Why did collecting human heads as trophies become so widespread along the south coast of Peru, and who were they being taken from? Lidio M Valdez examines the extraordinary and chilling implications of the archaeology of the Acari valley.
For this issue, Campbell Price choses a small stela in Manchester’s collection that commemorates the official responsible for the creation of a famous statue.
Ashley Cooper and Stephen Cooper question the hallowed notion of decisive battle.
Neil Faulkner introduces an elite Nazi strike-force and sets the scene for the epic Battle of Crete in May 1941.
Neil Faulkner analyses one of the Second World War’s most curiously asymmetrical battles.
Edmund West reports on a medieval naval battle that is little known but was of decisive significance.
Fred Chiaventone recalls the service of the US Army’s first black regiments.
Inspired by the American and French revolutions, the Irish Rebellion of 1798 saw thousands take up arms against against British rule. But though it would inspire future generations of republicans, the rising was quickly crushed and many of the rebels were taken prisoner. Patrick Mercer looks at what happened next.
Joseph L. Thimes reassesses the 2010 genetic testing of the royal mummies and proposes a new set of tests to build a more accurate Amarna family tree.
Analysis of human remains from the Links of Noltland, Westray, has revealed the first concrete evidence of a major influx of non-local people into Orkney during the Bronze Age – and, uniquely for the period, it appears that this movement of migrants was dominated by women. Carly Hilts reports.
The people of Chichester – or Noviomagus Reginorum, as the settlement was known in the 1st century AD – have much to celebrate when it comes to their Roman heritage. Claire Walton and James Kenny explore the city’s Roman archaeology, and explain how it has served as both a platform for public engagement and the inspiration for an annual celebration of all things Roman.
How can understanding the archaeology of peatlands help to ameliorate the current climate crisis? Rosie Everett and Gillian Taylor share the latest research.
Nearly 50 years of excavations have explored much of Leicester’s north-eastern quarter – and now a newly published thematic volume, Life in Roman and medieval Leicester, draws together the results from these extensive investigations. Covering such a large area, and a time span that starts with the late Iron Age and carries through to the Norman Conquest and beyond, the report looks at the cycles of growth and decline in the life of the town and draws out the similarities and differences between the Roman and medieval settlement, as Chris Catling reports.
Phil Harding and Emily Glass describe recent excavations by the charity Waterloo Uncovered, which has made exciting new discoveries on the eponymous Belgian battlefield.
One of the most celebrated works of ancient Greek sculpture, Phidias’ statue of Zeus, was once housed in a temple at Olympia. Though this lost wonder was much admired by ancient visitors, it was not the only attraction at the site, for centuries the home of great panhellenic games. A new book by Judith Barringer explores the many transformations Olympia experienced, even before the creation of Phidias’ masterpiece, as David Stuttard reports.
Vast quantities of artefacts were found in a mound in Oklahoma in the 1930s. Together they tell an intriguing story of ritual and cosmic renewal. As an exhibition reuniting some of these objects travels to Texas, Lucia Marchini speaks to Michelle Rich and Eric Singleton to find out more.
Last year, the restored mosaics of the lavish audience hall and bathhouse of Hisham’s Palace near Jericho were opened to the public. Marie-Louise Winbladh explores the early Islamic art that embellished this Umayyad winter resort, built not by Hisham, but by his nephew al-Walid.
A small selection of the thousands of drawings compiled by Regency architect Sir John Soane have gone on display in London, among them exquisite works that bring us visions of ancient monuments abroad and of unrealised splendour in England. Lucia Marchini takes a look.
Having brought together ancient Roman, Greek, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian artefacts to create a museum of comparative sculpture, Baron Giovanni Barracco gave his collection of antiquities to the city of Rome in 1902. Now housed in a 16th-century palace in the Italian capital, the little-known Museo Barracco showcases ancient artistry and the activities of collectors, both at the turn of the century and in ancient Rome. Dalu Jones is our guide.
From buttons to artillery shells, a range of items from battlefields have been transformed – often by soldiers – into powerful and personal pieces of ‘trench art’. Nicholas J Saunders explores some of the human stories of life and death sealed within these creations.
The Roman fort at Maryport is best known for the collection of altars, dedicated to the god Jupiter, that were found buried in a series of large pits just outside its walls. Where was this religious stonework originally displayed – and what can we learn from the remains of two temples first discovered almost 150 years ago? Carly Hilts explores a wide-ranging report on the site by Ian Haynes and Tony Wilmott.
The popular archaeology series Time Team has returned with its first new episodes in a decade. Felix Rowe took Current Archaeology behind the scenes at two very different excavations, investigating Iron Age Cornwall and Roman Oxfordshire.
Dismissed by one distinguished architectural writer as a regrettable example of Roman pomposity, ‘typical of the rather pretentious magnificence of the [Roman] Empire’, the ‘triumphal arch’ (more correctly the ‘honorary arch’) has proved to be surprisingly enduring, with a history that extends from the Roman period to the present day. Chris Catling reviews a new book by Peter Howell tracing the history of the arch through its many manifestations.
The recent renovation of Trimontium Museum in Melrose has given archaeologists the opportunity to re-examine the enduring mystery of what happened at the nearby Roman fortress of the same name – as John Reid explains.
What was life like for German prisoners of war who were interned in England during the Second World War? Wessex Archaeology’s recent excavation of a camp outside Oswestry in Shropshire suggests that its inmates saw out the conflict in relative comfort, with a packed programme of activities – but hints of tensions brewing between inmates and guards were also unearthed. Carly Hilts reports.
In 1958, an archaeological team set out to undertake a trailblazing survey of the submerged ruins of Apollonia. Nic Flemming looks at what was accomplished, and what changed in the decades that followed.
The Caucasus were home to some of the world’s earliest and most proficient goldsmiths. Despite an association between this metal and the mountains that became so strong it was woven into mythology, gold artefacts more or less disappear from a large part of the region for a period of some seven centuries. Nathaniel Erb-Satullo investigates why.
In the 1970s, prehistoric rock art was found in the Tagus River Basin, just as a dam project was set to raise water levels. In a race against time, archaeologists sought to find a way to record thousands of images before they were submerged. Now the results have been carefully studied using a variety of new technological approaches. Sara Garcês and George Nash tell the remarkable story of one of Europe’s principal rock-art areas.
In the first of a two-part piece, Richard Hodges explores the story of San Vincenzo al Volturno.
The bleakest moment for Britain's wartime prime minister came not in 1940 – when his popularity soared and he was convinced a German invasion was impossible – but in 1942, as Taylor Downing explains.
Euan Loarridge describes a major project to investigate the battlefield of Waterloo using combined teams of trained archaeologists and military veterans.
John Lock resumes his series on the ‘Butterfly Effect’. Last time (MHM June/July 2021) he assessed the possible impact of Stonewall Jackson’s accidental shooting at the Battle of Chancellorsville. This time, equally controversially, he turns his attention to the Battle of Britain.
Neil Faulkner analyses the changing nature of warfare in early 16th-century Europe.
Neil Faulkner analyses a typical battle of the Italian Wars, a clash between a French and an Imperialist army near the northern Italian city of Milan, fought 500 years ago this spring.
Charleston, 7 April 1863. It was the place where the American Civil War had started. Two years on, with a revolution in naval warfare far advanced, a fleet of Union ironclads attacked Confederate defences at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Michael Laramie describes the action.
The fact that Britain and Brittany have similar names is more than coincidental. The two places have enmeshed histories, as Barry Cunliffe discusses in his latest book, Bretons and Britons. Chris Catling reports on the periods in prehistory when the people of the two cultures facing each other across the Channel were particularly close.