Gold engraving of tall, thin figures floating inside a mining station before a vast window onto the asteroid belt, with a small sun and a distant planet beyond.
Anthropology

The People Made by Distance

EXCAVATION Nº 0041 · ANTHROPOLOGY World: The Belt, The ExpansePeriod: Centuries after…

Gold engraving of a gothic cathedral whose altar is a great nuclear reactor, tended by hooded priests while rows of worshippers kneel in the nave.
Religions

The Church That Turned Science Into Scripture

EXCAVATION Nº 0040 · RELIGIONS World: The Foundation and the Four Kingdoms,…

Gold engraving of a lone space explorer by a campfire on a small forested planet beside a ruined wall of spiral script, with strange worlds, a comet and a swelling sun across the sky.
Extinct Worlds

The Civilization That Left Its Questions Behind

EXCAVATION Nº 0039 · EXTINCT WORLDS World: The Nomai, Outer WildsPeriod: Hundreds…

Gold engraving of a lone porter carrying a towering stack of cargo across an empty wilderness marked by ladders, ropes, a small bridge and a distant highway under construction.
Human Archive

The Country Held Together by Deliveries

EXCAVATION Nº 0038 · HUMAN ARCHIVE World: The United Cities of America,…

Gold engraving of a withered armoured figure on a colossal throne of gold and machinery, before thousands of robed worshippers kneeling across a vast cathedral floor.
Religions

The Empire That Prays to a Corpse

EXCAVATION Nº 0037 · RELIGIONS World: The Imperium of Man, Warhammer 40,000Period:…

Gold engraving of a huge windowless concrete tower among Manhattan skyscrapers, ignored by passers-by, with a lone woman looking up and an impossible interior faintly visible through its walls.
Anthropology

The Bureau That Turned the Impossible Into Procedure

EXCAVATION Nº 0036 · ANTHROPOLOGY World: The Oldest House, ControlPeriod: The present…

Gold engraving of a towering wave curling over an island kingdom with harbours and a sacred mountain, as nine sailing ships flee eastward across the foreground.
Mythosphere

The Island That Tried to Sail Into Heaven

EXCAVATION Nº 0035 · MYTHOSPHERE World: Númenor, Middle-earthPeriod: Second Age (in-world)Status: ExtinctMedium:…

Gold engraving of a mountain cut away to show a many-levelled dwarven fortress with halls, workshops, a temple, a library, farms and a forge, full of tiny working figures.
Human Archive

The Fortress That Remembered Everything

EXCAVATION Nº 0034 · HUMAN ARCHIVE World: Generated worlds, Dwarf FortressPeriod: 2006…

Gold engraving of a colossal cosmic ash tree with cities and stars in its branches and three underworld realms among its roots, an eagle at the top and a serpent gnawing below.
Mythosphere

The Tree at the Center of Every World

EXCAVATION Nº 0033 · MYTHOSPHERE World: Comparative, Many WorldsPeriod: Bronze Age to…

Gold engraving of a row of small round machines sitting on a broken overpass, one with a book and one with a cape, looking over an overgrown ruined city toward a distant white spiral tower.
Observatory

The Machines That Reinvented Humanity

EXCAVATION Nº 0032 · OBSERVATORY World: Earth, NieR: AutomataPeriod: 11945 (in-world)Status: ActiveMedium:…