What can an extraordinary group of sculptures commemorating the dead reveal about ancient life in Palmyra? Thousands of ancient inhabitants’ portraits once graced lavish family tombs in cemeteries just beyond the desert city. Studying this artistry can reveal much about wealth, power, family, and even the balance between local tradition…
How did medieval villagers understand the world around them? Stephen Mileson and Stuart Brookes addressed this question in a research project and recently published book. Here Stephen reports on their findings, and how they met the challenges of uncovering the perceptions and sense of identity of ordinary rural people in…
Excavations at Blick Mead, a significant Mesolithic occupation site close to Stonehenge, continued this autumn. Carly Hilts travelled to the site to learn more about prehistoric hunters and traces of a priory associated with a medieval queen.…
The traditional story of Iona’s early medieval monastery ends in tragedy and bloodshed, with the religious community wiped out by vicious Viking raiders. Increasingly, though, the archaeological and historical evidence does not support this persistent narrative, as Adrián Maldonado, Ewan Campbell, Thomas Owen Clancy, and Katherine Forsyth report.…
In AD 865, a Viking army landed in eastern England. For more than a decade, it raided across the country, but contemporary documents tell us little about it. Dawn M Hadley and Julian D Richards use the latest discoveries to track down the Army and see the changes it brought…
The Greek historian Herodotus tells us that among the Scythians, the nomads of the Eurasian steppe, there was a group of ‘gold-guarding Griffins’. Were these people the Saka, whose elite filled their tombs with golden depictions of griffins and other creatures? As a new exhibition on the Saka opens,…
According to a recent estimate by the World Gold Council, the total quantity of this precious pale yellow metal discovered around the world throughout all of human history amounts to just 201,296 tonnes. If the whole lot were melted down to form a single cube, it would measure just 22 metres…
Barry Cunliffe, among the most distinguished of world archaeologists, has recently drawn together the evidence for the Scythians in a comprehensive new book, The Scythians: nomad warriors of the steppe. Neil Faulkner asked him what we know of this most mysterious of ancient peoples.…
The surprise discovery of the mysterious Griffin Warrior at Pylos promises to reveal fresh insights into that crucial point in European history when the Minoan customs of island Crete gave way to the emergent culture on mainland Greece. Jack Davis and Sharon Stocker reveal this treasure-laden tomb from the dawn…
Cutting-edge photographic techniques have shed illuminating light on a series of carved chalk plaques excavated close to Stonehenge. What have they revealed about artistic endeavour in Neolithic Britain? CA explores a new study by Bob Davis, Phil Harding, and Matt Leivers.…
One of the most accomplished painters of the 17th century, Peter Paul Rubens had a deep interest in the ancient world, expressed through the power of the paintbrush, but also the written word. Lucia Marchini speaks to Anne Woollett to find out more about the artist’s engagement with Greece…
After centuries of reuse and years of closure, the Mausoleum of Augustus is now open to visitors. Dalu Jones examines the structure’s long history and how, with its neighbour the Ara Pacis, it forms a modern monumental complex to the ancient emperor in the heart of Rome.…
Over the course of this article, we take a look at a small selection of works on display in the newly opened spaces of Berlin’s Ethnologisches Museum and Museum für Asiatische Kunst.…
Berlin’s ambitious cultural project the Humboldt Forum opened its doors to the public this summer. Exhibition spaces, museum collections, and presentations of scientific research are brought together in a partially rebuilt Baroque palace that once stood on the site. As Alfred Hagemann tells Lucia Marchini, this spot – and…
In the 8th century, Cookham minster was the focus of a decades-long power struggle between early medieval kingdoms, but over time the religious community’s location faded from memory, despite its association with a powerful Anglo-Saxon queen. Now excavations in Berkshire are thought to have brought its remains to light…
Built c.1110 on the outskirts of medieval Winchester, Hyde Abbey was an important religious centre, housing the burial place of Alfred the Great and his wife and son. For the last five years, community excavations within the area of the long-demolished monastery’s cloisters have been shedding light on the complex’s…
For a visitor to a late 18th-century country seat, the most striking feature of the landscape, apart from the house, would have been the lake. For that reason, it is all the more surprising these bodies of water have had such little attention from garden historians and archaeologists. Perhaps that…
This autumn, specialists have been working to conserve some of the Stonehenge sarsens, the latest in a series of initiatives stretching back to the dawn of the 20th century. CA Editor Carly Hilts spoke to Heather Sebire to find out more.…
Ongoing excavations by the Caistor Roman Project are shedding light on an enigmatic structure that once stood close to a temple built outside the walled town of Venta Icenorum, near Norwich. CA Editor Carly Hilts visited the site and spoke to Will Bowden about the latest finds.…
A project that initially set out to study rock art on a c.5,000-year-old monument has uncovered what could be the earliest direct evidence of dairy farming in Wales. George Nash, Carol James, and Thomas Wellicome from the Welsh Rock Art Organisation (WRAO), and Julie Dunne and Emmanuelle Casanova…
The discovery of 4,000-year-old log coffin and the remains of its occupant in Tetney, Lincolnshire, along with an equally rare stone axe buried with it, has brought together archaeologists from across the field in a massive effort not only to excavate and preserve the wood before it can disintegrate, but…
