The Tsar’s last victory: The Brusilov Offensive, June-September 1916
It was the greatest Russian triumph of World War I – but the Brusilov Offensive also sowed the seeds of revolution, as David Porter reports.
Ukraine
Portable and Parietal Art of Kamyana Mohyla, Ukraine
REVIEW BY GEORGE NASH Given the severity of the ongoing war in Ukraine, it is no surprise that the rich prehistoric archaeology of the country has been largely forgotten, especially within its southern and eastern regions, but it makes this…
The Battle of Poltava: 8 July 1709
Stephen Roberts analyses the battle that established Russia as a major European power.
World news in brief: From Scythian leather to sticky stone tools
Scythian leather made of human skin A recent study, published in PLOS ONE (), has analysed 47 samples of leather from burials at 14 Scythian sites in southern Ukraine, dating from the 4th-5th century BC. The researchers used palaeoproteomics (the…
The Scythian Empire
REVIEW BY TIMOTHY TAYLOR Christopher Beckwith’s The Scythian Empire represents a major challenge for archaeological understandings of what many pre- and proto-historians have been inclined to see as a merely ‘tribal’ phenomenon. His book is magisterial, presenting a wealth of crucial new…
New pictures show remains of rare WWII Hurricanes found in Ukraine
New photographs have been released of the remains of the eight Hawker Hurricane fighter planes that were found buried in Ukraine earlier this summer. The remnants of the British WWII aircraft were discovered in a forest south of the capital…
Battlefield Ukraine: lessons from history
The roots of the current war in Ukraine are deeply entwined with the nation’s turbulent military history. Here, David Porter examines some of the most important episodes and events.
Treasures of Ukraine: A Nation’s Cultural Heritage
Review by Lucia Marchini As well as death and displacement, conflict brings with it a threat to cultural heritage. Nearly one year on from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, this timely and attractive volume (with profits donated to the organisation…
Small is beautiful: exploring the drawbacks of megacities
Haunted by Ostrogothic and Hunnic raids, Panticapaeum still survived as a Byzantine citadel. It lived through a succession of Khazar and Slavic lordships to become the modern city of Kerch, now once more trying to persist through a precarious situation in the current war in Ukraine.
Greenlandic Vikings traded walrus ivory with Ukraine
Historians have long believed that walrus ivory traded throughout Ukraine and Russia during the Middle Ages came from the Barents Sea.
Support for Ukraine’s archaeologists
In collaboration with the European Association of Archaeologists (EEA), the Chartered Institute of Archaeologists (CIfA) are looking to support archaeologists from Ukraine by helping them to make contact with other archaeologists willing to house or employ them. The EEA has…
Treasures of the Scythian Kings
Barry Cunliffe, among the most distinguished of world archaeologists, has recently drawn together the evidence for the Scythians in a comprehensive new book, The Scythians: nomad warriors of the steppe. Neil Faulkner asked him what we know of this most mysterious of ancient peoples.
ISU-152 self-propelled gun, Chernobyl, Ukraine
It was designed by the Soviet Union during the Second World War to take on the German Tigers and Panthers.
Current World Archaeology Photo of the Year 2021: Results
Despite travel limitations over the last year, we’ve been transported to a wide variety of places...
The city of Chersonesos
The photograph shows the 1935 Basilica, named after the year it was excavated and believed to date to the 6th century AD.
The Reckoning: the defeat of Army Group South, 1944
The Eastern Front remains the forgotten child of Western histories of the Second World War. Even the phrase ‘Eastern Front’ is a reflection of a Western-centric view that sees the struggle between the USSR and Germany as an afterthought compared…
![LEFT The Charge of the Light Brigade and [inset] one of the men who charged: Cornet John Wilkin of the 11th Hussars, photographed by Roger Fenton.](https://i0.wp.com/the-past.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/post-1_image6-15.jpg?fit=768%2C429&ssl=1)
Balaklava: a battle or three skirmishes?
In this second part of his special on Balaklava, Patrick Mercer analyses the events of 25/26 October 1854.
The Battle of Balaklava in Perspective
Patrick Mercer, a Crimean War specialist, takes a critical look at the men in command at one of British history’s iconic battles.