David Breeze, Tatiana Ivleva, and Rebecca Jones consider the contribution made to the study of Roman frontiers by Brenda Heywood, who died last December, and other contemporary female archaeologists.…
In the 1930s, an admirer remembered Japanese antiquarian Ninagawa Noritane fondly as ‘simple-hearted and unpretentious. He was frugal and sometimes walked around wearing a lampshade hat woven with rush.’ He added, perhaps unnecessarily, ‘It should be said that he was a rather extraordinary individual.’ Certainly Ninagawa lived in extraordinary times.…
As shown by the excitement surrounding the discovery of Tutankhamun 100 years ago, mummies and Egyptian tombs have an impressive ability to capture our imagination. Richard Marranca speaks to Egyptologist Salima Ikram to find out more about these funerary finds, from early medicinal mummies to recent revelations at Saqqara.…
Laura Knight was blessed with some of the essential qualities of any great artist: a broadness of outlook and a fascination with the riches of ordinary life. A new exhibition of her work at the MK Gallery in Milton Keynes is subtitled ‘a panoramic view’. It brings together more than…
“Our present Hispanic-Peruvian civilisation cannot stand except on an indigenous pedestal.”…
It is hard to disagree with the astronomers. They clearly felt that naming a single lunar crater after Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc in 1935 was insufficient and, in 1993, honoured him again, this time with an asteroid. But astronomy is only part of the story, for Peiresc was the very…
The astonishing thing about Paul is his photographic memory. I recall he once joined a Roman sherd from Butrint with a piece from the maritime villa at Diaporit, three miles away.…
Central to Childe’s conception of history was the creative potential of hunters, farmers, craftworkers, engineers, and scientists, and the way in which elites wasted surpluses on wars, monuments, and luxuries…
Frost fitted herself out with an improvised breathing hose at a party in order to explore a 17th-century well.…
The first volume of The Antiquities of Athens and Other Monuments of Greece (1762) had an impressive 500 subscribers, but its influence was most strongly felt only in the early 19th century, when Greek Revival became the dominant style of British architecture.…
His talents may have been limited and he may have been fundamentally lazy: but was he bad? Could we not say that he made the best use of his limited talents – and the empire flourished?…
'In 1638, Kircher was lowered into an awakening Vesuvius to advance his geological knowledge.'…
No other Australian was so dear to the public as ‘Bluey’ Truscott... He was idolised and idealised, but not put on a pedestal.…
He was not, Jacques Francis insisted as prosecution witnesses tried repeatedly to have his testimony thrown out, a slave. They called him ‘blackamoor’ and ‘infidel-born’, but he called himself famulus rather than servus – a member of the household, a worker alongside free servants. At this historical distance, it seems…
This major figure in Egyptian archaeology was also a novelist, journalist, artist, erstwhile musician, and dauntless travel writer.…
The life of Wyndham Halswelle - Olympic athlete and soldier in the Second Boer War and Second World War.…
Viollet-le-Duc needed connections: he had elected not to study architecture, preferring to learn on the job.…
At the turn of the 20th century, the first ‘Golden Era’ of Welsh rugby ushered in the national team’s rise to dominance and infused ‘rugger’ into the country’s lifeblood. Lewis, for his part, embraced the game body and soul.…
Fearless as an action reporter, with a talent for the vivid phrase.…
Adrian Greaves reports on a Victorian nurse who served in the Russo-Turkish and Zulu Wars – earning both an Imperial Red Cross from Russia and a Royal Red Cross from Britain.…
Best-selling children’s writer Caroline Lawrence tells Diana Bentley where she finds the inspiration for her pacy, impeccably crafted novels and why young and old alike continue to be fascinated by the ancient world…