Deep underground, the ancient inhabitants of what is now China built remarkable houses and palaces. But these dwellings were not homes for the living. Instead, the dead would be laid there, not to rest, but to live out their afterlife in comfort. The objects and attendants that accompanied them shed…
While studying the Terracotta Warriors in the tomb of China’s first emperor, Professor Lukas Nickel of the University of Vienna came to some interesting conclusions about links between China and the Hellenistic World, as he explains to Dalu Jones…
Well-known for his television programmes on the archaeology of South America, curator Dr Jago Cooper now focuses on the ancient cultures of the northwest coast of North America in his new exhibition at the British Museum, as he tells Diana Bentley…
Jenny Davenport marvels at all the astoundingly intricate works of medieval English embroidery in Opus Anglicanum, a major exhibition currently on show at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London…
Dominic Green gives us a preview of an exhibition about to open at the Getty Center in Los Angeles that shows us how the ancient world was viewed through medieval eyes…
The remarkable preservation at Must Farm promised insights into day-to-day life that would revolutionise our knowledge of the late Bronze Age. As excavations at the site reach completion, it is already clear that we will never see that era in the same way again. Mark Knight, Susanna Harris, and Grahame…
The MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) Spitalfields Market excavations in 1991-2007 were one of Britain’s largest ever digs. Four major publications are being produced to cover the results. The latest volume concerns the post-medieval era (1539-1880), which was a period that saw vast social transformations, as Chiz Harward and Nigel…
The Norman Conquest in 1066 is often described as the most famous date in English history, but 50 years earlier – almost to the day – the country had been captured by another foreign power: the Danish army of Cnut the Great. As we mark the 1,000th anniversary…
Do the spectacular burials at a huge ceremonial complex in the northern highlands of Peru signal the emergence of a ruling elite? Yuji Seki introduces the high priests and priestesses of Andean society.…
The results of CT imaging on Hatshepsut, Ramesses III, Tutankhamen, and a host of other New Kingdom mummies are revealed in a gripping new book by Zahi Hawass and Sahar Saleem, as Kimberley Watt illuminates.…
Why was a sinister malediction cut into a beam at a 19th-century farmstead near Llandudno? Catherine Rees and Richard Suggett explore this surprising discovery.…
Found over a number of weeks in 1942 and1943, the treasure that was dredged from Llyn Cerrig Bach, a small peat-filled lake on the Isle of Anglesey, is still revealing new information 70 years after it was found, as Chris Catling reports.…
Dominic Green leads a tour travelling in the footsteps of the accomplished writer, scholar and soldier Patrick Leigh Fermor around Southern Greece…
When earthquakes strike, the consequences can be catastrophic. Yet what do we really know about their impact on past cultures? All is revealed in Andrew Robinson’s latest unputdownable book Earth-Shattering Events: Earthquakes, Nations and Civilization.…
The extraction of slate from the hills of Snowdonia is not just an industry – it is a way of life bound up with chapel, politics, and the preservation of the Welsh language. Chris Catling explains why the Welsh Royal Commission is supporting efforts to have this industrial landscape…
Dominic Green reports on what the discovery of fragments of Aegean-style frescoes and an extensive wine cellar can tell us about life in the Bronze Age palace being excavated at the Tel Kabri site in the Galilee region of Israel…
The stupendous temple of Angkor Wat and its forested environs are currently the focus of a major project involving LiDAR aerial laser-scanning and more. The archaeology is radically changing our understanding of this staggering site, but how? Brian Fagan and Nadia Durrani get the inside story from project co-director Roland…
Paul Cartledge, who has written the biography of the revolutionary idea of democracy, explains how it was practised in ancient Athens where it originated.…
One of the ways that the Fitzwilliam Museum is celebrating its 200th anniversary is by the staging of a splendid exhibition of illuminated manuscripts at the end of July – a very fitting tribute to its founder, reports Theresa Thompson…
Until recently, Leicester’s Roman cemeteries had seen little major excavation, and their burial practices were poorly understood. Now an investigation in the city’s West End has given a wealth of new insights into the Roman town’s diverse population, as Mathew Morris reveals.…
For decades, the accepted view of the Orcadian Neolithic was one of two cultural packages with a sharp break in the middle. New research has revealed a much more complex and nuanced picture, however. Carly Hilts spoke to Colin Richards to find out more.…