War Classics – The Reason Why
Nick Spenceley recalls one of the great works of military history
South East
Lives in Our Landscape at Maidstone Museum
Maidstone Museum’s impressively eclectic collection of British archaeology has been redisplayed in an absorbing new gallery. Carly Hilts attended its official launch in June.
In the pipeline: Besselsleigh deserted manor and village
During this season’s work at the Oxfordshire site of Besselsleigh deserted manor and village (CA 400) by Appleton Area Archaeological Research Project (AAARP), the team of volunteers and students from the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education (OUDCE) excavated the…
Science Notes: New research reveals link between red squirrels and leprosy in the medieval period
A recent study published in Current Biology has brought to light a link between red squirrels and leprosy in medieval Britain (). In ‘Science Notes’ this month, we’re taking a look at how these bushy-tailed rodents may have passed the…
Finds Tray – Glass bead
This glass bead was a surface find by a metal-detectorist in Wanston. It is an example of an ‘eye’ bead, possibly dating to the Early Iron Age (c.800-c.350 BC), and was found on an area of farmland known to have…
Excavations over the White Cliffs of Dover: Uncovering the Second World War story of Fan Bay and its surroundings
As we mark the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings this month, Carly Hilts reports on a visit to Fan Bay, near Dover, where Jon Barker showed her fascinating traces of Second World War coastal defences on the site and in the immediate area that are being investigated by the Wanstone Rediscovered project.
Science Notes: Tracing the origins of silver in medieval Europe’s revolutionary coins
In CA 411, we carried a news story about the exciting implications of recent research into early medieval silver coinage; for this month’s column, we delve deeper into the science behind the study to reveal how these conclusions were reached.…
Current Archaeology 411
• A villa unveiled: exploring luxury living and ‘ritual activity’ in Roman Oxfordshire
• Horses in late medieval and Tudor London
• A conflict reimagined: the Roman assault on Burnswark
• A wonder of the world: London’s post-medieval waterfront
• Ringing the changes: excavating Aspull’s mystery monument
John Walker Hayes: 21.4.1938-27.2.2024
A personal tribute by Paul Reynolds.
CWA #125 crossword, and answers to crossword #124
Across 6 Large knife often found among Anglo-Saxon grave goods (9)8 Fertility goddess worshipped at Carthage (5)10 ___ Wall, Roman fortification in Scotland (8)11 Extinct Tibeto-Burman language (6)12 Opponent of Greece at the battles of Thermopylae and Salamis (6)13 US…
Against the flow
Rubina Raja & Søren M Sindbæk on managing ressources in urban African societies.
Work begins on major restoration of ‘innovative’ Sussex coastal fort
A major new restoration project is under way at the 150-year-old Newhaven Fort, which is one of the largest defensive works ever built in Sussex. The £7.5 million project aims to open up previously inaccessible areas of the fort, such…
Normandy: the Sailors’ Story – A naval history of D-Day and the battle for France
REVIEW BY CALUM HENDERSON The Battle of Normandy has been covered extensively in the 80 years since it took place. But less well remembered is the naval campaign that accompanied it, the subject of this new book by Nick Hewitt,…
A villa unveiled: Uncovering ‘ritual activity’ in Roman Oxfordshire
Archaeological work in rural Oxfordshire has uncovered the remains of a previously unknown Roman villa, as well as echoes of activities ranging from agriculture and industry to more enigmatic practices. Carly Hilts spoke to Louis Stafford to learn how the site’s story is evolving as investigations continue.
Current Archaeology 410
• Smallhythe: riverside Romans and a royal shipyard in Kent
• Prehistoric rock art of South Wales: documenting a sacred landscape
• Between the salt water and the sea strand: living in the Lincolnshire marshes
• Visualising Venta Belgarum: Iron Age, Roman, and medieval Winchester
• A tale of three giants? New evidence for the evolution of Cerne Abbas’ chalk colossus
Military History Matters 139
• D-Day 80 years on: Hitler’s Fortress Europe
• Empire of violence: Roman arms and armour
• The Lionheart in winter: Richard I’s last campaign
• ‘Looking death in the face’: Beecher Island, 1868
• Barbarian fantasy: the ghost of Genghis Khan
Estimating the population of Roman Silchester
Research recently published in the journal Britannia has proposed a way to estimate the possible population of Roman Silchester (Calleva Atrebatum), in Hampshire, suggesting that the town may have included many more residences than have yet been identified. As a…
Finds Tray – Silver pendant
This is a medieval or early post-medieval silver pendant, set with jet, which was found last August by a metal-detectorist near Bletchingley in Surrey. It is probably a pilgrim souvenir dating to c.AD 1400-1550. The pendant comprises a silver, scallop-shaped…
Smallhythe Place: Romans, royal ships, and a rural retreat
Smallhythe Place, a National Trust property in Kent, is home to a picturesque timber-framed house with enigmatic origins, while the surrounding landscape preserves unique traces of a medieval shipbuilding centre that served several kings. Over the last three years, a team of more than 100 archaeologists have excavated 21 trenches to help bring the site’s story to light once more.
Visualising Venta Belgarum: Touring prehistoric, Roman, and post-Roman Winchester
Pioneering excavations in Winchester in the 1960s and 1970s made a major contribution to the development of modern archaeological practice and trained many of those who subsequently became the leading professional and academic archaeologists of our day. So the publication of the latest Winchester Studies volume – a concise synthesis of the city’s prehistoric, Roman, and post-Roman development – is a landmark event, as Chris Catling reports.
Secret Tunnels
Secret tunnels are a trope of local folklore – many a town in the UK has its story about long-lost underground passages, doubtless providing the inhabitants of a monastery or castle an escape route from their confinement.
Finds Tray – Bridle boss
This is a bridle boss made of copper-alloy and dating to c.1620-1680. It was recently found by a metal-detectorist near Ringmer in Lewes, East Sussex. While heavily corroded, it is unusual in two respects. First, it is still attached to…
Preserving a Palmerston Fort
The Historic Buildings Team from Cotswold Archaeology has recently carried out a detailed recording of Fort Gilkicker in Gosport. This fort is part of the Victorian defences around the town’s harbour. It is one of a number of structures known…
Analysis of Aylesbury’s Roman egg reveals possible contents
The first intact bird egg ever recovered from a Romano-British context has recently revealed its possible contents, cementing it as a unique archaeological discovery in Britain, and perhaps in the world. The egg was discovered during excavations in 2010 by…
Current Archaeology 409
• Legion: exploring the impact of the Roman army in Britain
• Piety and plague: life and death at Cambridge’s Augustinian friary
• Preserving the past: the Welsh heritage sector’s rich history and uncertain future
• A rare wooden find: uncovering a Roman funerary bed in London
• Family ties: examining ideas of kinship in the Bronze Age
The Palace: From the Tudors to the Windsors, 500 years of history at Hampton Court
REVIEW BY DANIEL JACKSON Hampton Court Palace, nestled within a bend of the Thames 13 miles from the centre of London, has a fascinating history, during which it grew from a medieval agricultural estate to one of the greatest palaces…
Crypt: life, death, and disease in the Middle Ages and beyond
REVIEW BY KK This is the third book in Alice Roberts’ recent series, which began with Ancestors (highlighting seven famous burials from prehistoric Britain; see CA 380), followed by Buried, which covered the quickly evolving funerary traditions from late Iron…
Forum: Comments and conundrums
Your observations, your objections, and your opinions: send them to cwaletters@world-archaeology.com
The Lionheart in winter: Richard I’s last campaign, 1194-1199
He was the ‘Crusader King’, whose exploits made him a national hero. But does Richard I deserve his reputation as a martial genius? Stephen Roberts studies his final campaign in search of clues.
Arctic Convoys: Bletchley Park and the war for the seas
REVIEW BY ANDREW MULHOLLAND The Arctic campaign, fought between 1941 and 1945, saw Allied convoys battling through icy seas to deliver supplies to northern Russia. It was the stuff of legend. Yet more than 90 per cent of the cargo…
In View
MHM’s round-up of the latest military history titles.
Access & Navigating Nature
Much that is done in the name of access is admirable: lectures are now broadcast to the world; collections can be searched online; journals and academic papers can be read free of charge
New evidence of women’s mobility during the Conversion Period
Recent discoveries of exceptionally well-furnished 7th-century female burials – such as those from Trumpington (CA 343) and from Harpole (CA 395) – have drawn increasing attention to a phenomenon associated with the Conversion Period. Isotope analysis of three of these…
Prehistoric Sussex
REVIEW BY AB In the 1990s, archaeologists excavating in West Sussex made a remarkable discovery: human remains belonging to ancient humans who lived around half a million years ago. These discoveries from Boxgrove continue to represent the oldest human remains…
Current Archaeology 407
• Oxford Archaeology at 50: exploring half a century of excavations
• The Swansea Canal: navigating the history of an industrial artery
• If walls could talk: excavating the lost defences of Beaumaris
• Rediscovering Ranelagh’s forgotten cemetery
Becoming Roman – Silchester, a town of change
A new exhibition exploring Silchester, an important Roman town in Hampshire, and the long-running excavations that have brought its remains to light once more, will open later this month. Michael Fulford previews some of its key themes.