War of Words – ‘samurai’

‘Samurai’, meaning ‘one who serves’, derives from the Japanese verb samurau, ‘to wait on’. These warriors were the elite military class of feudal Japan, akin to the knights of medieval Europe. A samurai (the word is both singular and plural) lived and died according to a severe martial code, bushido,…

The wreck of Södermanland, Sweden

In this photograph, a diver explores the wreck of Södermanland, an 18th-century Swedish ship of the line now resting in the waters off Karlskrona, on the country’s southern coast. Built in Stockholm and launched in 1749, the 42-metre ship could carry a crew of 450 men and was armed with…

/

The Corbett Society

Harold James Dyos, late Professor of Urban History at the University of Leicester, wrote that London underwent three distinct periods of growth: an increasingly dense build-up of the population in the centre, its spill-over into the outer districts of London, and the development of the outer suburbs of Greater London…

/

Excavating the Highlands

To many, this part of the country is the ‘definitive’ Scottish landscape of their dreams, the stuff of countless movies and TV shows. To less romantically inclined archaeologists, it is a place forged by the environmental extremes experienced there.…

Finds tray – medieval disc brooch

This copper-alloy disc brooch, measuring approximately 27mm in diameter, was found last year by a metal-detectorist in the parish of Thirkleby High and Low with Osgodby, just north of York. It is decorated with a red enamel bird, which is seen standing on three-toed feet, looking back over its shoulder…

Santa Costanza, c.1710-1730

Among the early Christian catacombs in northern Rome, beyond the walls of the ancient city, are those of the Sant’Agnese fuori le mura complex. It is here along the via Nomentana that St Agnes of Rome is said to have been buried after her martyrdom in the early 4th century…

1 2 3 4 5 24