After 85 years since he was discovered, King Tut's face is finally being unveiled to the public. 

Archaeologists took the mummy from its stone sarcophagus and placed it in a climate-controlled case inside his tomb in Luxor's Valley of the Kings.

Until now, only about 50 living people have seen the face of the boy king, who died more than 3,000 years ago.

As experts lifted Tutankhamun from his coffin they briefly set aside the white linen covering his remains, revealing a shrivelled black face and body.

The move is part of a plan to protect the remains. Archaeologists say they are under threat from the heat and the humidity brought into the tomb by the vast numbers of tourists visiting each year.

Link

A series of mysterious holes which stretch for miles in Peru have been baffling researchers:

These strange holes, stretching for miles over uneven, hilly ground, were here for so long that the local people have no idea who made them, or why.  Funny thing is no one really saw the big picture until the area was seen from the air.

Hundreds of man- sized holes are carved into the barren rock near Lima, Peru on a plain called Cajamarquilla.

Some sectiosn have holes in rigid and perfect prescision; some run in rows that curve up in arches, some staggered lines.  They vary in depth to about 6-7 feet deep yet some are merely shallow indents as if not completed - though surrounded by those that are.

To date, no one has a clue why they're here, who made them or what they were.

I'm wondering if this was used as a walking path up and down the mountainous terrain.  The holes, serving as a "ladder" would make it easier to climb the mountain. 

What do you guys think the purpose of the holes was?

[via MeFi]

This may be the oldest love story not yet told:

Archaeologists have unearthed two skeletons from the Neolithic period locked in a tender embrace and buried outside Mantua, just 25 miles south of Verona, the romantic city where Shakespeare set the star-crossed tale of "Romeo and Juliet."

Buried between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago, the prehistoric pair are believed to have been a man and a woman and are thought to have died young, as their teeth were found intact, said Elena Menotti, the archaeologist who led the dig.

"As far as we know, it's unique," Menotti told The Associated Press by telephone from Milan. "Double burials from the Neolithic are unheard of, and these are even hugging."

Previously:
Lovers of Teruel (Los Amantes de Teruel)

Archaeologists have unearthed an ancient settlement that housed the builders of Stonehenge.

The dwellings date back to 2,600-2,500 BC, the same period that Stonehenge was built.

"In what were houses, we have excavated the outlines on the floors of box beds and wooden dressers or cupboards," said archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson of Sheffield University.

The researchers have excavated eight houses in total that belonged to the Durrington settlement. But they have identified many other probable dwellings using geophysical surveying equipment.

The archaeologists think there could have been at least one hundred houses.

Read the full article here.

Previously:
Sketches of Stonehenge found in 15th Century Manuscript, Man lifts rock similar to those found in Stonehenge (LwL)

A headless skeleton in a Roman limestone sarcophagus was found 10 feet below the St. Martin-in-the-Fields church in London.  The sarcophagus dates to about 410 A.D. and was found "outside the boundaries researchers had established for London's Roman city walls.

The sarcophagus was made from a single piece of limestone from Oxfordshire or Northamptonshire, about 60 miles northwest of London, researchers said. The skeleton, headless and missing fingers, is a 5-foot-6-inch male who died in his 40s. Researchers speculated that Victorian workmen building a sewer stumbled upon the sarcophagus and took the head.

The site is about a mile west of the boundary of Roman London established by researchers, said Roman history expert Hedley Swain.

Previously:
Oldest Observatory in Americas Discovered in Peru, Rare Print of Mozart's Widow Found in Germany, Sketches of Stonehenge found in 15th Century Manuscript

The oldest observatory in the Americas has been discovered in Lima, Peru.

The site dates back 4,200 years—800 years before such artistic and scientific skill was previously known to have existed in the Americas.

The find was part of an ancient temple built by an unnamed civilization from Peru's "pre-ceramic" period, which predated the better-known Inca culture by thousands of years.

Temple structures, including a giant carving of what looks like a frowning face, align with the directions of sunrise and sunset at critical points in the agricultural calendar, including December 21, the start of the Southern Hemisphere's growing season, and June 21, the end of harvest.

Previously:
Lazy Weekend Links (Egyptian tomb discovered)