• Sandstone sculpture of three legionaries, Croy Hill, 200 300 AD. Image © National Museums Scotland

    Roman Scotland: Life on the edge of Empire

    What was the impact of Rome’s numerous attempts to conquer Scotland? A new exhibition in Edinburgh traces the experiences of soldiers, civilian inhabitants of frontier fort communities, and the local people whose lands they occupied. Fraser Hunter reports.

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  • Personal adornment in early Egypt

    Personal adornment in early Egypt

    Barbara Boczar explores the materials used to create objects for personal adornment in Egypt from the prehistoric to the Early Dynastic periods.

Photo of The Day

  • Medieval boat graffiti – Isle of Luing

    Medieval boat graffiti – Isle of Luing

    On the outer walls of an old parish church, on the small island of Luing in the Inner Hebrides, are carvings of longships that are thought to date from the 13th century, when Norwegian and Scottish kings were fighting for control of the archipelago. The carvings include two boats with animal-head prows, several more alongside…

  • Picturing Pompeii

    Picturing Pompeii

    A 19th-century photograph sheds light on a forgotten part of Pompeii, as Janice Kinory describes.

  • Cromwell’s mansion: Austin Friars, City of London

    Cromwell’s mansion: Austin Friars, City of London

    This artist’s impression shows the scale of the 58-room mansion, with its halls, kitchens, and chapel, as well as the largest private garden in the city.

  • The House of the Harpist

    The House of the Harpist

    A remarkable group of luxurious wall paintings has been discovered at a rich Roman residence called the House of the Harpist in Arles, southern France. The house was discovered beneath an 18th-century glassworks factory in the Trinquetaille district, on the right bank of the Rhône. During excavations of the glassworks in the 1980s, several Roman…

  • Gonbad-e QĀbus, 1934

    Gonbad-e QĀbus, 1934

    As he made his journey through the green steppe, Robert Byron (1905-1941) could see his destination 20 miles away:‘a small cream needle stood up against the blue of the mountains’, as he wrote in The Road to Oxiana, the account of his 1933-1934 travels around Afghanistan and Persia with Christopher Sykes. This cream needle in…

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Travel

Let our intrepid team of reporters inspire you with their reports from around the world

  • The Jacobite Wars

    In the first part of our new series, Graham Goodlad explores the Jacobite movement’s early attempts to overthrow Britain’s ruling Protestant monarchy.

Museums

We continue our visits of museums around the workd

Objects

We select our favourite objects from the newly discovered to the well-known

  • Finds Tray: Bronze Age hoard

    Finds Tray: Bronze Age hoard

    This is a Bronze Age hoard that was found near Blyth Bridge in the Scottish Borders. It comprises two bronze axe-heads, a complete copper ingot…

  • The pectoral of Ramesses II, Musée du Louvre

    The pectoral of Ramesses II, Musée du Louvre

    Campbell Price describes a New Kingdom pectoral made of electrum and glass.

  • Finds Tray: Bronze Age button

    Finds Tray: Bronze Age button

    This Bronze Age button comes from a hoard of three copper-alloy items that also included two axe heads. One of the axe heads was noticed…

  • Medieval notebook

    Medieval notebook

    We can see Latin, scratched into the book’s wax 700-800 years ago. What is it? This well-preserved medieval ‘notebook’ dates to the 13th or 14th…

  • Medieval death on the Nile

    Thomas Smith relates the saga of the remarkable crusade on the Nile that came close to reshaping the Near East.

Groups

We discover the little known, yet tirelessly dedicated voluntary heritage societies thriving in Britain today..

  • Nautical Archaeology Society

    Nautical Archaeology Society

    Sea levels have risen by around 120m (400ft) since the last Ice Age, only stabilising at their current position around 3,000 years ago. Given how…

  • The Grayling Society

    The Grayling Society

    In the world of fly fishing, trout dominate the headlines, but in the past grayling were considered to be the equal of trout for sporting…

  • Friends of Abingdon Abbey Buildings Trust

    Friends of Abingdon Abbey Buildings Trust

    On 9 February 1538, Abbot Thomas Rowland signed a Deed of Surrender, formally handing over his monastery to Henry VIII, and the 1,000-year history of…

  • Cambridge Past, Present & Future

    Cambridge Past, Present & Future

    Starting with the opening of the UK’s first science park in 1970, Cambridge has grown from the sleepy market town of 60 years ago into…