1863 in archaeology

Explorations

• Édouard Lartet and Henry Christy begin joint exploration of caves in the valley of the Vézère, in southern France.

Excavations

• Excavations at Ephesus by John Turtle Wood begin.
• William Copeland Borlase supervises excavations of the re-discovered prehistoric settlement and fogou at Carn Euny in Cornwall.

Publications

• Samuel Ferguson's Ogham Inscriptions in Ireland, Wales and Scotland is published posthumously.
• The text of the Iguvine Tablets is first published, by Francis William Newman in London.Zeitschrift für ägyptisches Sprache und Altertumskunde begins publication.

Finds

• April 13 – The Winged Victory of Samothrace is found in excavations on the Greek island of Samothrace by Charles Champoiseau. Made c.190 BCE, it is shipped to the Louvre in Paris.
• April 20 – The Augustus of Prima Porta is found in excavations in the Villa of Livia at Prima Porta, near Rome.
• Nydam Boats found in Denmark by Conrad Engelhardt.
• The Colmar Treasure, a hoard of 14th century Jewish precious metal objects, is discovered in Alsace.
• Early human jawbone found in proximity to flint tools at Moulin Quignon in France by Jacques Boucher de Crèvecœur de Perthes, subsequently considered a hoax perpetrated by one of his diggers.

Miscellaneous

• Anthropological Society of London formed

Births

• July 4 – Hugo Winckler, German Assyriologist
• July 13 – Margaret Murray, Anglo-Indian Egyptologist
• Francis Joseph Bigger, Irish antiquarian

Deaths

• July 3 – Alexander Henry Rhind, Scottish Egyptologist
• – Kyriakos Pittakis, Greek archaeologist