Museo de la Ciudad de Benicarló.

Because the site had also yielded Roman-era artifacts, including ancient amphorae and Punic War-era bronze helmets, early researchers assumed the iron helmets belonged to the same ancient period.

Fabric linings within helmets unlocked dating mystery

Frallicciardi and his team found organic evidence trapped inside the helmets. Marine sediment had sealed fabric linings in place, protecting them from full decay. The fibers, identified as plant-based bast material in a plain tabby weave, were sent to the Beta Analytic laboratory in Miami and the Curt-Engelhorn-Zentrum Archaeometrie in Mannheim, Germany.

Four of the five radiocarbon results clustered between the last quarter of the 14th century and the early 15th century. One sample returned a date roughly 150 years later than the rest. Researchers linked this to post-depositional contamination. That helmet sat in a more exposed position, and microscopic analysis showed its fibers were more degraded, conditions that could allow younger carbon to infiltrate the sample.

Spain’s underwater helmet hoard links to medieval piracy era

The helmets fall into two types. Most have rounded skull caps with a central ridge, resembling simplified infantry helmets documented in medieval sources, including the Holkham Bible from around 1330 to 1340 and a fresco painted by Jacopo Uccello around 1378. One helmet has a six-panel faceted construction comparable to a kettle hat depicted in a 1437 altarpiece by Hans Multscher.

Frallicciardi noted the helmets predate the era when large Italian and German workshops standardized European armor production. Their simple construction points to smaller regional workshops supplying local infantry markets. The historical context strengthens that picture. From the 1370s onward, Islamic piracy along the Valencian coast intensified sharply, peaking in the final decades of the 14th century.

Communities responded by building coastal towers, fortifying settlements, and mobilizing local militias. Researchers believe the helmets were most likely lost at sea during this period of sustained maritime insecurity.

Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of a Roman basilica at Tusculum, an ancient city located about 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) from Rome, dating it back to the 2nd century B.C.

The discovery places the structure among the oldest known examples of Roman public basilica architecture, adding a significant piece to the puzzle of how Rome shaped its cities during the Republican era.

Researchers from the Spanish School of History and Archaeology in Rome, known as EEHAR-CSIC, made the find in the southern part of Tusculum’s forum. The forum served as the political and social heart of the city.

The basilica had remained hidden beneath later imperial-era structures for centuries. Antonio Pizzo, who leads the project, said the building is one of the earliest known examples of its type and joins a small, well-documented group of Republican basilicas.

Inside Tusculum’s ancient Roman basilica and its rare design

The structure measured 17.7 by 25.2 meters (58 by 82.7 feet). Its monumental facade featured a series of arches resting on nine flat pilasters, an architectural arrangement known as the “Theatermotiv.”

Pizzo noted that if researchers confirm this interpretation, it would mark the first time this design appears in Roman architecture. Until now, this style had only been identified in later, exceptional buildings such as the Tabularium in Rome.

Among the most striking finds was a polychrome stucco capital discovered inside one of the building’s rooms. It depicts a female head rising from a cup of acanthus leaves, flanked by Ionic scrolls and floral motifs painted in white, red, and green.

The timing of the basilica’s construction aligns with the rise of powerful families from Tusculum, including the Mamilia, Fulvia, and Porcia clans.

The Porcia family produced Marcus Porcius Cato, famous for his repeated calls to destroy Carthage before the Third Punic War. Pizzo said these families drove a wave of monumental construction that went hand in hand with Rome’s growing power across the Mediterranean.

Powerful families and a Roman general add historical depth

Researchers also linked the site to Marcus Fulvius Nobilior, one of the most influential figures of the 2nd century B.C.

After defeating the Aetolian League in Greece, he returned to Rome with Hellenistic art and treasures. An inscription found at Tusculum confirms that some of that spoil went to his hometown.

Francesco De Stefano, co-author of the study published in the Journal of Roman Archaeology, said the discovery contributes valuable knowledge about the origins of this building type and key innovations in Roman public architecture.

The EEHAR-CSIC team has worked at Tusculum continuously since 1994, excavating its forum, theater, and baths. In 2023, they also uncovered a well-preserved marble female statue, with further details expected soon.

The ancient Greek Acropolises meant very different things to different people across history. A new study finds its symbolic meaning shifted dramatically over centuries, starting as a marker of civic pride and freedom before becoming firmly associated with tyranny and oppression.

Robin Rönnlund, an archaeologist at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, published the study in the Annual of the British School at Athens. He examined ancient texts from Homer through the second century A.D. and traced how writers, philosophers, and inscription makers actually understood the word “acropolis” across roughly 1,000 years.

The research directly challenges a widely accepted scholarly narrative. For decades, historians described acropolises as prehistoric royal strongholds that were later abandoned and converted into either religious sanctuaries or civilian refuges during attacks.

Scholars built a false narrative around misread Aristotle

Rönnlund traces this narrative back to a misreading of a passage in Aristotle’s Politics, in which Aristotle theorized that acropolises suited oligarchies and monarchies.

Past scholars interpreted this theoretical statement as a historical sequence rather than a practical observation about fortifications, and the misreading quietly shaped academic thinking for generations.

The word itself is also commonly misunderstood. Rönnlund explains “acropolis” does not mean “upper city,” as dictionaries suggest. It more precisely means “the farthest polis” or “the polis on the edge,” and it first appeared in the Odyssey in reference to Troy.

In early Greek poetry, the ancient Greek acropolis carried an unmistakably positive meaning. Simonides described the Acropolis as a symbol of Greek resistance to Persian invaders.

Ancient Greek Acropolis once stood for freedom and pride

Sparta was celebrated as the “acropolis of Greece” in the famous Lysander monument at Delphi. Philosophers extended the metaphor further. Plato called the head the “acropolis of the soul.”

Diocles of Karystos described the mind as a sacred statue placed on the acropolis of the body. These uses reflected strength, protection, and honor.

The meaning turned darker as foreign military occupation became widespread. Ancient sources contain 66 passages linking tyrants to acropolises. Plutarch recorded a warning that Caesar should not be established as “tyrant in the acropolis.”

Macedonian forces turned a civic symbol into oppression

After 322 B.C., Macedonian forces systematically garrisoned acropolises across Greece to keep conquered cities under control. Both Demosthenes and Isocrates described how garrisoned acropolises kept entire regions in submission.

Civilian populations almost never used acropolises as refuges, contrary to popular assumption. The sites lacked sufficient water and supplies for prolonged occupation, and literary sources confirm people typically fled to the walled city below or into the countryside during attacks.

Rönnlund reviewed 133 individual acropolises mentioned in ancient sources and calls for future research combining archaeology, epigraphy, and field surveys to properly reconstruct how these sites functioned in ancient Greek life.

A stone game board carved inside a medieval bathhouse in Morocco could rewrite what historians know about board games in early Islamic North Africa.

The discovery, published in the journal Libyan Studies, pushes back evidence for a game still played today by several centuries and sheds new light on social life in one of the region’s earliest Islamic settlements.

Tim Penn of the University of Reading led the study examining a previously unpublished game board at Walila, the site of ancient Roman Volubilis in Morocco. The board was carved into a stone step leading into a cold plunge pool inside a bathhouse, or “hammam,” built in the late eighth or early ninth century.

The structure was abandoned by the tenth or eleventh century. That narrow window gives researchers a rare, secure date for the board, something that is extremely difficult to establish for carved game boards found at ancient sites.

Morocco bathhouse yields a precisely dated medieval game board

The bathhouse was part of a larger complex that researchers believe served as the residence of Idrīs I, the founder of the Idrisid dynasty and one of the earliest Islamic rulers in North Africa.

Idrīs I arrived at Walila in 788 after fleeing the Hijaz and was declared imam by a local Berber tribe. The complex included a domestic building, a reception hall, and a storage compound, all built in a courtyard style more common to the Levant than North Africa.

The game board itself measures roughly 34 by 9.5 centimeters (13.4 by 3.7 inches) and consists of three rows of at least 13 small, shallow holes carved into the stone.

Researchers identified it as most likely used for “tab/sig,” a running-fight game in which two players move pieces across the board from opposite sides, trying to capture each other’s pieces. The game is still played in parts of North Africa, the Middle East, and Turkey today.

Tab identified as Walila’s ancient running-fight game

The identification matters because the first known written reference to tab appears in the work of Egyptian author Ibn Daniyāl, who died in 1310.

The Walila board predates that reference by roughly 400 to 500 years, suggesting the game has a far longer history in the region than texts alone would indicate.

Researchers also ruled out mancala, another widely played ancient game, because the Walila board’s holes are too shallow and too small to hold multiple playing pieces, which mancala requires. The odd number of holes per row also makes the mancala rules impractical.

Similar boards from the early Islamic period have been found in Arabia, the Middle East, and Portugal, but none had previously been confirmed anywhere in North Africa.

The broad distribution of these boards across the early Islamic world, and as far as Scandinavia, where a closely related game called “daldos” or “sahkku” was played, points to the game traveling through trade and cultural networks.

From Arabian trade routes to Scandinavian shores

At Walila, those connections to the east are well documented. Imported coins, glassware, and a wine jar from Egypt and the Levant were all recovered at the site.

The bathhouse itself uses a dry-heat system more closely linked to Levantine construction than to the Roman bathing tradition, further reinforcing ties to the Middle East. Researchers suggest the game may have arrived in Morocco with Idrīs I or members of his entourage.

The board sat at the center of the steps into the plunge pool, fully visible to anyone in the changing room or entering the water. Researchers noted that its prominent placement suggests gaming was openly accepted as part of the social experience of bathing.

Bone dice recovered from nearby buildings at the site further confirm that a range of games, including games of chance, were played at Walila during the early medieval period.

The study calls on archaeologists working across North Africa and the broader Mediterranean to document game boards more systematically, noting that carvings of this kind are routinely left out of excavation reports.

Greece recorded one of the lowest rates of young people leaving education and training early in the European Union in 2025, ranking second among all 27 member states for keeping young people in education, according to new data from Eurostat.

The country posted a rate of 3.0%, trailing only Croatia, which reported the lowest share in the EU at 2.1%. Ireland placed third at 3.6%.

Greece’s standing reflects consistent progress over the past decade. In 2015, the country’s rate stood at 7.9%. Over ten years, it fell to 3.0%, a drop of nearly 5 percentage points.

Eurostat defines “early school leavers” as young people between the ages of 18 and 24 who exit education and training before completing upper secondary or higher-level studies. The data measures this group as a share of the total population in that age range.

Greece’s decade-long push keeps young people in education

The EU-wide average stood at 9.1% in 2025, just above the bloc’s own target of bringing that figure below 9.0% by 2030. The rate has declined steadily from 11.0% in 2015. Nineteen of the 27 EU member states reported a lower rate in 2025 compared to 2015, and 17 have already met the 2030 target.

In 2025, the share of early school leavers (young people aged 18-24 leaving early from education and training) in the EU was 9.1%.

Lowest shares in:
Croatia (2.1%)
Greece (3.0%)

Highest shares in:
Romania (15.5%)
Germany (13.1%)

Read more https://t.co/a38jnlr9Wy pic.twitter.com/ukb0aojNRK

— EU_Eurostat (@EU_Eurostat) June 4, 2026

Among countries that improved the most since 2015, Malta led with a drop of 7.7 percentage points. Portugal followed with a decrease of 7.4 percentage points, and Spain dropped by 7.2 percentage points.

Not all countries moved in the right direction. Seven EU member states reported higher rates in 2025 than in 2015. Cyprus saw the biggest rise, climbing 4.6 percentage points over the decade.

Germany increased by 3.0 percentage points, and Austria rose by 2.7 percentage points. Romania posted the highest rate in the EU in 2025 at 15.5%, followed by Germany at 13.1% and Spain at 12.8%.

Men across the EU still quit school earlier than women

A gap between men and women remained consistent across the EU. More young men left education early than women, though both groups showed improvement. The rate for men fell from 12.5% in 2015 to 10.6% in 2025. For women, the figure dropped from 9.4% to 7.5% over the same period.

Greece’s rate of retaining young people in education has improved in nearly every year over the past decade, placing it firmly among the EU’s strongest performers on this measure.

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.