Covering the period from the end of the Great War to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, this is a well-researched and very detailed book from a well-known author, whose previous similar book Dresden we reviewed in MHM some two years ago. Preceded…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
REVIEW BY CALUM HENDERSON. William Vicarage was just 20 years old when he sustained severe cordite burns aboard HMS Malaya during the Battle of Jutland in 1916. As well as extensive wounds to his hands and upper body, the able seaman’s eyelids and lower lips were turned inside out, leaving…
Review by Molly Masterson. In just a few hundred pages, Scenes from Prehistoric Life takes readers on a journey through 900,000 years of prehistory, weaving a narrative that connects the ancient and historic pasts and the more recent memories provided by the author, Francis Pryor. The unfolding story presents sites…
Review by Stephen Mileson. This latest, well-produced, and richly illustrated contribution to the Ruralia series tells us much about medieval and early modern use of the mountains, moorlands, forests, and remote coastlines that lay beyond Europe’s more populous lowland valleys and plains. The geographical reach is admirably wide: 30 short…
Review by Kevin Leahy. This book joins the growing list of publications on the Staffordshire Hoard, but Warrior Treasure is published by Historic England and can be viewed as an ‘official’ popular account. Written by Chris Fern, one of the authors of the academic report (see CA 361 and my…
Review by E O’Brien. In Buried, Alice Roberts, derives information relating not only to the death of individuals but to the lives lived by those individuals from examination of their bones. Topics explored include infant mortality in the Roman world; decapitation; necrophobia; description of (and possible places of origin for)…
The site at Eccles in Kent was excavated on a shoestring from 1962 to 1976 by Alec Detsicas with the Lower Medway Archaeological Research Group and then the Eccles Excavation Committee. Lack of funding hampered post-excavation, and while Alec Detsicas tried to put publication plans in place before his death…
Review by Nick Higham. Stephen Rippon must be congratulated on a handsome, well-illustrated book that is a new must-read for anyone interested in the East Saxons or what the transition from Roman Britain to Anglo-Saxon England meant to the ordinary people working the land. The book is well-supported by 88…
Review by Eugenia Ellanskaya. When it comes to interpreting archaeological sites, invisible ink comes to mind as a common medium that has been used to paint the elusive picture of our past. Eye-opening discoveries often come from those slight variations in soil colour and texture that demand subtle observation and…
