Discover Magazine
Central Asia's Lost Civilization
Written by Andrew Lawler
Published in
Discover Magazine
Archaeologist Viktor Sarianidi is unearthing a chain of long-forgotten towns built 4,000 years ago on the plains of modern Turkmenistan. His finds challenge conventional thinking about culture, trade, and religion in the ancient world Thousands of people lived in towns like Gonur with carefully designed streets, drains, temples, and homes.…
China Takes Its First Space Walk
Written by Andrew Lawler
Published in
Discover Magazine
Top 100 Stories of 2008 #13: A nation delights in its pioneering venture “It was as if all spring festivals, new years, and Christmases had come at once,” a breathless Chinese commentator wrote in the China Daily. An enraptured Chinese public watched last September as a 42-year-old astronaut—“taikonaut” in Chinese…
Contributors
Written by Andrew Lawler
Published in
Discover Magazine
Andrew Lawler leaves modern civilization several times a year to visit the remains of ancient ones in central Asia and the Middle East. In covering the archaeology beat for Science magazine, Lawler has traveled to more than 25 foreign lands. “I get to see parts of countries that most Americans…
Discover Interview: Director of Iraq's National Museum
Written by Andrew Lawler
Published in
Discover Magazine
The archaeologist talks about the loss of artifacts and why he fled his homeland. Uruk, located near Basra in Iraq, was one of the world’s first cities, and it is where the first writing system emerged. Babylon, just an hour’s taxi ride from Baghdad, was long the world’s largest and…
Great Ancient City Unearthed in Syria
Written by Andrew Lawler
Published in
Discover Magazine
Top 100 Stories of 2008 #66: While the corpses of their enemies still lay on the battlefield, the victors celebrated by slaughtering cattle and holding a gigantic feast. Then they dumped the war dead into a pit, heaved in the animal bones from their repast, and tossed their plates on…
Inside the Restoration of the Amirya Madrassa
Written by Andrew Lawler
Published in
Discover Magazine
With foundation walls three feet thick, the Amiriya, a 16th-century palace and mosque in Rada, Yemen, has weathered earthquakes, monsoons, and tribal warfare. The ruler who sponsored the monument, Sultan Amir ibn Abd al-Wahhab, had a residence on the second floor. The first floor contains this courtyard. It took almost 15…
Is Jupiter's Bizarre Moon Our Best Hope for Finding Extraterrestrial Life?
Written by Andrew Lawler
Published in
Discover Magazine
NASA is gambling $4 billion that there's life beneath the thin atmosphere, lethal radiation, and miles-thick ice on Europa. The crackling radiation would kill you in 10 minutes—that is, if you did not first asphyxiate in the nearly nonexistent atmosphere, die of exposure to the –300 degree Fahrenheit temperature, or…
It's Alive
Written by Andrew Lawler
Published in
Discover Magazine
For those seeking life on Mars, it is the best of times and the worst of times. Nearly 35 years after NASA’s twin Viking robots eased down onto its ruddy surface, there is still no incontrovertible evidence that living organisms ever existed on the fourth planet from the sun. Few…
Out of Eden
Written by Andrew Lawler
Published in
Discover Magazine
The sobering message from an extraordinary ancient Syrian settlement: Urban civilization and organized warfare emerged hand in hand. Joan Oates’s sharp blue eyes spotted something that was not right. Standing on the windy summit of a vast, human-made mound in northeastern Syria, the wiry 81-year-old archaeologist noticed an ugly scar…
Return of the Bactrian Gold
Written by Andrew Lawler
Published in
Discover Magazine
2,000-year-old nomadic treasures, shielded from the Taliban and nearly lost, resurface in a stunning exhibition in Paris. At the close of 2003, a small group of Afghan, Russian, and U.S. officials gathered in the high-walled presidential compound in Kabul to witness the opening of a long-hidden collection of Afghanistan’s most…
