For a long time, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was also the Tomb of the Misplaced King:

after Richard III fell in battle in 1485, it took centuries to locate his corpse. In 2012, a team of
archaeologists finally unearthed it under a parking lot. Forensic analysis revealed details that had
been lost to history, including a severely twisted spine—a condition we now call scoliosis—that
he couldn't have possibly hidden from those around him. In 2022, researchers unearthed an
ancient Buddhist temple in Pakistan and, a few years before that, perhaps the fastest human in
history. Discuss with your team: do these minor details about the past affect how we see the
world today? If we had discovered from Richard III's DNA that he was a woman in disguise,
would that change our view of him or his role in history?

The above questions are more than academic; they force us to reevaluate choices made in the
present. In 2024, the Globe Theatre in London staged a new production of Shakespeare's Richard
III, casting a woman with an untwisted spine in the title role. Some people protested that the
production needed an actor who shared Richard III's now-known physical ailment. Discuss with
your team: to what extent does an actor need to share lived experiences with the character they
are portraying?

It doesn't always take a volcano: the Roman ruins at Ostia Antika offer a look back into history
similar to what most people seek in Pompeii, even if they were preserved less perfectly. Where
would you go in your country for the most authentic peek at how the world used to be? Discuss
with your team: if an OpenAI project destroyed all life on Earth but left our cities intact, what
would a future anthropologist conclude about human civilization? How much would their
conclusions vary depending on what city they visited?

These days, Indiana Jones would be piloting a drone. New technologies have allowed
archaeologists to reimagine the archaeological method with a lighter footprint. Consider the
Girsu Project's discovery of an ancient palace, then discuss with your team: what aspects of your
country's history would benefit from re-exploring using drones, AI, and other recent advances?

Jurassic Park, Godzilla, and The Land Before Time have all depicted dinosaurs as giant scaly
lizards—but more recent research has suggested they didn't look like that at all; it appears they
were less Komodo dragon and more Qatari falcon. If so, the T. rex in Jurassic Park should have
been a thing with animatronic feathers. The field of paleoart aims to visualize past creatures as
accurately as possible despite the limited evidence. If a future paleoartist tried to reconstruct the
world of 2024 using incomplete information, what would they get wrong? Would fossil evidence
of dogs wearing sweaters stump them?

Investigate the following significant archaeological and paleontological discoveries. What

circumstances and strategies allowed us to discover them, and how have they impacted our
understanding of history and the present day? Discuss with your team: can you imagine a
discovery that would dramatically change the modern world?

Rosetta Stone | Taposiris Magna Stele | Borobudur | Petra | Sutton Hoo

Aztec Calendar Stone | Ocomtún | Montevideo Maru | HMS Endurance

Lucy and Ardi (fossils) | Java Man | Taung Child

Oldowan tool kit | Paranthropus robustus | Tujiaaspis vivid

Rosetta Stone: A slab of black basalt inscribed with a decree in three scripts - Ancient Egyptian
hieroglyphs, Demotic script, and Ancient Greek - that helped scholars decipher Egyptian
hieroglyphs.

Taposiris Magna Stele: An ancient stone slab found at the Taposiris Magna archaeological site
in Egypt, believed to have religious or historical significance.

Borobudur: A 9th-century Mahayana Buddhist temple in Indonesia, known for its intricate
carvings and as one of the most significant Buddhist monuments in the world.

Petra: An ancient city carved into rose-red cliffs in Jordan, famous for its rock-cut architecture
and archaeological significance.

Sutton Hoo: An Anglo-Saxon burial site in England, containing a ship burial with rich grave
goods that provide insights into early medieval English society.

Aztec Calendar Stone: Also known as the Sun Stone, a large circular stone carved with intricate
symbols is believed to represent the Aztec calendar.

Ocomtún: An archaeological site in Chile known for its well-preserved rock art and evidence of
early human occupation.

Montevideo Maru: A Japanese cargo ship that was sunk by an American submarine during
World War II, resulting in the deaths of over 1,000 Australian prisoners of war.

HMS Endurance: A British Royal Navy ship famous for its role in the Antarctic expedition led by
Sir Ernest Shackleton in 1914-1917.

Lucy and Ardi (fossils): Two famous hominid fossils that provide important insights into human
evolution, Lucy being a nearly complete skeleton of an Australopithecus afarensis and Ardi being
a partial skeleton of Ardipithecus ramidus.

Java Man: A fossil of an early human ancestor (Homo erectus) discovered in Java, Indonesia, in
the late 19th century.

Consider the use of AI to win the Vesuvius Challenge by translating ancient scrolls—and the idea
of applying the same approach to papyri damaged at Herculaneum. Is it worth spending this
many resources to read ancient documents with little modern-day significance? What exactly are
we looking for?

Voice dubbing and subtitles are the two main ways audiences can enjoy works in other
languages. But neither is ideal: voice dubbing can be low in quality and out-of-sync, taking
people out of the performance, and subtitles can be untrue to the original text while also taking
away from the experience of hearing and reacting to words one at a time. Now, AI can dub
footage with simulations of the original speaker's voice in a different language and be as closely
in sync with the movements of their lips as possible. Check out this demonstration, then discuss
with your team: will such AI-enabled translation lead to more works being produced in more
languages? Would you want to use it in your personal life?

When the Library of Alexandria burned down, it meant the loss of countless documents that had
never been converted into PDFs. The collection at the House of Wisdom was destroyed when the
Mongols swept by. Explore some of the largest libraries in the world today, then discuss with
your team: would we notice if they disappeared?

After the fall of the Soviet Union, statues of Josef Stalin and other heroes of the regime were
quickly pulled down—but now many are on display at Moscow's Muzeon Park of Arts. Discuss
with your team: when monuments of past regimes are deemed unacceptable, should they be
melted down, displayed in a new location, or stored? Are some historical artifacts unfit to be
shown in the modern world, even as examples of what could go wrong?