John Waddell’s new book, a beautifully illustrated historiography of Celtic Iron Age studies, is a very valuable addition to the literature. To begin, Waddell discusses Celtic identity as debated territory, stating that, for him, a Celt is someone who speaks…
With Bayeux Tapestry fever still seizing London, James Alistair Henry’s debut novel offers a thought-provoking opportunity to imagine how Britain might look if the Norman Conquest had never taken place. The story is set in 21st-century London, but this is…
This volume discusses the changes that have occurred in the realm of archaeology in the wake of the #MeToo movement, acknowledging the discrimination and harassment that women have continued to face despite living in what is considered a post-feminist society.…
The wreck of the London – an English second-rate ship-of-the-line built in Chatham in 1656, during the Interregnum – has been the subject of a decade-long research programme by Cotswold Archaeology (see CA 308). This volume documents the project and…
This book documents the archaeological investigations carried out by Transport Infrastructure Ireland in advance of the construction of the new N5 in County Mayo. While not a full site report, it provides an easily digestible and succinct summarisation of the…
I have a seven-year-old son who, like many children his age today, is obsessed with comics and graphic novels. This art form is seeing a bit of a resurgence at the moment, thanks in part to the growing popularity of…
The medieval Crusades in the Middle East were a series of expeditions from AD 1097 to 1291. The First Crusade had, against the odds, succeeded in capturing Jerusalem and the Holy Land for the Latin Christians in 1099. Holding the…
This latest volume in the Cambridge Elements series offers a snapshot of what we understand about connections between Egypt and the Levant in the early to mid-Bronze Age, a period that covers the Levantine Early Bronze Age (Egypt’s Predynastic and…
The National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (NMEC) opened fully in 2021 following the ‘Golden Parade’ of royal mummies, which were transported in style from the old Tahrir Square museum. Fustat (in Old Cairo) was chosen as the location because of…
Britain has been overcome by Bayeux Tapestry fever (as has CA: see our feature on here and more in Sherds on here) with the famous embroidery returning to British soil for the first time since its creation almost 1,000 years…
This Stonehenge paperback will sell, probably deservedly, very well. Its text gives a suitable level of detail, while also reflecting current mainstream (and therefore English Heritage) views, and hence is correctly pitched for its audience – namely the interested bystander,…
It is a much-cited refrain that the only way to understand Scottish hillforts properly will be to excavate them fully, reliant as we have been, for the most part, on very limited interventions. The total excavation, then, of Broxy Kennels…
In this absorbing book, Nicholas Bateman draws together 70 poems spanning 35 centuries, all of which had become lost before being rediscovered by archaeologists or archivists. Ranging from epic texts to fragments, they include religious and romantic writings, as well…
This book brings together papers from MetalAges2024 – Chronological Methods and their Correlation in the Metal Ages, which was held in Florence in 2024, co-organised by the UISPP Scientific Commission ‘Metal Ages in Europe and the Mediterranean’ and the Istituto…
This is the most recent addition to the Jersey Heritage Research Series (see CA 434 for a review of The Chalcolithic and Bronze Age in Jersey and CA 431 for The Neolithic in Jersey), which aims to outline the current…
This handsome 158-page volume focuses on the Mediterranean and its role in the Bell Beaker phenomenon. Throughout the book, the sea emerges both as an inhabited space and as a medium for communication and circulation. This maritime perspective shifts attention…
This sweeping history of hunting is the archaeologist and anthropologist Brian Fagan’s final book, helped into publication by his friend and collaborator Nadia Durrani. Fagan was an extraordinarily prolific writer, and his ability to communicate with popular audiences is much…
MHM’s round-up of the latest military history releases.
When the Second World War broke out in 1939, the Luftwaffe was almost as heavily dependent on rifle-calibre machine-guns as the Imperial German Air Service had been in 1918. The Battle of Britain demonstrated the limitations of such weapons. By…
The Ministry of Information was one of the most remarkable government creations of the Second World War. It was given a global remit to spread information, essentially propaganda, to allies and neutrals around the world, with major centres in Buenos…
Steve Dunn is the author of 15 books, mostly on specific aspects of World War I at sea, from the Dover Patrol to the defence of the Western Approaches. In Spectre of Invasion, he has turned his hand to a…
It’s a rip-roaring start, with three deaths in five pages as Harald Hardrada (or Haraldr Sigurdarson as he’s termed here), Tostig (wayward brother of Harold Godwinson), and an unnamed farmer all get decapitated. We start on a battlefield, yet not…
Castlehill Wood, located south-west of Stirling, has historically been labelled a ‘dun’ – a poorly defined term that is usually used to describe an unroofed enclosure that is smaller than a hillfort but more fortified than a farmstead. Situated within…
This slim volume is the latest addition to the ‘50 Finds’ series produced by the Portable Antiquities Scheme in England and Wales (PAS). While most finds recorded by PAS are metal artefacts recovered by detectorists, more than 100,000 struck flints…
This volume by Helena Hamerow and her team is the interpretive companion to their digital database () for the recently finished five-year FeedSax project. It explores the profound changes in farming and environment across the period, with new insights on…
This site report details excavations carried out by Oxford Archaeology ahead of the replacement of the gas transmission pipeline that crosses the Humber between Goxhill in North Lincolnshire and Paull in East Yorkshire. Palaeoenvironmental evidence sheds light on how this…
This is the latest in the ‘…in 20 Digs’ series. Gavin Speed has been involved in Leicester’s archaeology for more than 20 years, and he has produced a well-illustrated account of 20 key sites in Leicester (with a bonus 21st…
Mining is rooted in Cornish heritage and woven into the fabric of Cornwall’s historic landscape, and so it seems fitting, as we mark the 20th anniversary year of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape becoming a UNESCO World Heritage…
The Classical historian Herodotus described the Egyptians as the most religious of peoples. And, indeed, many people today find themselves wondering about the cross-overs between religious concepts in pharaonic, Christian, and Islamic outlooks. The author of the present book has…
Although there is a rich source of archaeological evidence for towns and cities in ancient Egypt, research into urbanism has, according to Nadine Moeller, often avoided mention of it, because many of the settlements could be regarded as anomalous, not…
Cleopatra VII now joins such luminaries as Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill, and Henry VIII, as the latest historical celebrity to have her own volume in Bloomsbury’s ‘Significant Figures in World History’ series. Rather than a conventional biography, the aim of…
Following George Reisner’s discovery (in 1925) and meticulous excavation of the Tomb of Queen Hetepheres I at Giza, William Arnold Stewart was engaged by Reisner to reconstruct the furniture (‘the carrying-chair, the bed, the arm-chair, the jewel- box, and the…
Textiles have long remained in the shadow of more conspicuous archaeological finds such as monumental sculpture, decorated coffins, and jewellery. Yet these often-overlooked artefacts offer vital insights into technology, economics, religion, dress, and daily life. Weaving for Eternity is therefore…
Excavation reports often have a long gestation, and the publication of the City of Hereford Archaeology Unit’s 1993 excavations on the site of Hereford Cathedral’s new Mappa Mundi museum has been eagerly awaited. Yet any frustration at the delay quickly…
Aberdeenshire is known for its Pictish symbol stones, but until recently evidence for Pictish settlements in the region was sparse and our understanding of Pictish sites even more tenuous. This has now changed dramatically, in large part due to a…
First discovered nearly 30 years ago, the wreck of a ship that sank in Salcombe Bay, Devon, in 1633 has now been comprehensively re-examined in this new British Museum volume. On its discovery, the ship was found to be carrying…