Heritage

Rock on! Prehistoric art dominates Unesco's 26 new World Heritage Sites

A third of the newcomers have roots in prehistory, including mysterious megaliths in France and a region in Australia that is home to some of the world’s oldest petroglyphs

4,000-year-old Ancient Egyptian handprint discovered by Cambridge museum

Researchers at the Fitzwilliam Museum, UK, found the marking on an artefact due to go on display in an exhibition this autumn

Trump pulls US out of ‘woke’ Unesco

The State Department says that Unesco membership does not square with its “America-first” outlook

700 Years of Tenochtitlan (again): Mexico honours its pre-Hispanic capital

The Mexica city’s founding is celebrated with new commemorations, reinforcing a nationalist focus on Indigenous identity

The mysteries of Roman inscriptions are being solved with a new AI tool

Aeneas, named after a hero from Greek and Roman mythology, can calculate when inscriptions were carved and predict lost text

Football stadium disrupts plans for Tasmanian truth-and-reconciliation art park

The development, which was due to address the genocide waged against Aboriginal Tasmanians by British colonists, has lost out to government-backed sports venue

Artists travel back in time with work created from ancient wood discovered at site of lost London river

Jane and Louise Wilson’s work will go on show at site of Roman temple in the heart of London

4,000-year-old ancient city discovered in Peru

Peñico opened to the public earlier this week, following eight years of research led by the archaeologist Ruth Shady

National Trust à la française? French culture minister considers plans for new heritage body based on UK model

Centre des Monuments Nationaux has also signed agreements with the National Trust, the National Trust for Scotland and English Heritage

Mysterious megalithic sites in Carnac, France may be among the oldest in Europe, archaeologists discover

A section of the ancient complex, the age of which has long been debated, has been found to date back to between 4600 and 4300 BC

Ancient art on wheels: how Mumbai's leading museum is sending miniature exhibitions by bus into the Indian countryside

CSMVS's mobile museum venture, created in collaboration with an exhibition it curated with the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Berlin State Museums and the British Museum, examines the underlying connections between ancient civilisations

UK Heritage Department feared ‘mass restitutions’ when Stone of Scone was returned to Scotland

Civil servants felt frustrated after Prime Minister John Major returned the 13th-century artefact 30 years ago, newly released papers reveal

Canadanews

As North America’s oldest company faces bankruptcy, the sale of its collection raises fears among Indigenous communities

Little is known about the vast collection of art and artefacts the Hudson’s Bay Company amassed from its founding in 1670, but experts believe it includes many important pieces of Canada’s First Nations and colonial heritage

Diaryblog

Penis envy? 35-foot appendage at UK heritage site was almost covered up

UK government official said that trees should be planted on Cerne Abbas Giant's sizeable member

English Heritage chief steps down after a turbulent 18 months in post

Nick Merriman oversaw a controversial restructure of the UK historic site charity

Amid protests over his extravagant Venetian wedding, Jeff Bezos donates €3m to organisations involved in protecting the city and its ecosystem

It is yet to be confirmed how the three recipient institutions will collaborate on a subject of great importance to Venice and the world

As art market regulations tighten, international dealer association calls for 'unity' across trade

Cinoa's new president hopes for a more co-ordinated approach as game-changing legislation comes into effect

Ancient Egyptian queen’s statues were not destroyed out of hatred but ‘deactivated’, study finds

Jun Yi Wong from the University of Toronto analysed broken statues of the pharaoh Hatshepsut and found that—contrary to some previous scholarship—they appear to have been damaged for “pragmatic and ritualistic reasons”

Are you not entertained? Three ancient helmets headline UK exhibition exploring the ‘real’ gladiators

The show at Leeds’s Royal Armouries Museum also features everyday objects such as surgical equipment and souvenirs from visits to see battles at amphitheatres

Gaudi’s original vision for Casa Batlló has been restored

One of the most famous sites in Barcelona has been given a €3.5m makeover

Climate change is destroying Maine’s historic lighthouses

These unique monuments to a coastal way of life, some of them dating to the US’s colonial period, appear on the 2025 World Monuments Watch list alongside historic sites in countries experiencing war and drought

Iran closes museums and moves artefacts to secure storage

According to local news reports, emergency protocols have been enacted to safeguard cultural objects and heritage sites amid conflict with Israel

Ancient rock art site under threat as Australian government provisionally extends 'carbon bomb' gas project

The 50,000-year-old carvings on the Burrup Peninsula include the earliest-known depictions of a human face

Three tombs dating back more than 3,000 years uncovered close to Egypt's Valley of the Kings

Painted scenes and a number of objects were found inside the structures, which were built for Ancient Egyptian officials

Fire-damaged room at Castle Howard brought back to life by meticulous restoration

The Tapestry Drawing Room at the stately home, which was featured in the Netflix series ‘Bridgerton’, was destroyed in a blaze in 1940. Decades on, it is restored and its tapestries back in place

Vandal sprayed obscene graffiti at Peruvian archaeological site in broad daylight

The incident at Chan Chan, the largest adobe city in the Americas, has drawn attention to the lax security at the 600-year-old Unesco World Heritage Site

2,500-year-old bird bone tubes used to snort hallucinogens discovered in Peru

The finding provides a psychedelic trip into the heart of pre-Incan power at Chavín de Huántar, where psychoactive substances were used in elite ceremonial rituals

5,000-year-old woman uncovered in Peru with hair and nails still intact

The exceptional find at Áspero reveals women’s high status in the ancient Caral civilisation

Tourist impaled on iron railing at Rome’s Colosseum

The American visitor underwent emergency surgery after the incident at the historic landmark

Turkish artists face pressure amid government crackdown on opposition

Mahir Polat, the head of Istanbul’s cultural heritage department, was recently released after being arrested along with other key cultural figures