REVIEW BY MARK CORBY This fine book seeks to overthrow the current academic consensus that the Romans were incapable of strategic thought, had little understanding of their frontiers, lacked the will to develop a coherent defensive system due to the…
• Ötzi: life and death of the iceman
• Gifts for the gods: fascinating finds from an ancient sanctuary in Italy
• The ‘Qurna Queen’: Nubia’s influence on Egypt
• Hieroglyphs: unlocking a lost world
• United Arab Emirates: rock art and a hidden landscape
• Thailand: inside prehistoric houses
Review by David Stuttard On an Apulian funerary vase, a fair-haired young man sits clutching a spear in his left hand as he exclaims in terror, ‘I’m not coming!’ But it is no use. Grabbing his wrist in a vice-like…
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…
As we enter a new year, many of us find ourselves both reflecting on the past and making plans for the future. This dual outlook is embodied by the two-faced god Janus, who governed the first month of the year in ancient Rome
Archaeological investigations have revealed more than 20 large statues dating from the 2nd century BC to the 1st century AD, as well as thousands of bronze, silver, and gold coins, and many votive objects
Over the past few centuries of European history, we have grown used to the notion of the artist as celebrity. As far back as the Italian Renaissance, Leonardo and Michelangelo were famous in their own lifetimes. More recently, we can…
In which year was Pompeii buried under pumice and ash following the devastating eruption of Mount Vesuvius?
Richly painted frescoes enlivened the often dark and claustrophobic rooms of Roman houses. How was this interior world of colour created? Dalu Jones celebrates the triumph of Pompeii and Herculaneum’s frescoes.
The temple is believed to date to around the end of the 6th or beginning of the 5th century BC.
On 19 September 1991, two hikers made an alarming discovery high in the Alps. Travelling off the beaten track, they saw a human corpse in a gulley, and imagined they had stumbled across an ill-fated mountaineer. Instead, this was just the latest twist in an extraordinary murder mystery. Investigators soon realised that the victim had met his fate in prehistory. Now, over three decades on, the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology is showcasing the vivid light shed on Copper Age life thanks to the study of this man and his possessions. Richard Hodges reports.
Thousands of votive objects have been found buried in ritual deposits at a hilltop sanctuary in southern Italy. Cristina Boschetti, Jan Kindberg Jacobsen, Gloria Mittica, Eva Mortensen, and Rubina Raja take us to the excavations at the summit of Timpone della Motta and tie the findings together with the archaeology and history of the site. Our journey, though, begins in a laboratory in Orléans.
Genomic analysis of skeletons excavated from the ancient Greek city of Himera, Sicily, has shed light on the diverse cultural backgrounds of those who had defended it against attacks from Carthage in the 5th century BC.
Recent investigations in southern Tuscany have found a Late Etruscan and Roman Republican village, manufacturing district, sanctuary, and a necropolis.
Richard Hodges has been visiting Sexten, where the alpine scenery still bears the traces of fighting in the First World War.
Review by Charlotte Spence. Stuart McKie’s reassessment of curse tablets sets itself up as a ‘paradigm shift’ in the scholarship and our understanding of these objects; and this is something he well achieves. The focuis on the examination of the…
Review by Diana Bentley. Few episodes in antiquity are more gripping than the epic struggle for political supremacy and survival between Octavian, heir of Julius Caesar; his rival, politician and general Mark Antony; and Cleopatra, ruler of Egypt. In his…
Join Andrew Selkirk for a trip around the bars in Pompeii and find out where to go with your loved one for a slap-up meal.
In order to explore how this lavish home was experienced by Roman viewers, researchers first used 3D-modelling software to create a reconstruction of the house. This 3D model was based on information from an earlier Lund University project that digitally mapped a neighbourhood in Pompeii, in combination with records from the excavation of the house and other information about Roman architecture.
How has female authority been expressed through belief? Examining goddesses, demons, and spiritual beings from around the world exposes the true scope of feminine power, as Belinda Crerar told Matthew Symonds and Amy Brunskill.
New research finally answers the question of what Bronze Age daggers were used for, as Isabella Caricola and Andrea Dolfini reveal.
Put your military history knowledge to the test with our competition, and be in with a chance to win a copy of Don Hollway's At the Gates of Rome.
• Digging Caesar’s Forum: daily life in Rome
• Nebra Sky Disc: decoding a prehistoric vision of the cosmos (out 25 May on The Past)
• The dead of Amato: conflict on the Peruvian south coast
• Tsunami: a Bronze Age tragedy in Turkey
• Finding Shackleton’s ship
• The monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno
At the site of Mont'e Prama in Sardinia, archaeologists have uncovered Bronze Age fragmentary sculptures of two boxers. And at Saqqara, a host of statues, coffins, and figurines have been revealed.
A number of the national pavilions artists are drawing on ancient culture and themes from the past.
The layers of tunnels under Naples preserve traces of Greek life and death in ancient Italy. Dalu Jones heads beneath the surface to visit ongoing restoration work that is making an ancient tomb and its rare surviving Greek paintings accessible to the public.
Analysis of the Pompeian individual's skeletal remains revealed they likely suffered from spinal tuberculosis.
Numerous altars, stelae, votive offerings, and other finds associated with a religious complex were discovered.
In the conclusion to this two-part article, Richard Hodges examines the circumstances surrounding the attack on the Benedictine monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno in AD 881.
Fresh traces of urban life spanning almost three millennia are coming to light in central Rome. New Danish-Italian excavations have uncovered far more than Caesar’s monumental forum project. Delving through archaeological layers, while travelling back in time from Mussolini’s 1930s constructions, Jan Kindberg Jacobsen, Eva Mortensen, Claudio Parisi Presicce, and Rubina Raja disentangle the complex urban stratigraphy of the Eternal City.
Review by Luuk de Ligt The two volumes that make up this publication present the results of the ambitious Roman Peasant Project co-directed by Kim Bowes and Cam Grey. Geographically, the focus of the book is on the region of…
'Spot' is equipped to carry out routine inspections and monitor the safety of the site.
In which year did the eruption of Mount Vesuvius bury Pompeii and Herculaneum under ash and mud?
A study involving the scientific analysis of Roman coinage has revealed a significant debasement in the value of silver denarii at the start of the 1st century BC, shedding new light on a financial crisis alluded to by Roman statesman…
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.
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.