Egyptian antiquities chief Zahi Hawass told a packed press conference in Cairo that one of two mummies found in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor about a century ago had been identified as Hatshepsut.

Archaeologists from the University of Chicago have discovered a gold processing center along the middle Nile, an installation that produced the precious metal sometime between 2000 and 1500 B.C. The center, along with a cemetery they discovered, documents extensive control by the first sub-Saharan kingdom, the kingdom of Kush.

Images of disembodied heads are widespread in the art of Nasca, a culture based on the southern coast of Peru from AD 1 to AD 750. But despite this evidence and large numbers of trophy heads in the region's archaeological record, only eight headless bodies have been recovered with evidence of decapitation, explains Christina A. Conlee (Texas State University).

Two University of Oregon researchers are on a multi-institutional 26-member team proposing a startling new theory: that an extraterrestrial impact, possibly a comet, set off a 1,000-year-long cold spell and wiped out or fragmented the prehistoric Clovis culture and a variety of animal genera across North America almost 13,000 years ago.

An Israeli university professor Ehud Netzer who has conducted archaeological digs at Herodium since 1972 announced the discovery of the grave and tomb of Herod the Great, the Roman empire's ''king of the Jews'' in ancient Judea.

An Israeli archaeologist says he has discovered the tomb of King Herod, one of the legendary rulers of the ancient world. VOA's Jim Teeple reports the discovery follows nearly a half-century of excavation work at one of Herod's palaces, located about 15 kilometers south of Jerusalem.

There is a common perception that life in the once-thriving Roman city of Pompeii is well-known from the wealth of artefacts that have been uncovered since its accidental discovery in 1748, but this is far from the case, according to findings of University of Leicester archaeologist Dr Penelope M Allison.