The 15 best art, design and archaeology discoveries of 2023

By Jacqui Palumbo | CNN

Whether lost at the bottom of the ocean, tucked away in a library’s archives or hidden behind a kitchen wall, this year’s arts, archaeology and literary discoveries spanned an astonishing range. Some had only been mysteries for a few decades, like the identity of a man whose photo was used on the cover one of rock’s most famous albums, while others dated back a bit longer — say, 6,000 years? And though many of these great finds were excavated through more conventional means, others required ambitious technological feats: an AI algorithm programmed to identify a centuries-old anonymous play, drones sent high into hard-to-reach caves, and groundbreaking scans made of the Titanic wreckage.

Below are some of the most significant discoveries of 2023.

A still-glimmering sword

It sometimes requires a bit of imagination to visualize a millenia-old artifact in its full glory — but that wasn’t the case with an octagonal sword (pictured above) found still gleaming in a Bavarian grave this past June. Thought to be more than 3,000 years old, from the Middle Bronze Ages, the sword required further examination by archaeologists when it was discovered at a site in at a site in Donau-Ries, Germany, along with the remains of three people. But a statement from researchers later confirmed it was a real weapon, rather than ceremonial or decorative, with “the center of gravity in the front part of the blade indicat(ing) that it was balanced mainly for slashing.”

AI discovery in the archives

The author of a 17th-century Spanish play remained a mystery for centuries — until AI technology identified it in January as a late-career work by one of the country’s most famous authors, Felix Lope de Vega.

Researchers at the country’s National Library were using AI to transcribe some 1,300 anonymous manuscripts and books and check them against works by known authors when it made the discovery. The Spanish Golden Age-era playwright wrote “La francesa Laura,” or “The Frenchwoman Laura,” in the years before his death in 1635. The play is a tale of love, jealousy and poison when the heir to the French throne becomes enamored with Laura, the wife of a Count.

A classic rock mystery, solved

Who is the man carrying a bundle of sticks on the cover of Led Zeppelin’s 1971 album? After half a century, his identity has been revealed as a thatcher from the late-Victorian era, according to the Wiltshire Museum in southwestern England, which made the announcement in November after a visiting research fellow located the original image by photographer Ernest Howard Farmer.

Thought to be of a widower named Lot Long or Longyear, who lived the town of Mere in the 19th century, the portrait was part of a larger album of architectural and countryside scenes inscribed to the photographer’s aunt. And as to how a colorized portrait wound up the star image of “Led Zeppelin IV”? It was an antiquing find made by the band’s lead singer Robert Plant, in a store in Berkshire, southern England.

Lost Truman Capote story resurfaces

The famed American author Truman Capote received a surprising posthumous addition to his oeuvre this year, after an editor from “The Strand” magazine discovered a previously unknown short story scrawled in one of Capote’s notebooks. Andrew F. Gulli found “Another Day in Paradise” — a story about a disillusioned American woman uses her inheritance to buy a villa in Sicily — while sifting through works held at Washington’s Library of Congress. Along with representatives of the writer’s estate, a team of people subsequently worked to decipher the story, which was written in “very challenging” handwriting, according to Gulli.

“These libraries have millions and millions of pages from all sorts of writers. So, you know, I can only guess that sometimes some of these things can just get missed,” Gulli said.

Ancient sandals get a new superlative

When 22 woven sandals discovered by Spanish miners in 1857 were first carbon dated in the 1970s, they were thought to be about 5,000 years old. But new analysis from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and Alcalá University in Spain has found that estimation to be shy of about 1,000 years: In September, researchers announced that the footwear, made of plant fibers, are, in fact, the oldest known European shoes.

Preserved thanks to dry conditions in the cave in southern Spain, along with an assortment of fiber baskets and other goods, the sandals demonstrate “the ability of prehistoric communities to master this type of craftsmanship,” according to an author of the study.

Two new “Mona Lisa” revelations

So much has been debated about Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” over the years: who she was, why she’s smiling, even where she was painted — with an historian recently asserting that the bridge in the background is actually in a different picturesque Tuscan town than previously believed, for example. And now, scientists in France and the UK have discovered a new piece of the portrait’s puzzle, hidden within the base layer of Leonardo’s paint.

Using X-ray diffraction and infrared spectroscopy, the team detected a mineral compound known as plumbonacrite, which forms when oil and lead oxides are mixed and helps paint dry faster. While it’s known that later artists including Rembrandt used such a technique, the authors of the study pose that Leonardo might have been the first.

“Each time you discover something on his processes, you discover that he was clearly ahead of his time,” Gilles Wallez, an author of study, told CNN in October.

A luxurious lavatory

In February, archaeologists released details on what may be the world’s oldest known flush toilet. The 2,400-year-old lavatory and bent pipe — likely a status symbol among China’s elite at the time — were discovered last summer in the ruins of a palace at the Yueyang archaeological site in the city of Xi’an, according to Chinese state media.

The toilet was likely only used by a select few in the ruling class, according to researcher Liu Rui, who helped excavate the broken pieces. Liu told state media that the design likely required the assistance of servants to pour in water with each use.

The Great Pyramid’s hidden hallway

Over the past few years, the Great Pyramid of Giza has given up some of her secrets — including a mysterious ‘void’ — thanks to the Scan Pyramids project, which uses technology including infrared thermography and cosmic-ray imaging to better understand its architectural intricacies and still-hidden areas. The latest finding? A 30-foot corridor close to the main entrance

The space may have been constructed to redistribute weight around the entrance, or possibly to allow access to an unknown chamber, according to Mostafa Waziri, head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, who spoke to reporters in March. An article published in the scientific journal Nature stated that further study of the hallway could help scientists better understand how the pyramid was made.

Sending in the drones

As part of continued efforts to survey an area in Alicante, Spain, known for its prehistoric cave paintings, archaeologists this year employed drones to scout out terrain — caves, quarries and the like — deemed either inaccessible or risky to humans. Within days, the drones had found new imagery of deer, goats and human figures.

With the art later confirmed by climbers, the new group of cave paintings are some of the most significant of their kind in the region found in recent decades, according to the archaeology team.

“On many occasions we have risked our lives to access cavities located in rugged geographical areas,” Francisco Javier Molina Hernández, an archaeologist at the University of Alicante who was dubbed “Indiana Drones” by local press, told CNN in June. “Many other caves have never been inspected because they are located in inaccessible areas.” Next up, they’ll use more powerful drones to continue scouting across in Spain and Portugal, he said.

Extraordinary artworks in unassuming places

Each year, a select few homeowners, treasure hunters or construction workers stumble upon a lost piece of art history in their residences or on a plot of land — always check your attics — and 2023 was no different.