Current World Archaeology 136
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Discovering Denmark: From prehistoric burials to Viking Age power architecture and beyond
Denmark is home to many archaeological marvels, including both renowned sites and world-class museums. Olympia Bobou, Ilaria Bucci, and Rubina Raja are our guides to the wealth of heritage that the country has to offer.
Surveying Falerii Novi: Rethinking the development of a Roman town
Surveying an ancient town in Italy has presented fresh insights into a key moment for Roman urbanism. Matthew Symonds spoke to Martin Millett about what can be learnt from studying an entire townscape.
Lost languages: how to decipher undeciphered scripts
How were Egyptian hieroglyphs, Maya glyphs or Minoan Linear B deciphered? Drawing on his latest masterful book, Lost Languages, author Andrew Robinson hands us the keys to decoding the past.
Georgia’s treasures: from the Land of the Golden Fleece
The latest exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, features a wealth of archaeology from Vani in Georgia. Nicola Upson reports.
Ancient Greek calculator reconstructed
The mechanism was used to predict the positions of the sun, the moon, the phases of the moon and possibly planetary motions.
Taboo!
The Gods of the Pacific are powerful gods. Some have called them idols – more have called them art. And the Gods of the Pacific have had an enormous influence on European art throughout the 20th century. The Gods were powerful, and their power could be dangerous as well as life-enhancing. And this power had to be contained: the Polynesians had a word for the means by which this power could be contained and controlled: Tapu. Tapu means ‘marked’ or ‘set apart’: anything that was Tapu had to be wrapped and kept separate. And the word Tapu has also migrated to Europe and has become our word Taboo.
Butrint from the air: an aerial perspective of a Classical and late antique Mediterranean city
Joint excavations between the British Butrint Foundation and the Albanian Institute of Archaeology are revealing the complex history of the ancient Adriatic port of Butrint. With funding from the Packard Humanities Institute,
Japanese Jomon
CWA takes a picturesque look at Japan’s prehistoric Jomon Culture, encompassing their exquisite pottery, Neolithic/Mesolithic economy and ritual beliefs.
The Brochtorff Stone circle, at Xaghra, Malta
The great Neolithic temples on Malta are among the oldest temples in the world, most of them erected before even the pyramids were built. Yet what were they and how did they work? The most important and illuminating excavations of this period were those that took place at the Brochtorff’s stone circle, at Xaghra, from 1987-1994.