archaeology

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• The Rosetta Stone: How It Unlocked Egyptian Hieroglyphs
  The Rosetta Stone carries one decree in three scripts. Found in 1799, it let Jean-François Champollion decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs in 1822. Here is the story.
• The Antikythera Mechanism
  A geared bronze astronomical calculator from ancient Greece, recovered from a shipwreck in 1901 — the most complex mechanical device to survive antiquity.
• Radiocarbon Dating
  The method of dating organic material by measuring remaining carbon-14, exploiting its 5730-year half-life and continuous atmospheric production.
• Archaeological Stratigraphy
  The study of the vertical sequence of layers and features at an archaeological site, and the basis of excavation and relative dating.