Analysing ancient anaesthetic
Examination of surgical tools from a Ming Dynasty tomb reveals evidence of early anaesthetic use in 14th-century China.
Asia
Approaching Armageddon: When the Cold War turned hot – Part 1: Korea, 1950
Just before dawn on Sunday 25 June 1950, following a brief bombardment, the 150,000-strong army of the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea, backed by Soviet Russia, crossed the border and invaded its southern neighbour, the Republic of Korea, backed…
‘Fighting Bob’ and the ‘Grenadier in Petticoats’
Major-General Sir Robert Sale and his wife Lady Florentia were Victorian celebrities, famed for their bravery on the Indian subcontinent. Patrick Mercer goes in search of a couple who became a byword for gritty colonial glamour.
Genghis Khan: How the Mongols Changed the World
A new exhibition at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds explores the history and legacy of the Mongol Empire. Carly Hilts visited to learn more.
World news
New insights into the Plain of Jars in Laos Xieng Khouang Plateau in northern Laos is dotted with hundreds of ancient stone jars. While they have been the subject of archaeological investigations for over a century, their full use and…
Terror or tolerance? Taking a new look at the Mongol Empire
The conquests of Genghis Khan are traditionally associated with horrifying brutality, but this reputation has overshadowed another side to the empire that he forged. Matthew Symonds spoke to Marie Favereau to find out more.
Mohenjo-daro: an egalitarian urban centre?
Mohenjo-daro (c.2600-1900 BC) has long invited questions about the relationship between urbanisation and social inequality. With an estimated population of 40,000 at its peak, it was one of the largest cities of the Indus Valley Civilisation. However, unlike other ancient…
Burial practices on the Plain of Jars
Analysis of two votive offering vessels from Pompeii is enhancing our understanding of Roman domestic rituals.
The deviant dead of ancient Mesopotamia
Beheaded, bound, or partially burnt – Leif Inselmann examines irregular burials from the ancient Near East.
‘Destroy the foreigners’: The Boxer Rebellion, November 1899-September 1901
At the turn of the 20th century, a violent uprising swept northern China, and an international expedition was sent to rescue those trapped in Peking’s diplomatic quarter. Stephen Roberts tells the story.
Tojo: the rise and fall of Japan’s most controversial World War II general
Hideki Tojo was Japan’s most important policymaker of WWII. As detailed in Gary Bass’s 2023 study Judgment at Tokyo, he was the highest official to face the death penalty at the ensuing war-crimes trials. Yet apart from Robert Butow’s Tojo…
Archaeology as immersive historical simulation
When I began studying archaeology nearly 70 years ago, my professor illustrated his lectures with the aid of glass slides projected through an antediluvian machine known as an epidiascope
War on Film – Palestine 36
Taylor Downing reviews the latest film and television releases.
A sideshow to a sideshow: The Great Arab Revolt, 1916-1918
As thousands died on WWI’s Western Front, a young officer by the name of T E Lawrence was among those fighting a very different war in the Middle East. Here, Nicholas Saunders reveals how a British-backed uprising proved a turning point in history.
Pestilence and population shifts
The discovery of a mass grave in the Jordanian city of Jerash (ancient Gerasa) has provided evidence of the impact on the population of the Justinian Plague. A newly published study of the burial site has revealed that at least 230 individuals were hastily buried on top of each other, rather than in individual graves, within the city’s abandoned hippodrome
A world of discoveries
The 6th Shanghai Archaeological Forum has just drawn to a close, and it is time to reflect on its many highlights. This year, the field trip was scheduled on the first day, and we were given the choice of visiting freshly uncovered shipwrecks and the new Shanghai Museum, or to take the bus south to visit two key sites: Jingtoushan and Hemudu.
CWA news in brief
Singapore’s first shipwreck Underwater excavations have uncovered the first ancient shipwreck to be found in Singapore. The vessel, known as the Temasek Wreck, underwent several stages of investigation between 2016 and 2019, and the results of the research have now…
War Classics – With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa
With the Old Breed is a harrowing, visceral account of a US Marine’s combat experience fighting the Japanese in Peleliu and Okinawa in 1945. Together with Robert Leckie’s Helmet for My Pillow, it provided the material for HBO’s acclaimed 2010 television series The Pacific. Excellent though the latter was, the book offers much more.
Samurai
Reviewing the best military history exhibitions, with Peter Popham.
War of Words – ‘The World Wonders’
With Marc DeSantis
Samurai
A new exhibition at the British Museum traces the story of Japan’s famous warriors from the medieval period to the present day, separating history from myth and exploring how their image has evolved over the last 1,000 years. Carly Hilts visited to learn more.
Ritual Landscape: rock art and archaeology in the Mongolian Altai
REVIEW BY GEORGE NASH The Altai region of western Mongolia has long been considered marginal in broader Eurasian archaeological narratives. In this book, William Fitzhugh and Richard Kortum build a compelling case for the region’s centrality in the evolution of…
China’s first state
At the time of writing, I am anticipating a memorable occasion in December: the 6th Shanghai Archaeology Forum. These meetings begin with the announcement of the winning nominees in two categories: field discovery and research achievement.
Redemption: MacArthur and the campaign for the Philippines
REVIEW BY GRAHAM GOODLAD General Douglas MacArthur is arguably the most controversial military leader in US history. His command career was bookended by two divisive episodes. As Army Chief of Staff in 1932, he earned notoriety for forcibly removing the…
War of Words – ‘Zero’
With Marc DeSantis
Threads of Contact: Tracing the relationship between Egypt and the Southern Levant through textile tools
REVIEW BY HILARY WILSON Spinning and weaving are among the earliest ancient technologies, and implements used in textile production turn up in archaeological excavations worldwide. Introducing this volume, part of Oxbow’s ‘Ancient Textiles’ series, Chiara Spinazzi-Lucchesi emphasises the rarity of…
A life less wealthy: The ordinary lives of Nabataean Petra
Petra is renowned for its extraordinary tomb architecture, but little is known about the builders of these mausolea. George H Nash, Genevieve von Petzinger, Lina Alrabab’h, and James Nash examine this funerary landscape and the traces of those who made it possible.
Redrawing the family tree
Human beings may have suddenly doubled their age thanks to some recent research on a group of fossilised skulls from China, known as Yunxian 1 and 2. Previously classified as Homo erectus, they have now been designated as belonging to the Denisovan group, based on skull shape.
Reframing the ‘Desert Frontier’: studies in the ancient Near East and northern Arabia in honour of David Kennedy
REVIEW BY MATTHEW SYMONDS This volume honours Professor David Kennedy, a pioneering scholar of ancient Arabia and Rome’s eastern frontier, by bringing together 21 scholarly contributions examining both the archaeology of the wider region, and the way that it is…
Between Two Rivers: ancient Mesopotamia and the birth of history
REVIEW BY TIMOTHY MATNEY The academic world inhabited by Sumerologists and Assyriologists is highly specialised and largely inaccessible for even the hardiest lovers of history. The texts themselves are fragmentary, often pieced together from disparate copies, deliberately anachronistic, and range…
Ritual platforms in China
Earthen platforms uncovered at a site in eastern China are believed to reflect efforts by early states to use ritual events as a way to unify their expanding territories. The three large platforms were discovered during excavations of the site…
Assault on Shaizar: How the Assassins met their match
They were the world’s most feared killers. But, in 1114, the Assassins were thwarted – not by elite bodyguards, but by a group of middle-aged women who weren’t prepared to be pushed around. Steve Tibble reveals all.
Beyond Burma: forgotten armies
Reviewing the best military history exhibitions, with Peter Popham.
World news
Stone tools on Sulawesi Excavations at a site called Calio, on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, have found new evidence of the island’s occupation by early hominin species. Carried out between 2019 and 2022 by a joint team from Indonesia…
Rare Ptolemaic coin
Another recent find connected to Berenice II has been announced by the Israel Antiquities Authority. A rare gold coin depicting the Ptolemaic queen without her consort (and a cornucopia on the reverse) has been discovered during the excavation of a…
Stone tools on Sulawesi
Stone tools recently discovered on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi are rewriting the story of the early human occupation of island Southeast Asia. Perhaps the most famous hominin from this region is Homo floresiensis (the ‘Hobbit’), a small-statured species found…