Most Anticipated Archaeology Projects 2026

For regular videos on ancient cultures and forgotten civilizations, please subscribe. You know, every year archaeologists and historical researchers push a little further into the ancient world. Sometimes with shovels and spades, other times with drones and scanners, and sometimes with putting it all together for you and me. And 2026 is shaping up to be a great year. I put together a list of 20 upcoming projects across deserts, rainforests, war zones, and deep underwater that could alter the way we understand the ancient world. These are the ones worth keeping an eye out for. Let's begin. Number one, Kahantepe. Normally, I don't go back into prehistory, but this site is getting a lot of attention, and it makes me excited, too. Let's go back 12,000 years before agriculture, before cities, even before pottery. With simple tools, people in southeastern Turkey were already carving stone into something very deliberate and fascinating. And I'm not talking about Gabbecape. I'm talking about Karahepe. In 2025, excavations at Kahantepe revealed a T-shaped pillar carved with a human face. By November, archaeologists announced major new architectural elements within the site, including a large circular amphitheater-like structure with tiered stone benches and sculpted human heads integrated into the walls. Alongside this, they also documented a rectangular plastered building carved into bedrock, reminding us that Karahepe includes multiple architectural forms, likely reflecting different functions or phases of construction within this broader ritual landscape. Khani has now produced two life-sized human statues carved from single blocks of limestone with gaunt ribs and hands drawn down uh to the lower abdomen. One was found near a wall niche that contained a human skull, suggesting a tightly choreographed relationship between sculpture, architecture, and mortuary practice. This gives you an idea of why Kahanti is one of the projects to watch in 2026. Only a small fraction of its buildings have been uncovered. Most of the site is still untouched. If 2025 gave us faces, statues, and a ritual auditorium, the next season may give us more of a clue just how far this early experiment in monument building and symbolic life really went. Number two, Amazon geoglyphs. Yes, deep in the western Amazon, beneath a canopy so dense it blocks out the sun, the ground is carved into giant geometric shapes, circles, squares, causeways, and enormous earthwork enclosures, some the size of football fields. For centuries, no one knew they were there. You couldn't see them from the ground, and you couldn't see them from the air, but liar could. Over the past few years, remote sensing in Ara and Amazonas has revealed hundreds of these hidden geoglyphs. Some are connected by long straight avenues. Others form clusters that look like ceremonial landscapes. Most were built between 2,000 and 1,000 years ago, long before Europeans arrived, by societies who shaped the rainforest into something planned and intentional. In late 2025, a new initiative called the Gojira project took on the challenge of reaching these earthworks on foot, something that had rarely been attempted. Their first expedition cut through dense forest to verify whether the LAR images matched real archaeological features on the ground. And the team identified even more geoglyph candidates in satellite data that have never been visited by researchers. The reason this belongs on a 2026 list is simple. Almost all of these sites remain untouched. The team is preparing a larger expedition to map, sample, and date the geoglyphs and to understand how they were built and by whom. There are few places on Earth where you can say honestly this might be a completely new archaeological landscape. The western Amazon is one of them. Number three, Casas del Tour Nuellow. A buried structure found in the quiet countryside of Extra Madura in Spain has been forcing historians to rewrite what they thought they knew about the lost civilization of Tartesos. The site is called Kasastas del Toruel, and every excavation season seems to lift the curtain on another astonishing layer of craft, ceremony, and new and unexpected cultural connections. The building itself is monumental, a two-story mudbrick complex that was deliberately filled in and sealed more than 2,500 years ago. When archaeologists opened one of its courtyards, they found one of the most dramatic discoveries in Iberian archaeology, a carefully arranged mass sacrifice of horses, cattle, and other animals preserved exactly as it was left in the 6th century BC. Then came the sculptures in 2023 and 2024. The team uncovered the so-called faces of Tartesos, stone heads with expressive eyes, intricate hairstyles, and a level of craftsmanship no one had expected from this culture. The story of Kas del Toruel is just in the first few chapters. We've seen the sacrifices, the sculptures, but most of the building is still buried. And with every new room that opens, the picture of Tartesos, no doubt, will become stranger and richer than you can imagine. Several months ago, after years of discomfort, I finally obtained a new mattress from a company called Nola. Why I didn't do this sooner and unnecessarily suffered, I don't know. But Nola is an award-winning mattress brand known for its cooling technology, exceptional pressure relief, and long-asting durability. I got the Nola Evolution Luxury Firm Mattress. The mattress, fiberglass free, by the way, comes rolled up in a box, and it's easy to set up. Let me tell you, it changed my life. Not only because I sleep better, but a well-rested me has a generally better quality day. So, a big thanks to Nola for sponsoring this video. I don't want to get up. Pressure point relief that it has is saving me from the aches and pains I was having. If you're looking to upgrade your sleep, head to nola mattress.com and use the code world of antiquity to get an extra $50 off your Nola mattress. This is a higher discount than what is being offered on their website. Nola mattresses come with a 120 night sleep trial to test the mattress out and ensure you love it. And they offer financing options and flexible payment plans. Number four, Piko. Along the Peruvian coast between river valleys and desert bluffs sits one of the newest archaeological revelations in the Americas. Piko, a city contemporary with the late Carral world. Carral being the earliest urban culture in the Americas. Piko dates to roughly 1800 to,500 B.CE. A moment when some of the earliest complex societies in the Andes were emerging. What makes the site remarkable is how deliberately it was planned with monumental platforms, plazas, administrative buildings, and domestic areas laid out with an eye for order. The opening season there revealed freezes, instruments, figurines, conshell trumpets, and signs of long-distance exchange. But Paneiko is still in its early stages of study. Much of what archaeologists call the middle sector and peripheral urban belt remains only partially explored and deeper sundages hint at older construction phases buried below the visible ones. That's where 2026 becomes especially exciting. Pine is one of those rare sites where an entire ancient city has just stepped into the archaeological light. And with so much of it still unexamined, the next season may give us our clearest picture yet of how complex societies first took shape in the Andes. Number five, Telunata. Across the plains of southern Bulgaria, there's a mound that doesn't look like much from a distance, but once archaeologists started digging into it, they found themselves stepping into one of Europe's earliest experiments in urban life. Telunitita is a settlement from the fifth millennium BCE, a time when copper tools were just appearing and the first cities of Mesopotamia were still centuries away. Yet here in Southeast Europe, people were already building dense neighborhoods, fortification walls, workshops, and storage buildings in a way that feels rather urban for its age. What makes the site so interesting is not just that it was large and organized, but also its mysterious ending. Around 4,200 B.CE, the settlement was destroyed in a violent attack. Archaeologists have found the remains of women, children, and the elderly scattered across burned buildings, suggesting a massacre rather than an ordinary abandonment. After that event, the place lay deserted for a thousand years. Only about a third of the mound has been excavated so far, and the lowest levels, the earliest ones, are still being explored. Each season brings new glimpses of metallurgy, craft production, long-distance trade, and the social hierarchy of a community that was experimenting with complexity earlier than almost anywhere else in Europe. As the 2026 season approaches, researchers will be working deeper into those calcic layers where the combination of early urban planning and dramatic collapse gives us a chance to see how some of Europe's first complex societies arose. Number six, Gearsu and Legos. In southern Iraq, two ancient cities sit on opposite sides of a plane. Gearsu and Legos. Three or 4 thousand years before the classical world, these places were already experimenting with what it meant to build a city, run a government, and organize a society at scale. And right now, both sites are undergoing a renaissance in archaeological research. At Gearsu, archaeologists are returning to areas that were last touched a century ago using modern survey tools. They're mapping the city's administrative quarter. Uh they're tracking water channels. They're uncovering the industrial zones where some of the earliest bureaucratic systems took shape. Clay tablets from here recorded all kinds of matters that were going on at the time, but the architecture behind the administration was never properly exposed. Now it is. Meanwhile, at Lagosh, a separate team is revealing a city that looks surprisingly spacious and well planned for the early third millennium BCE. Instead of tight alleyways and defensive walls, Lagosh has wide streets, open courtyards, grain facilities, and signs of a population that managed water, fields, and neighborhoods on a scale we didn't expect for this period. The settlement is so large, it is making us rethink how early Sumerian cities functioned. Both teams are in the middle of multi-season campaigns, and 2026 looks poised to bring clearer maps, a new context for early writing, and perhaps a sharper picture of how some of the world's first cities balanced power, labor, and the landscape. Number seven, Lihur. About 40 kilometers southwest of central Beijing in what looks like ordinary farmland, lies an earlier version of the city, Leuih, the capital of the Yan state during the Western Joe period. It's about 1046 to 771 BCE. Archaeologists have known about Leuh for decades. But in the last few years, it's taken on a new significance. Excavations have revealed a walled city with rammed earth fortifications, palaces, and workshops. It's big. It's planned. And it shows that urban life in the Beijing region goes back at least 3,000 years. Over 400 tombs have been excavated with many chariot pits, sacrificial pits, and valuable artifacts discovered. But perhaps the most important discoveries at Leo Leu are the precious bronze ritual vessels of the early Western Joe dynasty. A bronze vessel inscription found in 2021 in a nobleman's tomb includes the phrase Taiba built the city of Yan. Taibau is the name of Duke Shiao, an important figure known in later historical records. The words give us the ancient city name and confirm what the later accounts tell us. In September 2025, the city launched the Lehuru Site Archaeology Research Alliance, bringing multiple institutions together to carry out joint excavations and research in a new coordinated phase. In practical terms, that means the next few seasons should give us a much finer grained map of the city. Uh the walls, the gates, the palace area, better reconstructions of elite tombs and chariot burials, and a clearer sense of how this early capital fit into the wider Joe world. Number eight, the Pereas Underwater Antiquities Museum. This isn't an excavation, but it's a notable project nonetheless. Just outside Athens in the old harbor district of Pereus, something unusual is taking form. An underwater antiquities museum built inside a former power station. Greece has talked for decades about creating a national home for its underwater archaeology. A place to bring together shipwrecks, statues, cargos, anchors, and all the fragile material pulled from the Aian. Now, the plan is finally moving into its next phase, the big opening. This past year, workers cleared the site and began the initial construction work that will allow the interior to be transformed into galleries, conservation labs, and large open spaces capable of holding full-sized hall sections. Now, the museum is entering the stage of actual installation and collection preparation. In 2026, it is slated to open to the public. I'm looking forward to this one because for years, Greek underwater archaeology has been accumulating finds from classical shipwrecks and harbor debris. Many of these pieces have never been displayed to the public. Greece has some of the richest underwater cultural heritage anywhere in the Mediterranean, and until now, there's been no dedicated museum to make that material visible. But soon, we will have one. Number nine, Turkman Caro. In the middle of the coa plane in central Turkey, there's a mound that rises about 35 meters above the fields. Today we call it Turkman Karoyak, but in the late Bronze and Iron Ages, this was one of the largest cities in the region, possibly even a lost Hittite capital. Survey work over the last decade has shown just how big this place once was. At its peak in the late Bronze Age, the city sprawled over at least 125 hectares, making it one of the giants of southern Anatolia. Pottery and small finds point strongly toward an elite Hittite style culture. And in 2019, a hieroglyphic Louisian inscription turned up nearby, a stila of great king Hartapu, boasting of conquering Friia. That inscription verifies the existence of a previously unknown kingdom centered on this mound. Then in 2024, a new full-scale excavation began, finally opening trenches into the mound itself. And the first seasons have already produced intriguing results. Perhaps most notably, a finely worked 2,000-year-old bone stylus. The kind of object that only shows up in places where writing and administration mattered. An ancient capital perhaps. According to historical records, the Hittite king Muatali II, the one who fought Ramsy's II in the battle of Kadesh, moved the Hittite capital from Hatushia to a place which he named Tarhontasha, which to date has never been found. What makes Turkman Caro a project to watch in 2026 is that it could be that site. We know this was a major center in the late Bronze and Iron Ages. We know a king here called himself great king and claimed big victories. So we suspect the site may be the elusive Hittite city of Tarunasha. The next few seasons including 2026 will push deeper into those bronze and iron age levels. If this is Tarunasha, it would be a discovery of major importance. Maybe this coming year we could find out. Number 10. Manto in the heart of Naples. One of the largest historic buildings in Europe is being turned into something completely new. A second home for the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, devoted above all to Pompei and the Vuvian sites. The building is the Real Albergo del Pelvi, an 8th century alms house with a facade more than 350 m long. For decades, it has stood half empty and crumbling. But now the Italian government has committed nearly €150 million euros to transform part of it into man 2, a huge new museum space with around 10,000 square meters of galleries. The plan is to bring out as many as 40,000 objects related to Pompei and Vuvius that are currently sitting in storage at the main museum and give them a permanent modern home. Visitors won't just see mosaics and statues. The new branch is designed to tell the whole story of the excavations. the 18th century rediscovery of Pompei and Herculanium and what life actually looked like in those towns before the eruption. Now that gets me excited. 2026 is the year the renovation work at the Albergo de Pi is scheduled to be completed and Man 2 is expected to open to the public. Crates in the basement will finally become full-scale exhibitions. Many of these artifacts have never been on display before. If you care about Pompei, this is going to be amazing. Number 11, Kishib. You know, not every big archaeological project involves digging. Some of the most transformative work right now is happening behind computer screens where thousands of scattered artifacts are being pulled into the same frame for the first time. One of the most ambitious of these efforts is a digital corpus of ancient West Asian seals and ceilings called Kishib, named after the Sumerian word for seal. Launched in 2025, it is a 16-year project based in Berlin and Munich that aims to build a digital corpus of about 80,000 seals and ceilings from ancient West Asia, spanning the 4th to the 1st millennium BCE. In case you don't know, seals are tiny objects used by the ancients to press into clay. Stamp seals, cylinder seals, and ceilings are the impressions they leave on clay tablets and containers. Together they formed the largest continuous pictorial archive from the ancient near east. Up to now that material has been scattered across museum storooms and publications, often with inconsistent cataloging. Kishib's team of archaeologist, a seriologist, and digital humanity specialist is using machine learning and strict data standards to photograph, segment, and annotate each seal and ceiling, putting them into a searchable, interoperable data set. Why is 2026 an important year to watch for this? Because the project is just coming out of its setup phase. The first public-f facing components of the database are scheduled to go online in the early years of the project and conference presentations 2025 have already shown prototype interfaces and image recognition workflows. As those tools stabilize, we'll start to see scholars and eventually the wider public able to search thousands of seals by motif, inscription, period, place with just a few clicks. The working language of the project is German, but there will be an English public-f facing version too. For those who like to do their own research, this is a powerful tool. In a way, Kishab is turning the ancient near east's smallest objects into one of its biggest research infrastructures. Number 12, Alula and Kaibar. In the rugged desert landscapes of northwestern Arabia, two historic sites are quietly becoming some of the most ambitious archaeological front lines. Alula and Kaibar, Bronze Age fortified settlements that show complex communities thriving in the desert far earlier than most people expected. Once home to pre-Islamic kingdoms, incense roots, oasis settlements, and ancient burial grounds, they're now part of a massive 2025 to 2026 archaeological and conservation campaign. What makes these sites stand out is the scope. The ambition is not just to dig one ancient city, but to survey, excavate, document, and preserve dozens of sites across a large region, many of which date from the late Bronze Age through early Islamic period. In late 2025, the local heritage commission announced a new multi-year program bringing international teams, modern field technology, and heritage conservation together, marking the most concerted archaeological effort in the region in decades. For a region often overshadowed by better known ancient civilizations, Alula and Kaibar represent a blank slate of discovery. Remote oases, complex desert ecology, longforgotten trade and pilgrimage roots, an early Arab heritage now arising into the daylight. If you want to see where next century archaeology might be rewriting parts of pre-Islamic history, well, this is the one to watch. Number 13, Nineveh. On a low mound across the river from modern Mosul, you can still walk over the ruins of Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire that once terrified the ancient near east. For a long time, Nineveh felt like old news. You've probably heard of Henry Leard's famous excavations in the mid 1800s. Its famous palace reliefs ended up in European museums in the 19th century and the ruins themselves suffered badly from looting and weathering and most recently from ISIS. But in the last few years, Nineveh has come back to life as an archaeological zone. And in 2025, archaeologists working in the north palace of Asher Baniple made one of the most spectacular finds there in over a century. While re-exavating the throne room area, a team from H Highleberg University uncovered large fragments of a monumental stone relief weighing about 12 tons. The scene shows King Asher Banipole himself, flanked by two major deities, Asher and Ishtar, along with other figures. It's the first time these particular gods have turned up in a palace relief at Nineveh, and the location suggests it originally held a place of extreme prominence in the room's decoration. At the same time, other projects are working on Ninevea's defenses and gates. The Shamash Gate, one of the largest city gates, is being cleared, documented, and stabilized as part of the Nineveh East Archaeological Project, a collaboration between the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Isac at the University of Chicago. Their goal is to turn part of the eastern city into an archaeological park. For me, the new high-profile discoveries are why Nineveh belongs on a 2026 list. The H Highleberg team will be working to reconstruct and interpret the Asher Bonipole relief within its architectural setting, while the gate projects continue to stabilize and reveal the broader city. Together, they're turning a site many people thought they already knew into a place where big surprises are still coming out of the ground. Number 14, Ugarit. Maybe you've heard of the ancient city of Ugarit on the Mediterranean coast of Syria. It was a late Bronze Age kingdom famous for something incredibly rare. It left behind not only temples and palaces but its own alphabet, libraries of kuneaoiform tablets and a diplomatic correspondences network that connected it to Egypt, the Hittites, Cyprus and Mesopotamia. [clears throat] It was a crossroads of cultures and one of the great archives of the ancient world. But for more than a decade, fieldwork has been disrupted by war. Teams were forced to halt excavations. Security was unstable. Much of the effort shifted to emergency protection. Only in the last few years has the situation improved enough for renewed archaeological planning. By late 2025, new funding commitments, preliminary site assessments, and the creation of joint working groups aligned to reestablish the Franco Syrian mission that had been active at Ugarit for decades. And while full-scale excavation depends on continued stability, 2026 is the year these teams expect to return to the field in a meaningful way. It's the first sustained archaeological season there since before the conflict. What could that unlock? Lugar is a uniquely promising site to reopen. Large parts of the lower city remain unexavated. The harbor area, once one of the busiest on the Levventine coast, has barely been touched. And surveys from before the war identified new domestic neighborhoods, potential industrial zones and undisturbed archives that may still hold some tablets. Number 15, Jebel Baral. In northern Sudan on a bend of the Nile sits Jebel Barl, a large mesa sacred to the ancient kingdom of Kush. At its base are the ruins of temples, palaces, and pyramids that once marked Napata, the religious capital of a Kushite dynasty that ruled not only Nubia but Egypt as well. In quiet times, this would already be a major project to watch. Much of the ancient city is still under the sand. The Jebel Barkle archaeological project, led in partnership with Sudan's National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums, has been working to uncover the buried town at the foot of the mountain. map the temples and stabilize painted reliefs. But since 2023, all of that has been happening in the middle of a brutal civil war. Cartoon's National Museum was looted. Millions of people have been displaced. At Jebel Barkle itself, the visitor center built for tourists is now a shelter and office for families who have fled fighting elsewhere in the country. And yet in 2025, a Sudin-led team still ran a field season there, digging just beyond the visitor center, documenting damage from heavy rains and carrying out rescue excavations and emergency conservation, while artillery occasionally sounded in the distance. And that's why Jebel Barkle belongs on a 2026 list. The work here will expose more remains from the ancient Kushite capital city, but it's all the more challenging because at the same time, it must keep the site alive in the middle of a humanitarian disaster. If you want to see archaeology at its most fragile and its most necessary, where uncovering the past is also a way of supporting people in the present, Jabel Barkle is the project to follow. Number 16, Hatsor. On a hill in the upper Galilee, north of the Sea of Galilee, sits Tel Hatsur, the largest biblical era archaeological site in Israel and one of the great city mounds of the ancient near east. In the second millennium B.C.E., it was a Canaanite metropolis. In the first millennium, it became a major Israelite center before its destruction by the Assyrian king Tiglath Pelzer III. Hatsor is where palaces, temples, cuneaoifor tablets and massive fortifications all intersect in one place. Excavations here have a long pedigree. Yigayel Yadin led major digs in the 1950s and60s. Work resumed in 1990 under Amnon Benth and now co-directed by Igor Kimrman. Those renewed excavations have focused especially on the late Bronze Age Canaanite palace and the Iron Age Israelite levels, revealing rich destruction horizons, Egyptian statues reused in local contexts, and a palace that was more luxurious and more politically connected than Yadin realized. Recent seasons have continued to work through the Israelite strata toward the monumental late Bronze Age palace and to open new squares aimed at reaching later Iron Age and Persian period levels where they expect to hit the 732 B.CE destruction horizon. The 34th season is already scheduled running from July 12th to August 21st, 2026. Every new wall, gate, and storage complex that emerges will help refine a site that sits at the crossroads of biblical history and broader Levventine archaeology. Number 17, Dwarka. Just off the western coast of India, near the modern pilgrimage town of Dwarka, the seabed is littered with dressed stone blocks and ancient anchors lying in just a few meters of water. For decades, marine archaeologists have argued that these are the remains of an ancient harbor and perhaps of settlements that once stood closer to the shoreline before the sea advanced. People have connected it with the Dwarka mentioned in ancient legends. After almost 20 years of silence, that work has just been restarted in a serious way. In February 2025, the underwater archaeology wing of the archaeological survey of India resumed offshore investigations at Dwarka and Betwarka, sending a five member team of diver archaeologists led by Aloc Trapathi back into the water. It's the first major campaign there since 2005 to 2007. Their mandate is to map, document, and date any submerged structures around the Gumi Creek and Okamandal region. stone warves, harbor installations, the anchors, all of that is what they're interested in. Permissions have been granted for a full year of work, and by late 2025, the team was still on the ground and underwater carrying out dives, baometric surveys, and coastal inspections. That sets up 2026 as a critical season. With the initial reconnaissance largely done, the next steps are likely to include more systematic transexs, targeted test excavations, and scientific dating of any structural remains and associated artifacts. The mission is not to prove the ancient legends, but to see whether the seabed can show us a real working harbor on India's western seabboard 3 or 4 thousand years ago, and how that harbor fits into wider Indian Ocean trade at the time. Number 18, Caracol. Deep in the jungle of western Bise lies Kakol, one of the largest Maya cities ever found. More than 150 square kilometers of terraces, plazas, causeways, and pyramids. Archaeologists have been working here for over 40 years. You might think a site like that has given up all its big secrets. Not so. During the January 2025 field season, the Caraccoal Archaeological Project directed by Arlland and Diane Chase uncovered a royal tomb in the northeast cropolis. Inside were 11 ceramic vessels, carved bone tubes, spondilus shells from the Pacific, jade ear flares, and a shattered but reconstructible jadeite mosaicerary mask. Only the second jade death mask ever found at the site. Inscriptions and dating make a strong case that this was the burial of Teabtak, the first known ruler of Carakol, who exceeded around 331 CE. The 2025 discovery season, however, opened up further possibilities. The tomb sits beneath a small shrine in a complex that likely holds additional elite burials. The chases have described the northeast Acropolis as a key royal precinct, and the new burial forces them to rethink the entire sequence of construction and political history in that part of the site. That's what makes 2026 so interesting. The archaeologists will begin targeting the architecture around and above the tomb, looking for companion burials, dedicatory offerings, and earlier building phases that could show how the royal house grew from this founding moment. Every new stairway or chamber that comes out of this has the potential to shift the story of how Caracle's kingship began and how it connected outward to places like Teayoti Wakan. Number 19, Megiddo. Telmidd sits on a low mound at the edge of the Jezrael Valley. It's a site that has been fought over, rebuilt, and re-imagined for more than 3,000 years. In the Bible, it becomes Armageddon, the stage for the final battle. In archaeology, it's one of the most intensively studied tells in the world with more than 30 settlement layers stacked on top of each other. The current Megiddo expedition led by Tel Aviv University and partners in the Jezreel Valley Regional Project has already produced a century's worth of discoveries. Monumental Middle Bronze Age gates and palaces, complex Iron Age fortifications, industrial zones, and an early Christian church nearby. Even so, the team is very clear that they are not done. On their official site, the expedition describes three major goals for the coming season. To continue exposing the middle Bronze Age city gate and fortifications. To follow architectural clues that point toward an undiscovered Iron Age palace and to keep searching for a late Bronze Age archive, clay tablets from the kings of Megiddo that must have existed but have not yet been found. The 2026 season is already set for June 27th to July 23rd, 2026. There's the centennial of the first big University of Chicago expedition being marked in a major exhibition in Chicago, looking back at what a 100red years of digging has already revealed there. And then there's the live fieldwork where every additional meter of gate or courtyard palace foundation exposed brings the team closer to the Iron Age royal complex and the elusive late bronze archive they're convinced is still buried somewhere in the towel. If a single new room full of tablets or the core of a royal palace turns up in 2026, Megiddo would instantly become one of the biggest archaeological stories of the year. And number 20, the Great Pyramid Scanning Mission. The Great Pyramid of Giza has been studied for more than two centuries. But in the last decade, a new phase began. The Scan Pyramids project used Muan radiography and other non-invasive techniques to detect previously unknown voids inside the pyramid, including a large cavity above the Grand Gallery. We now know there are spaces inside Kufu's pyramid that no one has seen since antiquity. The question is, how or even whether we'll be able to look into them? Enter Shawn Whitehead, the engineer behind the Jetty robot that explored one of the Queen's Chamber shafts. In 2010, Jetty showed that it was possible to send a miniature robot up a 20 cm wide shaft, photograph the door at the end, whatever that is, and even peer through a drilled hole to see what lay beyond it. That mission has quietly become the template for how you might explore the pyramid's most inaccessible spaces. In 2025 interviews and podcast appearances, Whitehead began talking publicly about a nextphase mission, upgraded robotics and sensors designed to investigate some of the unexplored areas highlighted by recent scans. Bell's department store CEO Matt Bell has stated that he is funding robotics for a Azai Hawas directed team and that recent and planned stages involve detailed mapping of the Queen's Chamber shafts using a combination of radar laser distance sensors and autonomous robotic platforms. According to Bell, these surveys are intended to create the most precise model yet of the shaft system and to inform later decisions about how or whether sealed spaces beyond blocking stones might be approached. Nothing happens in the Great Pyramid without Egyptian approval. And this isn't a formally announced expedition yet, but the engineering work is real. The discussions are happening, and 2026 is a year in which this work could move from experimental mapping and proposals into officially sanctioned field trials. If approvals are granted, if a small robot or new kind of sensor is allowed to enter one of those sealed spaces, then for the first time in 4,500 years, we may be looking into parts of the Great Pyramid that no human has ever seen. So, there you have it. The 20 archaeological projects that I am looking forward to the most in 2026. Do you have any in mind? If so, let me know in the comments below. You might like my little ebooklet, Why Ancient History Matters. It's designed to persuade people that the subject is important, even in the modern world. You might also wish to use it to help spread the word. So, feel free to share it with someone you know. It's free for anyone who wants it. I've left a link in the description box below the video for you to grab a copy. Catch you later.