Saudi Arabia is a paradise for researching engraved rock art (see ‘Saudi Arabian rock art’ in CWA 102). In March 2022, I returned to the Saudi provinces of Najran and ‘Asir. In the latter, the exploration of Wadi al-Khayyur, located west of the Wajid Desert, resulted in surprising findings. Whereas…
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…
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…
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…
The amazing discovery of more than 50 royal mummies.…
Between 2015 and 2020, Oxford Archaeology and MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) investigated, prior to development, parts of a Civil War rampart buried below an access yard to Savile House at New College School in Oxford. The city’s defences were established in 1642, when Charles I made the town his…
Excavations in the ancient city of Ephesus in Turkey have uncovered the remains of early Byzantine shops and businesses. Archaeologists from the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) working this year in Domitian Square, next to the Upper Agora, focused their investigations on a small area (c.170m2) that once housed several…
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…
This Heavy Anti-Aircraft (HAA) Battery – located some 350m east of Decoy Farm, to the north of the River Bure, near Mautby, Norfolk – is believed to be the most-complete battery of its type in Britain, and one of only a small number of complete, or near-complete, Second World War…
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…
During archaeological works beneath the floor of Bath Abbey between 2018 and 2020 (see CA 348), Wessex Archaeology recovered a stunning piece of an 18th-century bas relief marble sculpture. It was one of approximately 4,000 fragments removed from the Abbey’s 635 monuments during George Gilbert Scott’s works between 1864 and…
Howard Carter’s long search in the Valley of the Kings is rewarded.…
In the middle of Louisiana State University’s campus stand two earthen mounds, each c.5.5m tall. The LSU Campus Mounds have long been known to be among the c.800 mounds created by ancient indigenous communities in this region, but archaeological investigations recently published in the American Journal of Science (https://doi.org/10.2475/06.2022.02) have…
Alexander the Great: the making of a myth is at the British Library in London until 19 February 2023.…
This magnificent equestrian armour from the 16th century is unique in that it has survived completely preserved to this day. The armour was acquired by the Wallace Collection in 1867 from the collection of the French sculptor Count Émilien de Nieuwerkerke, who had displayed it in his apartment at the…
Through the combined efforts of ScottishPower Renewables and Maritime Archaeology Ltd, with support from Historic England, a wrought-iron anchor, possibly dating from the Roman period, was successfully raised from the North Sea in June of last year. The location of the anchor, approximately 40km off the coast of Suffolk, had…
One archaeological milestone this year is the centenary of the founding of the Délégation archéologique française en Afghanistan (DAFA) in 1922. Their century of research has included investigations at Aï Khanoum, a Hellenistic city on the banks of the Oxus River in northern Afghanistan. Its (later) name means ‘Lady Moon’,…
The Hardmans’ House, Liverpool…
Calum Henderson explores fascinating examples of postcards from the First World War which feature in John Wilton's latest book.…
This September marks 30 years since the discovery of one of the world’s oldest-known seagoing vessels: the Dover Bronze Age Boat, whose remains are pictured here on display in a dedicated gallery at Dover Museum. The 3,500-year-old vessel was first located in 1992 (below), when its timbers were identified by…