A Peruvian fortress-temple in the desert

In 2022, archaeologists from the University of Toronto and the University of Trujillo began the first excavations of Cerro Prieto Espinal, a mountainside fortress-temple and settlement in north coastal Peru. Across the 3km-wide site, the team identified massive concentric walls, ceremonial platforms, habitation terraces, and cemeteries. While originally thought to…

Hand of Irulegi

What is it? This 2,100-year-old piece of bronze sheet cut into the shape of a life-size right hand has been dubbed the ‘Hand of Irulegi’, after the site in Spain where it was found. The hand is 143mm tall, 128mm wide, and 1.09mm thick, and weighs about 36g. A perforation…

CWA 118 Letters

Your observations, your objections, and your opinions: send them to cwaletters@world-archaeology.com…

Vietnam War Quiz

What code name was given to America's heavy bombing campaign between March 1965 and November 1968?…

Military History Matters Crossword 133

Across 5 Soviet general instrumental in the defeat of Finland in 1940 (10) 7 Battle of WWI fought in August 1914 (4) 9 Battle fought in Castile in April 1367 (6) 10 Country invaded by Japan in December 1941 (8) 11 Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda (8) 13 Visigoth king who…

Austria-Hungary’s Viribus Unitis-class battleships

Although the Austrian navy had won a remarkable victory against the Italians at the Battle of Lissa in the Adriatic on 20 July 1866, economic problems following the creation of the Dual Monarchy the following year meant that the new Austro-Hungarian navy had to struggle for funding against the competing…

War of words – ‘Panzer’

Panzer is a German word meaning ‘mail’ or ‘coat of mail’, with mail being body armour composed of interlocking metal rings. In the early 20th century, the word was applied to the tank, and thereafter entered English as a term for German tanks and armoured units. Germany’s first Panzer was…

Gladiators Quiz

Which Roman general defeated a major slave uprising led by the escaped gladiator Spartacus?…

Royal Photographic Society

Every month, when we open the pages of Current Archaeology or any of its sister publications, we are presented with wonderful photographs as well as compelling stories about our heritage. It is evident that there are many skilled photographers working in archaeological units and museums up and down the country…

Conserving the keep

Orford Castle in Suffolk has reopened to visitors after detailed conservation work – a project 13 years in the making – was completed in January. The castle was originally built for Henry II between 1165 and 1174, as a royal outpost on the River Ore’s tidal estuary; today it is…

/

Excavating the Hebrides

the star of the show is undoubtedly Cladh Hallan in the south of the island, famous for its Bronze Age ‘mummies’, the earliest evidence of deliberate mummification found in Britain.…

Finds tray – Romano-British putto

This is a Romano-British figurine of a chubby, naked boy, known as a putto. Although discovered in 2019 in Cox Green in Windsor and Maidenhead, it was recently highlighted in the latest Portable Antiquities Scheme annual report. It is made of copper-alloy and depicts a cherubic boy in a seated…

Digging Tell en-Nasbeh, 1929

Between 1926 and 1935, American scholar William F Badè and his team unearthed the remains of a small town at the site of Tell en-Nasbeh in Mandate-era Palestine. Thought to be the biblical town of Mizpah, the site, which flourished c.1000-586 BC, yielded a great number of Iron Age, Babylonian…

1 2 3 24