Under the rather ponderous headline ‘Revealing Misunderstandings about Stewardship of Our Ancient Churches’, Historic England has just published the results of its survey into public awareness of the crisis facing the nation’s places of worship. The results show that people are blithely unaware that many are at risk of closure and sale.
The discovery of a mass grave in the Jordanian city of Jerash (ancient Gerasa) has provided evidence of the impact on the population of the Justinian Plague. A newly published study of the burial site has revealed that at least 230 individuals were hastily buried on top of each other, rather than in individual graves, within the city’s abandoned hippodrome
Organisations in the heritage sector welcomed January’s news that the Department for Culture, Media, and Sport was going to invest £1.5 billion in capital funding for the arts, cultural, and heritage sectors in England (the other three home nations have yet to say whether they will be making similar investments)
I have a personal dislike of the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’ to describe the people and culture of southern and eastern Britain from the 4th to the 8th centuries because it is anachronistic – it implies homogeneity where I see much more interesting diversity
I was reminded of his contempt for journalism during the summer, when the BBC and scores of newspapers that consider themselves serious reported that the drought was so severe that the source of the River Thames had dried up.
What is it about Ministry of Works signage that motivates so many people to share images via social media? Partly it is just the fact of their survival, as reminders of a
One common motif is that of a knight in armour engaging in combat with a snail. Another is that of the killer rabbit, shown wielding sword, axe, or bow and arrow as it fights against those hunting it.
I was conscious of being several decades older than most of the other graduates, but as Rosemary Cramp said when I told her about my plans, ‘Nobody under 50 should study for a PhD because they don’t have enough experience to make an original contribution.’
If you want to encounter a Dalek now, you can visit the scenic Northumberland village of Allendale, where one of these terrifying cyborgs stands harmless outside the Georgian home of Neil Cole, whose Museum of Classic Sci-Fi occupies his cellar.
The Offa’s Dyke Association (ODA) – one of the many heritage bodies that have recently celebrated their half century – was founded in 1969 by Frank Noble, a school teacher and archaeologist
Raiding parties often consisted of genetically similar people, suggesting that they probably came from a single community or were members of the same family, such as the four brothers in one boat burial in Estonia who died on the same day.
Woodchester Mansion is considered to be one of the UK’s most haunted buildings, and people pay large sums to spend the night in the freezing cold mansion with their ghost-detecting cameras and radar equipment.
The objectionable trough has survived, though the figures are so eroded that you need advanced powers of imagination to see anything erotic or outrageous in these maenads – female followers of the wine god, Dionysus.
‘Widening access’ and ‘access for all’ are two of the slogans that characterise today’s heritage practice, but the community-minded people of Faversham have been doing access for half a century. Open House,
The death of Prince Philip was marked on Tanna with traditional rites and tribute ceremonies: the consensus among members of the sect is that the Duke’s spirit has returned to its island home…
The British Sundial Society is compiling a register of all the Mass dials (also known as scratch dials) in the country. So far, 5,500 examples have been recorded and the society is
Carly Hilts travels around the world in 31 LEGO models at The Novium Museum, Chichester.
The story was seen as a further blow to the argument that the Marbles must stay in London – replicas ‘accurate to a millimetre’ could be displayed at the British Museum and few visitors would know the difference.
Inventive Vents has a clever way of engaging younger people with scatological anecdotes, in the style of Horrible Histories. Thus we are told that the innocuously named Carting Lane was known colloquially as ‘Farting Lane’ because of the smell of sewer gas.
People investing in DNA ancestry kits should be aware that they might not get the answers they were expecting: people who want to know if they have Viking DNA or are related to Richard III might instead discover an awkward family secret.
The ‘hippy generation’ prefers to tell archaeological narratives that paint our ancestors as egalitarian, caring for weaker members of society and welcoming migrants for the new skills and ideas.
Active travel, as it is known, is set to become even more popular as people rediscover the riches of the UK’s natural and cultural heritage.
This well-produced collaborative volume (with 12 subsidiary authors and two illustrators) presents – very timeously – the results of the 2018 excavation of c.4.5ha of development land on the outskirts of Ely.