The Wizard in the Valley of the Kings

Every once in a while, archaeologists come across a find that casts the ancient Egyptians in a particularly humble, human light. Such discoveries often fly under the radar, overshadowed by showier finds of mummies and newly discovered tombs. But I delight in these discoveries; they are antidotes to the almost paralyzing sense of awe I […]

The Rites of Summer

June’s solstice has just passed and I find myself where I usually am each year at this time—37,000 feet in the air and winging off to the field. One of the great joys of my job is to set out armed to the teeth with notebooks, cameras and voice recorder, and join an archaeological crew in […]

Gossamer Wings and the Alchemy of Flight

Take one brilliant middle-school science teacher with a love of hang-gliding.   Add a classroom of typical teenagers, a phone book, a stack of printer paper, and a pair of scissors.  Watch something truly magical take place, as a fleet of miniature planes takes to the air on gossamer wings.   Who wants to work […]

Stonehenge Through Gandalf’s Eyes

Has anyone ever taken a better photo of Stonehenge than the one Harold Edgerton snapped on a dark night near the end of the Second World War, 1944 to be exact? I doubt it. I seriously doubt it. When has Stonehenge ever looked so mysterious, so alien, so theatrical, so totteringly old, so alive, so […]

Of Human Sacrifice and Rubber Balls

Exactly one century ago this year, a swashbuckling American archaeologist named Ernest Thompson was wrapping up his investigation of the Sacred Cenote at Chichen Itza, one of the most famous of all Maya sites. Thompson had been long been fascinated by the natural 130-foot-deep sinkhole that was filled in part with water. According to one […]