NASA's next-generation rover, named Perseverance, has blasted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral to begin its journey to the Red Planet. The US spacecraft will scour Mars for signs of ancient life.

Dubbed the "Manhattan of the desert" for its centuries-old skyscrapers, Yemen's ancient city of Shibam escaped damage in the civil war -- but faces collapse from disrepair amid rains and floods.

The latest trove was found in 22 burial shafts at Saqqara, south of Cairo, and date back four millennia. The finds include a long papyrus Book-of-the-Dead roll said to guide the dead "through the underworld."

An ancient brewery found in Egypt suggests that tears were not the only thing to flow at royal funerals of the time. The find is the most recent announced by the country in an apparent bid to lure back tourists.

After a seven-month journey, NASA's Perseverance rover prepares to touch down on Mars on Thursday after first negotiating a risky landing procedure that will mark the start of its multi-year search for signs of ancient microbial life. "We know Mars had water at one point, we know that it was habitable, it could have had life at one point. That's why we're going back and looking for it," Perseverance deputy project manager, Jennifer Trosper, tells AFPTV.

The spectacular ruins of the ancient Greek city of Cyrene survived Libya's 2011 revolution and an ensuing decade of lawlessness, but today they face new threats: plunder and bulldozers. Under balmy spring sunshine, a handful of tourists take advantage of the North African country's months-old ceasefire to wander around the temple of Zeus, perched atop a wind-battered hill near the eastern end of Libya's Mediterranean coast.

Against the backdrop of rock-cut tombs and sand-swept ruins, Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli regales revellers in an ancient Saudi desert city at the centre of the kingdom's tourism push. Bocelli performed alongside family members at UNESCO World Heritage site Hegra in the kingdom's Al-Ula governorate, a long-isolated area seen widely as an open-air museum.

Egypt's combative sport of tahtib (stick-fighting), popular at weddings and dating back at least 5,000 years, has become a modern martial art that enthusiasts hope will eventually make it to the Olympics.

Enthusiasts of ancient Egypt can now take home replicas of famous artifacts and statues made available through the first of its kind factory in the country to be sold at the recently inaugurated Egyptian museum of civilization.

Indigenous Guatemalans practice an ancient ball game in which only the hip can be used to hit the ball. Guatemala boasts 11 teams, all of which have their eyes on December's Mesoamerican Championship.

Lavender, basil or roses: history and aromatic plants are being grafted in Cyprus to broaden its sun-and-sea appeal and regain its lofty status dating back to Roman times.

In the ancient Syrian village of Maalula, whose residents still speak the language of Jesus, volunteers rake stones and scrub graffiti in preparation for the return of Christian pilgrims after years of war. Nestled among towering cliffs in the mountains north of Damascus, Maalula is one of the world's oldest Christian settlements.