Ancient mysteries

Such was George III’s passion for astronomy that he had an observatory built to observe the transit of Venus. Although his interest remains unrivalled, scientific curiosity gripped the Royal Family for centuries, as Matthew Dennison reveals

The elevator pitch made this trip sound very glamorous, but it’s nearing 43ºC and I’ve been stooping around in the desert for over an hour, eyes fixed on the arid earth. We’re in the Turkana Basin in

After a decade and a half of excavations, archæologists have uncovered the naturally mummified remains of well over 100 indigenous Yakuts of north-eastern Siberia, one of the coldest places on Earth.

WHAT is she thinking about, I wonder?” I gazed at the little chess piece sitting in the display case in front of me. A crown sat on the figure’s head, indicating her status as a queen. One hand cupped

We’re having a clear-out. Everything must go

In Caravaggio’s “St Matthew and the Angel” (1602), the Bible seems to arrive as a shock to those who wrote it. Matthew, bare-armed and dirty-toed, is a fisherman stranded on dry land. Everything about