Description
In this issue:
– BURIED VIKINGS: Excavating Cumwhitton’s cemetery
– GREAT STONE CIRCLES: Beyond ritual and religion
– BODYGUARDS, CORPSES, AND CULTS: Everyday life in the Roman military community at Inveresk
– FORGOTTEN FLIERS: Revealing Sedgeford’s lost WWI aerodrome
– FINDING RICHARD III: Behind the scenes at the Grey Friars dig
Plus: News, Reviews, Comment, Sherds, Odd Socs, and more!
From the Editor:
When archaeologists announced they had found the body of King Richard III beneath a car park on the site of Leicester’s Grey Friars, it made world news. But project leader Richard Buckley’s original plan had been simply to discover more about the friary, rating the chance of actually finding the king’s body as close to zero.
Now a major on-site Richard III visitor centre has just opened, and plans are in motion for his body to be reinterred in Leicester Cathedral. CA met with Buckley for the inside story. Why did the dig start with disappointment? What about those months of waiting as the scientific data were processed? And what happens next?
From a named king to the forgotten fliers of World War I: to mark the centenary of the Great War, we begin the first of three special features exploring sites related to the world’s first fully industrialised conflict.
A very different military community is then explored as we step back to the Roman era and visit the fort site of Inveresk, just east of Edinburgh. But why were several decapitated bodies discovered there?
Yet more unusual burials were found at Cumwhitton in Cumbria. Here, the chance detection of an unusual brooch led to the unique find of a whole Viking-era cemetery, rich with ritual and grave-goods.
Finally, is there anything other than ‘ritual’ that can explain stone circles? Chris Catling looks at a new book that suggests there is.
Cover Date: Sep-2014, Volume 25 Issue 6