2005 in archaeology

Excavations

• May–September - Dutch East India Company ship Rooswijk on the Goodwin Sands.

  Exploration

• Survey of the site of the naval Battle of the Aegates begins.

  Publications

• Mark P. Leone - The Archaeology of Liberty in an American Capital: Excavations in Annapolis.
• Adrienne Mayor - Fossil Legends of the First Americans.
• Reynolds, A. C., Betancourt, J. L., Quade, J., Patchett, P. J., Dean, J. S., and Stein, J. "87Sr/86Sr sourcing of ponderosa pine used in Anasazi Great House construction at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico." Journal of Archaeological Science 32 pp. 1061–1075.

  Finds

• February - Newark Torc discovered in England.
• March - Discovery of KV63, the first tomb in the Valley of the Kings found since 1922.
• May - Statue of Nike at Tadmor.
• June - Archaeologists excavating the Templo Mayor site in Tenochtitlan discover a rare child sacrifice to the Aztec war god Huitzilopochtli. The child's body was given a ceremonial burial in a seated position, probably around 1450 in a cornerstone-laying ceremony to mark the building a new portion of the temple.
• August - Large Stone Structure, remains of a large 10th to 9th century BCE public building in East Jerusalem, believed by the excavator to be perhaps remains of the Palace of David.
• Megiddo church, remains of a 3rd-century Christian church, the earliest found in the country, near Tel Megiddo in northern Israel.
• A bone figurine of a bird 2 cm long is found at Lingjing in Henan province of China; it is subsequently dated at 13,500 BCE, making it 8,500 years older than any other known sculpture from south east Asia.
• A gold wreath from Thrace is found in Bulgaria.

  Events

• April 18 - The bodies of thirty British Royal Navy officers and sailors discovered in 2000 on Nelson's Island are buried in a naval ceremony in Alexandria, Egypt. Dating from the Battle of the Nile and another battle three years later, only one body, that of Commander James Russell, can be positively identified.
• April 20 - The first part of the Obelisk of Axum returned to Ethiopia. It was taken to Rome in 1937 on Mussolini's orders.

  Deaths

• July 15 - Anders Hagen, Norwegian archaeologist
• November 21 - Aileen Fox, English archaeologist.