Last month we shared images from Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, highlighting how recent drought conditions have revealed the outlines of long-buried archaeological remains. Features both familiar and newly identified have also been emerging across Wales this summer, and have been documented by Dr Toby Driver, the Senior Investigator for Aerial Survey at the Royal Commission.
Hidden within the limestone cliffs of the Gower Peninsula in South Wales is a cave that has witnessed dramatic changes in climate, landscape, and human history. Bacon Hole, overlooking what is today the Bristol Channel, is home to one of the most intriguing and controversial stories in British prehistoric archaeology. It is a story that began more than a century ago with the discovery of possible Ice Age paintings, continued through decades of doubt, and has now been reopened through modern scientific investigation. George Nash explains.
A series of ten red horizontal lines, recently rediscovered in Bacon Hole on the southern coast of the Gower Peninsula in Wales, has been interpreted as rock art possibly dating to the Upper Palaeolithic period c.17,100 years ago. If this…
This month’s selection of summer digging opportunities includes projects from across Scotland, Wales, and England.
Rising high above the floor of the Taff Valley, north of Cardiff, the conical towers of Castell Coch are a familiar sight to travellers driving along the A470. The Victorian architect William Burges designed the castle for the 3rd Marquess of Bute between 1875 and 1881, resulting in a masterpiece of High Victorian romanticism.
Ninth-century Carolingian coins from the reigns of Louis the Pious and Charles the Bald are not the sort of objects you would expect to find on a remote farm on the Isle of Anglesey, so, when metal-detectorists began reporting these and other exceptional artefacts from the early medieval period, the National Museum of Wales (now Amgueddfa Cymru) sent Mark Redknap, then Curator of Medieval and Later Archaeology, to investigate. Between 1994 and 2012, Mark led ten seasons of fieldwork on the site, revealing the remains of a trading settlement with a form unparalleled in Wales. With the full report recently published, Chris Catling describes its key findings.
An absorbing new exhibition at Oriel Môn in Llangefni highlights Anglesey’s long and varied archaeological heritage. Carly Hilts visited the displays.
Excavations at the former Hafod–Morfa Copperworks have revealed rare evidence of copper-processing techniques used in the Lower Swansea Valley during the 19th century which, at its peak, accounted for an extraordinary amount of the world’s copper production. The Hafod Copperworks…
A recent geophysical survey in Margam Country Park, near Port Talbot in South Wales, has revealed the clear outline of a large Roman villa. The building’s footprint was identified during a geophysical survey carried out as part of the ArchaeoMargam…
Rosalie David explores the possible connections between medical practices in ancient Egypt and medieval Wales.
REVIEW BY PAUL T CRADDOCK This is a very thorough description of every aspect of the prehistoric copper mines on the Great Orme at Llandudno. It is also an attempt to recreate and describe an ancient community/activity not just from…
Between 2008 and 2010, the first modern excavation of a legionary storehouse anywhere in the Roman Empire was carried out at Caerleon. With the full findings now published, Carly Hilts reports on what has been learned about the site’s military life, and what happened when official administration ended.
REVIEW BY KEITH RAY Neolithic Tombs of Wales is a revised edition of a book with similar scope that was published 20 years ago by the same publisher. It is fundamentally a field guide to around 100 sites whose remains…
REVIEW BY TOBY DRIVER From the outset, the authors of this impressive research report remind us of the importance both of Caerleon Roman fortress and of the excavations and evaluations carried out in the Priory Field between 2007 and 2010.…
Alan B Lloyd acknowledges the huge contribution to Egyptology made by people born in Wales.
This ornate artefact is known as the Mold Cape. Thought to date to c.1900 1600 BC, it is one of the finest examples of prehistoric sheet gold-working yet found in Britain, crafted from a single ingot, which was shaped and…
A new 3D digital survey of Skomer Island, located a mile off the coast of Pembrokeshire, has revealed new details of its archaeological sites, allowing the public to appreciate many of them for the first time. The island, which is…
As excavations continue on the Fonmon Castle estate, north-west of Cardiff Airport, more intriguing details have been revealed, including the remains of an Iron Age settlement. Over the past couple of digging seasons, the team from Cardiff University has been…
Ruperra Castle (Castell Rhiw’r Perrai; ‘pear-tree hill’) is garlanded with heritage designations, being a Grade II*-listed building and a Scheduled Monument, set within a Grade II Registered Park. Sadly, it is also on the Heritage at Risk Register for Wales,…
Iron Age artefacts that were discovered beneath an airfield in Wales have been declared national treasure. Parts of a Celtic chariot, believed to be around 2,000 years old, were found on the site of RAF Valley in Anglesey in April…
The latest phase of excavations at Strata Florida, a former Cistercian abbey near Tregaron, Ceredigion, has uncovered a wealth of new features, some of which pre-date the abbey’s 12th-century origins. Strata Florida was established by Cistercian monks in 1184, and…
A recent metal-detector survey undertaken ahead of maintenance work at the RAF Valley airfield in Anglesey has recovered artefacts thought to belong to one of the most significant Iron Age collections in Europe. Carly Hilts spoke to Adam Gwilt and Richard Osgood to learn more.
REVIEW BY TOBY DRIVER Richard Hayman is an established author on a range of historical, archaeological, and industrial topics, and here he turns his hand to an appreciation of the historic Welsh landscape, in all its forms. During the confinement…
Sherds does not share the passion for cycling that seems to have gripped so many people over the last two decades. In the words of the self-styled ‘Super-Tramp’, W H Davies, ‘A poor life this if, full of care,/We have no time to stand and stare’, and it is the standing and staring that walking permits, whereas cycling (uphill at any rate, with traffic presenting an ever-present threat) seems full of care
Geophysical survey in Pembrokeshire has revealed potentially promising evidence of a previously unknown Roman fort. Dr Mark Merrony, a Fellow and Roman specialist at Wolfson College, Oxford, was examining satellite imagery of the area around a straight road, which he…
Poem to remember This poem was written at a time when I was a Chemistry Lecturer at Llandaff College of Technology and also an amateur archaeologist. At the time, I marvelled that chemists were detecting cholesterol in graves where only…
Intertidal archaeological sites are challenging to investigate, often being exposed for just a few hours at a time, but they can be rich repositories of organic finds and environmental evidence. Martin Bell, Thomas Walker, and Adam Turner describe the illuminating discoveries that have been made at Goldcliff in the Severn Estuary over the last three decades.
Frank Richards holds a unique place in military writing, for several reasons. His book Old Soldiers Never Die is reckoned to be among the finest war memoirs ever produced, and one of very few to be written by a private soldier. Richards was himself a rarity, having survived active service from the beginning of the First World War in 1914 right through to its conclusion in November 1918.
The CHERISH Project resulted from a joint Welsh and Irish application to the European Union’s Interreg fund, the purpose of which is to bring member nations together to share innovative and sustainable solutions to regional development challenges. In this case, the challenge was climate change and its impact on the heritage sites and landscapes along the Irish Sea coast and beneath its waters. The project was conceived and led by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, and Chris Catling, the Commission’s Secretary, now reports on its methods and outcomes.
Excavations at Wrexham, in north-east Wales, have revealed further traces of a known Roman settlement and the unexpected remains of an early medieval longhouse. Geophysical surveys in 2023 and 2024 had mapped a settlement with a clear grid plan, as…
Sherds has recently been working on a response to the Welsh Government’s consultation on its draft Culture Strategy. This has been an opportunity for the arts, heritage, and culture sector to reflect on questions that are not just relevant to Wales.
Recent investigations on the slopes of Pen y Foel, and a wider survey of its surrounding landscape, have shed new light on a previously undocumented
dolmen and other later prehistoric monuments. Mike Woods, Arwyn Owen, and George Nash take up the story of a long-forgotten and recently rediscovered ritualised landscape.
Pendinas hillfort is a well-situated pre-Roman defended village, commanding a prominent hill on the west coast of Cardigan Bay. The Iron Age hillfort developed over several centuries, eventually encompassing both the steeper south summit and the lower north summit. Everything…
Excavations running at Trelai Park, Cardiff, this summer have uncovered traces of a mysterious structure beneath well-preserved roundhouse remains in the heart of the Welsh capital. This is the third phase of archaeological work on the site, which is being…
A new organisation has come into being in Wales, in a bold move designed to increase the capacity of the four Welsh Archaeological Trusts (WATs) to compete for major developer-funded contracts, while building on their reputation for specialist regional expertise and service delivery.
REVIEW BY GRAEME CAVERS This volume comprises an assessment of the evidence for Iron Age object deposition from two study areas, modern Wales and Scotland, with the objective of identifying patterns in the available data. Primarily a desk-based exercise based…