A recent study has used geochemical analysis to compare brass manillas traded with West Africa in the 16th-19th centuries with the materials used to make the famous Benin Bronzes, in order to find out more about their possible origins.
Archaeologists working at Old Dongola in Sudan have stumbled across a set of unusual 13th-century Christian wall paintings.
For over 30 years a pioneering project has investigated the prehistory of the Izmir region of Turkey. What has it discovered? Vasıf Şahoğlu told Matthew Symonds an epic tale of rise and fall, connectivity and technology, and the long shadows cast by devastating natural disasters.
What is it? This gold pendant, known to specialists as a bracteate, is 5cm in diameter and comes from a Danish hoard dated to the 6th century AD – the object itself dates to the early 5th century. The front…
REVIEW BY TIM WILLIAMS This book is a collection of papers that focus on themes of human migration, communication, and cross-cultural exchange along the Silk Roads, from the 3rd millennium BC to the early 2nd millennium AD. The volume is…
REVIEW BY GEORGE NASH Due to current climate change, the coastline of north-western Europe is in a state of flux, resulting in the slow but inevitable inundation of the sea. This change in coastline is clearly witnessed by the ongoing disappearance…
REVIEW BY ROLAND ENNOS Given the preponderance of stone, bronze, and iron artefacts found at archaeological sites, and their usefulness in enabling archaeologists to date their finds, it has perhaps been inevitable that so much research has concentrated on these…
A rare example of Upper Palaeolithic portable art has been found at an open-air site in south-eastern France. Bellegarde, located between Nîmes and Arles, was discovered in 2015 by Inrap archaeologists. Excavations across c.2,000m2 of the multi-phase site have produced…
A recent study has determined that a leather saddle found in north-western China may be the oldest surviving example currently known. Exactly when horse-riding and the use of saddles began is still a subject of some debate, but the latest…
Archaeological surveys in the Carangas region of highland Bolivia have identified a previously unrecognised concentration of religious sites built by the pre-Hispanic inhabitants of the area, including one site with characteristics currently unique in the Andes. The survey identified 135…
Analysis of pottery from the Caribbean island of Isla de Mona, part of the Puerto Rican archipelago, is shedding new light on food and drink practices on the island at the time of its early colonisation, including what may be…
A round-up of some of the latest archaeological discoveries from across the globe.
In 2018, a rusty lump of more than 400 fragments of iron was discovered in Germany at Kalkriese, the site of the Varus Battle, where a catastrophic defeat was inflicted on Rome in AD 9 (see CWA 104). In the…
More still to uncover at Pompeii While investigations at Pompeii have been ongoing for centuries, much of the site remains unexplored, and new excavations have recently begun in one such previously unexamined section. This new project aims to uncover an…
In the 4th to 6th centuries AD, Persia was under attack from the north by the ‘White Huns’ and other powerful groups of steppe warriors. Persia’s response was to create a massive fortification belt – unsurpassed in scale anywhere in the ancient and medieval world, with only the possible exception of China. Eberhard Sauer, Jebrael Nokandeh, Hamid Omrani Rekavandi, Mohammadreza Nemati, and Mehdi Mousavinia have explored the backbone of the system: the densest concentration of mega-fortresses in the late antique world, in the Gorgan and Tehran Plains of Iran.
This year’s overall winner is Nickolas Warner’s photo of the West Cemetery of Meroë, Sudan.
The image was chosen as the winner of the CWA Photo of the Year 2023 Competition (sponsored by Ace Cultural Tours).
Who was the Ancient Egyptian god of the sun?
The way these features changed in size and shape across ancient human species can provide important information about how their skulls changed over time
A round-up of some of the latest archaeological discoveries from across the globe.