We've added new features to the AIA site, including Coins and Archaeology, which looks at the value of ancient coins when they are recovered part of a scientific excavation and the gains to be made when numismatists and archaeologists work hand in hand, facilitating discoveries and interpretations that neither discipline could produce in isolation.


Shipwrecks have been in the news recently, and, in the Fig and The Spade, Jerome Lynn Hall takes exposes the deceptions treasure hunters use in presenting their deeds to the public. Hall, now at the University of San Diego Anthropology Program, is a past president of the Institute for Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University.

You'll find major important additions to our Education pages, where we are posting lesson plans. Have a look at our series of Simulated Dig lessons: Layer Cake Archaeology, Transparent Shoebox Dig, Shoebox Dig, and Schoolyard Dig.

We've also revised and reloaded the Greek Vase Painting Project lesson plan and republished online Cargoes from Three Continents: Ancient Mediterranean Trade in Modern Archaeology--click here for those lesson plans.

Be certain to visit our new Gladiator page with an exclusive photo gallery of the Fiano Romano reliefs featured on our cover, more about the ongoing investigation of how the reliefs were looted, an overview of the gladiatorial games by AIA Vice President Shelby Brown, and more.