The year 1823 in archaeology involved some significant events.

• Roman tombs near Lorium, Etruria (1823–4).
• Roman villa near Bramdean, Hampshire, England.

• January - In a cave on the Gower Peninsula of south Wales, Rev. William Buckland discovers the "Red Lady of Paviland", the first identification of a prehistoric (male) human burial. The bones are discovered with those of the woolly mammoth, proving that the two had coexisted.^[1]
• Summer - Smythe's Megalith, a Neolithic tomb, is discovered in Kent, England, and excavated by local antiquarian Clement Smythe.
• Borough Hill Roman villa in the midlands of England is discovered by archaeologist, George Baker.^[2]
• The Caergwrle Bowl, a decorated Middle Bronze Age artefact, is discovered in north east Wales.
• The Ormside bowl, a gilded silver Anglo-Saxon double-bowl, dating from the mid-8th century, is found in Great Ormside, Cumbria.^[3]

• Rev. Dr. Henry Duncan completes reconstruction of the Northumbrian Ruthwell Cross in Scotland.

• June 7 - Giuseppe Fiorelli, Italian archaeologist of Pompeii (died 1896)
• November 17 - John Evans, English archaeologist (died 1908)

• December 3 - Giovanni Battista Belzoni, Italian explorer of Egyptian antiquities (born 1778)

• Ancient Egypt / Egyptology