News from the ancient world
New archaeological discoveries in Greece, newest first: 7 stories.
Bronze Age · 13th to 10th century BC · Aghios Vasileios, Xirokambi, Laconia, Greece
A Linear B archive at Aghios Vasileios and a hilltop sanctuary at Amyklai suggest the Spartans joined an older Lacedaemonian community rather than replacing it.
Bronze Age · c. 1200 BC · Pylos, Messenia, Greece
Researchers read one sign as a plant root and argue that another, long taken to mean fruit, records a dry stalk such as cinnamon or fenugreek.
Byzantium · 6th century AD · Great Lavra Monastery, Mount Athos, Mount Athos, Greece
Codex H, a copy of St Paul's letters cut up for bindings at the Great Lavra Monastery, holds the earliest known chapter lists for Paul's letters.
Bronze Age · c. 2000–1500 BC · Kolona, Aegina, Attica (Saronic Gulf), Greece
Excavators at Kolona on Aegina found gold pendants, beads and carnelian, probably from one necklace of the first half of the second millennium BC, but no tomb.
Greece & Rome · 6th century BC · Kleidi Samikon, Elis, Western Greece, Greece
Excavators at Kleidi Samikon in Elis found fire-damaged bronze sheets in the same hall that yielded a large bronze inscription in 2024.
Byzantium · 7th–15th century AD · Deep Mani, Peloponnese, Greece
Over half of men in the remote Peloponnese region descend from one man who lived around the 7th century AD, which researchers read as a sign of a severe population collapse.
Bronze Age · 3200–2000 BC · Rafina, Attica, Greece
The pithos tomb in eastern Attica held two people covered by large stones, and two metres away lay a burnt pit containing a complete equid skeleton.