With small tiles of marble and glass, Roman mosaicists created intricate mythological images, realistic scenes from nature, and other complex compositions to decorate the floors and walls of tombs, sanctuaries, and homes. Dalu Jones explores some mosaic masterpieces normally hidden in stores in Rome’s museums.…
As well as the coffins, archaeologists also unearthed 28 statues of Ptah Sokar, the main god of the Saqqara necropolis...…
Researchers had moved the best textiles, including the ‘Eagle Silk’ and a pillow with birds, deemed more fitting for a king, over to Cnut’s shrine, where they are displayed with his remains under a glass lid.…
The large and ambitious opening exhibition, entitled Mayflower 400: legend and legacy, tells the story of the voyage and assesses the impact of the settlers’ arrival on the indigenous population.…
‘We had expected to find some kind of Anglo-Saxon burial, but what we found exceeded all our expectations and provides new insights into this stretch of the Thames in the decades after the collapse of the Roman administration in Britain.’…
Managing the Musée Champollion and The Pitt Rivers Museum.…
Joining the gallery’s collections is an 1819 oil-on-paper painting by Achille Etna Michallon (1796-1822) of The Forum at Pompeii.…
In the mid 4th century BC, Greece experienced a seismic convulsion whose shockwaves would be felt as far away as India, when an energetic young commander took the throne of Macedon, led his army to a string of victories, and consolidated a new empire. His identity? Not Alexander (though his…
From a small spindle whorl to an expanse of moorland, there are many objects, individual sites, and entire landscapes in Britain that offer a portal to the past. In her engaging new book, Mary-Ann Ochota is our guide to the archaeology of the country, as she takes readers on a…
What do we imagine the city of Rome to have been like in the 8th century AD? With the supremacy of Constantinople as the political and administrative centre of the empire, the Rome of this period – its buildings falling into disrepair and bedevilled by threats from the north –…
Buried beneath Mexico City lie the remains of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan and its sacred centre. Lucia Marchini reports on an exhibition investigating wealth, worship, and empire in pre-Hispanic Mexico.…
Sparta is famous for its warrior tradition, Athens for its intellectual and artistic achievement. But what of Thebes? As ancient historian Paul Cartledge explains, Thebes too had a most distinctive image.…
Chinese rulers held the disciplines of astronomy and cosmology in high regard for millennia. Dalu Jones
previews an exhibition of exquisite objects exploring the connections between Heaven and Earth.…
• Ravenna: mosaics and majesty in an imperial city
• Tantra: the rise of a spiritual rebellion
• City of myths: how and why Thebes was forgotten
• In the beginning: ancient Chinese cosmology
• Where eagles dare: wealth, worship, and conquest in the Aztec capital…
When flames ripped through the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris in April 2019, the world feared for its survival. Now a small team of scientists is working towards its restoration and discovering secrets along the way. Christa Lesté-Lasserre spoke to some of them about their work and its challenges.…
Nero’s spectacular palace in Rome, the Domus Aurea or ‘Golden House’, was rediscovered in the Renaissance. Dalu Jones describes how the opulent designs of its ancient halls inspired some of the most celebrated artists of the 15th and 16th centuries.…
The extraordinary levels of preservation at the relatively ordinary Roman city of Pompeii and other sites in the Bay of Naples, where the eruption of Mount Vesuvius devastatingly interrupted the inhabitants as they went about their daily lives, provide remarkable insights into the production, distribution, and conspicuous consumption of food…
Guy de la Bédoyère tracks the Roman women who were held in high esteem because they exemplified the virtues of the state and thereby ensured the succession of the Julio-Claudian dynasty.…
The text contains features that indicate it may have been written in France for Jewish emigrés who had been expelled from England in 1290.…
As a dozen Renaissance gilded silver treasures, the Aldobrandini Tazze or Twelve Caesars, go on show at Waddesdon Manor, Professor Mary Beard unscrews the puzzle of how the Roman emperors and dishes got mixed up…
Using the unlikely site of Butrint in Albania as a prime example, Richard Hodges explains how the work of archaeologists defines them as placemakers…
