The image was chosen as the winner of the CWA Photo of the Year 2023 Competition (sponsored by Ace Cultural Tours).…
The mountain of Jabal Ikmah, located 5km north of the ancient city of AlUla in north-west Saudi Arabia, has just been added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register, which recognises documentary heritage of international significance. This is a significant recognition of the site’s value as a record of the…
Between 1943 and 1944, reconnaissance units from the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) trained for combat deployment over the skies of England. They flew over airfields, radar installations, and ancient monuments, as well as major settlements, in order to learn the English radio procedures and flying regulations – and,…
Based on three years of excavations at Dinas Dinlle – carried out by archaeologists from Gwynedd Archaeological Trust, CHERISH, the National Trust, and Cadw (see CA 356 and 394) – new reconstruction drawings by Wessex Archaeology are bringing the site to life once more. They show what the hillfort and…
A major step forward in understanding and dating ancient Egyptian ceramics.…
For 40 years, since the establishment of the Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England in 1983, Historic England has been protecting the country’s parks and gardens – with the Register now comprising more than 1,700 sites. To celebrate this milestone, images of a number of…
In the south-eastern margins of the Zimbabwe plateau sit the ruins of southern Africa’s first major city, Great Zimbabwe. The city was established as the capital of the Karanga kingdom in the 11th century AD, and remained occupied until the 17th century. How Great Zimbabwe successfully kept its residents and…
This image was taken outside the air-raid shelter in the garden of Roland Penrose’s house in Downshire Hill, Hampstead, north London, at the height of the Blitz in 1941. Penrose was a Surrealist artist by trade, but also worked as an air-raid warden during the war. The ‘fire masks’ pictured…
This fox puppet, called Farrah, was made by Historic England in partnership with Emergency Exit Arts to celebrate Hi! Street Fest – the final part of the High Street Heritage Action Zones Cultural Programme, which has sought to revitalise high streets across England. Standing 5m high – taller than a…
As he made his journey through the green steppe, Robert Byron (1905-1941) could see his destination 20 miles away:‘a small cream needle stood up against the blue of the mountains’, as he wrote in The Road to Oxiana, the account of his 1933-1934 travels around Afghanistan and Persia with Christopher…
Auguste Mariette uncovers the funerary complex of the Apis bulls.…
Of the 41 Roman fortlets that are believed to have been built along the Antonine Wall, the remains of only nine had previously been located – until a recent geophysical survey carried out by Historic Environment Scotland (HES) added a tenth to their number. The site in question had been…
Most books about the Second World War include only black-and-white photographs, and these are often sketchy or blurred. Some are even staged pieces of propaganda. Colour photography was not unknown at the time, of course, but it was immensely expensive and therefore rarely used. Artists with historical leanings have long…
In this picture, a conservator at the National Army Museum in London holds the skull of Marengo, the most famous of the horses that belonged to French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Named after Napoleon’s victory over the Austrian Empire at the Battle of Marengo in Italy on 14 June 1800, Marengo…
The Stone of Destiny – an ancient symbol of the Scottish monarchy – has undergone extensive new analysis in preparation for its role in the Coronation of Charles III at Westminster Abbey. The Stone was taken by Edward I during the First Scottish War of Independence in 1296 and fitted…
Viewers of the Netflix competition series Blown Away will be familiar both with the mesmerising transformations that take place under extreme heat as glass is blown, shaped, and decorated, and with the Corning Museum of Glass in upstate New York, which provides a residency to the winner of the series.…
A scientific approach to the study of ancient Egyptian mummies.…
Fishbourne Roman Palace in West Sussex is home to the largest collection of in situ Roman mosaics in Britain – including the famous ‘Cupid on a Dolphin’ mosaic seen here. There are 29 such floors on display. In advance of the palace’s reopening to the public this past February, some…
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…