Feature Archaeology

How a backyard pendulum saw sliced into a Bronze Age mystery

Researcher’s swinging blade offers glimpse into how ancient Mycenaeans built palaces

Lion Gate sculpture

ENIGMATIC ENGINEERING  An ancient sculpture known as the Lion Gate relief contains marks in a column (center of image) that may have been made by a pendulum saw. The lions, now headless, stood above the main entrance to the citadel of Mycenae, in what is now Greece.

Lulu and Isabelle/Shutterstock

By Bruce Bower

This article is only available to Science News subscribers.

Subscribers, enter your e-mail address to access our archives.

Not a subscriber?

Science News is a nonprofit.

Support us by subscribing now.

More Stories from Science News on Archaeology

  1. Indonesian cave
    Archaeology

    One of the oldest known cave paintings has been found in Indonesia

    By Bruce Bower
  2. African elephant with trunk in air
    Archaeology

    Ivory from a 16th century shipwreck reveals new details about African elephants

    By Maria Temming
  3. Lava tube in New Mexico
    Archaeology

    Ancient people may have survived desert droughts by melting ice in lava tubes

    By Rachel Fritts
  4. stone with microscopic bone residue
    Archaeology

    Two stones fuel debate over when America’s first settlers arrived

    By Bruce Bower
  5. dugout canoe crafted using axes modeled off of Japanese artifacts
    Humans

    Ancient humans may have deliberately voyaged to Japan’s Ryukyu Islands

    By Charles Choi
  6. David and Goliath illustration
    Archaeology

    The biblical warrior Goliath may not have been so giant after all

    By Bruce Bower
  7. an illustration of a woman throwing a spear
    Anthropology

    Female big-game hunters may have been surprisingly common in the ancient Americas

    By Bruce Bower
  8. preserved nerve cells
    Anthropology

    These human nerve cell tendrils turned to glass nearly 2,000 years ago

    By Laura Sanders

From the Nature Index

Paid Content