The Great Pyramid’s Construction Theory
By Emilia Wellesley · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 How Was the Great Pyramid of Giza Actually Built? The Great Pyramid of Giza was built in roughly 23 years for the Fourth Dynasty pharaoh Khufu, beginning around 2580 BCE and finished by his death around 2560 BCE. It contains an estimated […]
The Ulfberht Swords
By Emilia Wellesley · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 What Are the Ulfberht Swords? The Ulfberht swords are a corpus of roughly one hundred and seventy Viking-Age blades, produced between about 800 and 1000 CE, bearing an iron-inlaid +VLFBERH+T or +VLFBERHT+ inscription along the upper third of the blade. The metallurgically […]
The South American Quipus: Advanced Record-Keeping
By Emilia Wellesley · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 Last reviewed: May 7, 2026. What Are the South American Quipus? The South American quipus, sometimes spelled khipus from the Quechua word for knot, are knotted-cord recording devices developed in the Andes from at least the third millennium BCE and brought to […]
The Serpent Mound
By Emilia Wellesley · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 In Adams County, Ohio, on a forested ridge above Brush Creek, an earthen serpent runs along the contour of a high plateau for roughly four hundred and eleven meters. Its head opens onto an oval embankment that some readers see as an […]
The Glozel Tablets: A French Mystery
By Emilia Wellesley · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 What Are the Glozel Tablets? The Glozel tablets are a body of inscribed clay objects, part of a larger assemblage of roughly three thousand artifacts, recovered between 1924 and 1930 from a single field outside the hamlet of Glozel, in the Auvergne […]
The Vanishing of the USS Cyclops
By Emilia Wellesley · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 On 4 March 1918 the collier USS Cyclops cleared the harbor at Bridgetown, Barbados, bound north for the Norfolk Navy Yard with a hold of 10,800 tons of Brazilian manganese ore and 306 souls aboard. She never arrived. No SOS, no debris […]
The Kingoodie Artifact: A Nail in Ancient Rock
By Emilia Wellesley · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 In 1844, a Scottish quarryman split a block of Old Red Sandstone at Kingoodie Quarry near Inchture, and a corroded iron nail came out with the rock. Sir David Brewster reported the find to the British Association for the Advancement of Science […]
The Treasure of the San José Galleon
By Emilia Wellesley · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 The 1708 Wreck Off Cartagena and What Lies on the Caribbean Floor The Spanish sixty-four-gun galleon San José sailed from Portobelo on the Panamanian isthmus on May 28, 1708, riding low under the year’s accumulated New World tribute, and was sunk on […]
The Vinča Culture: Europe’s First Civilization?
By Emilia Wellesley · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 Last reviewed: May 7, 2026. Was the Vinča Culture Europe’s First Civilization? The Vinča culture flourished in the central Balkans between roughly 5700 and 4500 BCE and produced large planned settlements, the world’s earliest copper smelting, elaborate figurines, and a corpus of […]
The Donner Party Tragedy
By Emilia Wellesley · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 What Was the Donner Party Tragedy? The Donner Party was a wagon company of roughly eighty-seven Illinois and Missouri emigrants who left Springfield, Illinois in the spring of 1846 for California, took a poorly tested shortcut promoted by the lawyer Lansford W. […]