13 Pictures That Capture the Wonder and Thrill of Archaeology

Digging for archaeology photos in National Geographic’s archive

By Anna Lukacs
Published 31 Oct 2017, 23:20 GMT

“It’s not what you find, it’s what you find out,” says David Hurst Thomas, a curator at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Which is to say that finding the artefact or remains of a building on an archaeological dig is only the half of it. It’s the story that flows out of these remnants of a civilisation that really matters.  In the spirit of adventure, we did our own digging into National Geographic’s archive of archaeology photographs. Click through to uncover photos that illuminate our fascinating past.

If you have archaeological photos of your own, join Your Shot and upload them using #archaeology.

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