There are many brilliant opportunities to get involved in archaeology, history, and heritage around the UK over the coming months, ranging from new exhibitions and lectures to returning festivals and excavations. There are also still plenty of ways to get your heritage fix at home, with online exhibitions and virtual…
Review by Jennifer A Baird. Palmyra has long been considered the jewel of Syria. In recent years, the site – which is internationally well-known for its monumental remains – has become infamous after those remains were targeted for destruction, casualties of the ongoing Syrian conflict, which has taken many lives…
Review by Simon Esmonde Cleary. Excavations in 2012-2013 on the north-eastern edge of Bristol revealed an area of landscape with evidence of human activity from the Neolithic to the recent past, but the most-plentiful evidence – which was excavated in four main areas and forms the focus of this volume…
If you want to encounter a Dalek now, you can visit the scenic Northumberland village of Allendale, where one of these terrifying cyborgs stands harmless outside the Georgian home of Neil Cole, whose Museum of Classic Sci-Fi occupies his cellar.…
The latest on exhibitions, acquisitions, and key decisions.…
With the 40th anniversary of the raising of the wrecked Tudor flagship Mary Rose approaching this autumn, the Portsmouth-based museum dedicated to the vessel is trialling immersive new approaches to illuminating its archaeology. Carly Hilts visited to find out more.…
Review by William D Shannon. O ’Cionnaith, himself a land surveyor, presents a vivid account of how Ireland became one of the most-mapped countries in the world, following the Cromwellian and Williamite land redistributions, which led to the Down Survey of the 1650s and the Trustees Survey of 1700-1703. The…
Review by HB. Shadowlands is a moving and at times personal tour of Britain’s lost villages and urban spaces. The author pointedly excludes the historical remains of ‘urban success’ found in places like Bath and St Albans, choosing instead to journey through ‘Ghost Britain’ and sites of ‘squandered potential’. These…
Review by Ian Ralston The subtitle to this volume – ‘with reference to the stratigraphy and palaeoenvironment surrounding The Berth’ – indicates clearly its main objective: detailed consideration of the environs of the Shropshire fort, the subject of several small-scale excavations since the 1960s. (Those archaeological results are included only…
Review by C McSparron. This book is a comprehensive catalogue of finds of artefacts made by archaeologists, antiquarians, and members of the public over centuries in Northern Ireland. It records discoveries from excavations, field-walking, stray finds, and material from museum and institutional collections. The area considered, Northern Ireland, is not…
Review by Andrew Tibbs. This invaluable contribution to our knowledge of hillforts is the most complete study on the subject in Britain and Ireland to-date. A long-awaited volume, it sheds much light on these somewhat enigmatic structures, detailing the results of the project of the same name, which ran from…
Review by Robin Osborne. Thirty-three years ago, I attempted to push 7th-century BC Athens and Attica into the limelight. I managed to stimulate critical engagement from Anna-Maria D’Onofrio and James Whitley, but failed to convince the wider world that this was a topic well worth attention. In the past four…
Review by George Nash. The visible prehistoric sites of the Arabian Peninsula are all too clear to see, with burial-ritual and settlement sites of the Neolithic, Bronze Age, and, in particular, Iron Age providing the most obvious presence. Less visible are those sites that date from earlier times. Recent fieldwork…
A century after Tutankhamun’s tomb first captured the world’s attention, a new exhibition at the Bodleian Library offers fresh insights into the famous discovery through archival material. Amy Brunskill visited to find out more.…
Review by Miroslav Bárta. The Old Kingdom papyri count among the rarest of finds. For several decades, the Abusir papyri archives from the pyramid complexes of the Fifth Dynasty kings Neferirkare and Nyuserre and queen-mother Khentkaus were among the earliest inscribed papyri known from the 3rd millennium BC. They detail…
The execution of King Charles I in January 1649 and the subsequent abolition of the monarchy turned Britain into a republic, which it would remain until the Restoration of Charles II 11 years later. Yet it is a period of British history that so often exists only in the shadows,…
A round-up of some of the best military history events, lectures, and exhibitions.…
REVIEW BY GRAHAM GOODLAD The Second World War at sea has been the subject of several outstanding overviews in recent years. Phillips Payson O’Brien’s innovative How the War was Won (2015) argued for the critical importance of sea (and air) power in the defeat of the Axis powers. This was…
Open 9.30am-5.30pm daily (April to September) and 10am-4pm daily (October to March)Ardersier, Inverness, IV2 7TDwww.historicenvironment.scot/visit-a-place/places/fort-george/+44 (0) 1667 462 834 Fort George is an imposing reminder of a turbulent period in British history. Its commanding position on the Moray Firth in northern Scotland symbolises the British government’s determination to impose its…
As the Russian army commits appalling atrocities in Ukraine, it might not feel like the best time to recall the heroism of the Red Army in the Second World War. But this year marks the 80th anniversary of the titanic Battle of Stalingrad, which lasted from late August 1942 to…
