Cover Story
Prayer and poetry: Enheduanna and the women of Mesopotamia Enheduanna, high priestess at the ancient city of Ur, is thought to be the world’s first named author. She was a poetic innovator, but she was not alone in Mesopotamian history as a prominent or a literate woman, as Lucia… Features
The Vindelev Hoard: power and gold before the Vikings A newly discovered hoard of gold was buried in Vindelev in the 6th century. Why? And what can its regal riches reveal about power and religion in Denmark before the… 
Hieroglyphs: the key to ancient Egypt As the British Museum marks the 200th anniversary of the decoding of the Rosetta Stone in a new exhibition, Lindsay Fulcher talks to its curator, Ilona Regulski, about the two men… 
Classical currents: Antiquity and America The presence of ancient Greece and Rome can be felt in many places in the early history of the United States of America. Lucia Marchini speaks to Sean Burrus and… 
Set in stone: Jomon Japan As a new exhibition opens at the Stonehenge visitor centre, curator and archaeologist Susan Greaney explores the incredible artistry and ingenuity of people living during Japan’s Jomon period and the… News
Seven Sisters Dreaming stories identified in Australian rock art More than 15,000 petroglyphs were documented in the rock shelter. 
Colourful Renaissance cocklestove tiles unearthed at castle ruins in Poland Fragments of ceramic vessels, cooking utensils, and bones of pigs and oxen with cut marks have also been found, offering a glimpse of the feasting that went on. 
Fragments of decorated ivory plaques found among the ruins of an ancient palace in Jerusalem It has been suggested that the ivories were made by Assyrian artists and possibly arrived in Jerusalem as a gift to the nobility. 
Exploring Etruscan endurance Recent investigations in southern Tuscany have found a Late Etruscan and Roman Republican village, manufacturing district, sanctuary, and a necropolis. 
Ancient Wari tombs revealed in Peru Beneath a corridor in the mausoleum, they found a burial structure, a mortuary gallery dubbed the ‘Gallery of Elite Craftsmen’. 
Underwater excavations shine light on Maya salt production With workers living on site, and indoor salt kitchens, Ta’ab Nuk Na could produce salt year-round. Views
Odin: wisdom, war, and poetry Comment, Ideas Odin is a war god, fomenting conflict to see who is worthy of entering his hall, Valhalla, and ultimately fighting at Ragnarök (the events, including a battle, at the end… The Vindelev Hoard: power and gold before the Vikings Feature, Museum, What's on A newly discovered hoard of gold was buried in Vindelev in the 6th century. Why? And what can its regal riches reveal about power and religion in Denmark before the… 
Exhibitions from around the world in 2022 and 2023 Museum, What's on The dates listed below may have changed since we went to print. Check the websites of the museums for the most up-to-date information and bookings. 
John Wesley Gilbert (1863-1923) Comment, People Gilbert was one of the first Americans – of any ethnicity – to undertake archaeological work in Greece. There, he is likely to have met Heinrich Schliemann, rediscoverer of Troy,… 
A century of Tutankhamun Books, Comment, Culture, People What Carter and his Egyptian team found at the bottom of the stairs and along a short corridor stunned the world, of course – especially those countries barely beginning to… 
Aï Khanoum, 1968-1973 The Picture Desk One archaeological milestone this year is the centenary of the founding of the Délégation archéologique française en Afghanistan (DAFA) in 1922. Their century of research has included investigations at Aï… 
Long-awaited museum and gallery openings Museum, News, What's on The latest on museum and gallery openings. Set in stone: Jomon Japan Feature, Museum, What's on As a new exhibition opens at the Stonehenge visitor centre, curator and archaeologist Susan Greaney explores the incredible artistry and ingenuity of people living during Japan’s Jomon period and the… Reviews
The Vindelev Hoard: power and gold before the Vikings A newly discovered hoard of gold was buried in Vindelev in the 6th century. Why? And what can its regal riches reveal about power and religion in Denmark before the… Exhibitions from around the world in 2022 and 2023 The dates listed below may have changed since we went to print. Check the websites of the museums for the most up-to-date information and bookings. 
Growing Up Human: The Evolution of Childhood Review by Eugenia Ellanskaya Why do we spend what makes up almost 20 per cent of our life being children? What is the purpose of our incredibly drawn-out pregnancies and… A century of Tutankhamun What Carter and his Egyptian team found at the bottom of the stairs and along a short corridor stunned the world, of course – especially those countries barely beginning to… 
London in the Roman World Review by Sadie Watson Scholars of Roman London might wait years for a major synthesis such as Dominic Perring’s London in the Roman World to be published. This is hardly… Set in stone: Jomon Japan As a new exhibition opens at the Stonehenge visitor centre, curator and archaeologist Susan Greaney explores the incredible artistry and ingenuity of people living during Japan’s Jomon period and the… 
From the editor
Living and writing in the Sumerian city of Ur around 2300 BC, Enheduanna is the first named poet that we know of. Her hymns to the gods give us her name, some autobiography, and a new, warlike image of the goddess of love and fecundity Inanna. She was the first person to hold the title en, or high priestess, of the moon-god Nanna – a tradition upheld by royal women (with some breaks) into the 1st millennium BC. Yet for centuries before her, other high-ranking women in Mesopotamia had been playing an essential part in spiritual life, honouring the gods through offerings at temples where they set up small statues of themselves, but also in administration and the economy. For our cover feature, we delve into the world of Enheduanna.
In Denmark, Mads Ravn has been investigating a remarkable gold hoard discovered by a metal detectorist in 2020. Nordic bracteates inscribed with runes mingle with Roman medallions bearing emperors’ heads in the spectacular assemblage at Vindelev. Buried in the 6th century AD at a site intriguingly close to the later Viking centre of Jelling, what can the hoard tell us about power in the Germanic Iron Age?
Just as striking as these gold finds are the elaborate flame pots of prehistoric Jomon Japan. The people who made them, as well as distinctive cord-marked pottery and ceramic dogu figurines representing the human form, also set up stone circles, which like Stonehenge, Susan Greaney writes, show a preoccupation with sourcing the right stone and solar alignments.
Shared interests run through our next feature, too, in which we examine the relationship between the young United States of America in the 18th and 19th centuries and the ancient Mediterranean. Architecture, collections of moralising art, poetry, and friendship highlight the breadth and depth of these interactions with the distant past.
We return to the subject of writing as Lindsay Fulcher explores a new exhibition on ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs that celebrates the bicentenary of the deciphering of the Rosetta Stone. The beautiful, and for a long time mysterious, hieroglyphs have the power to entice and inform, but for the ancient Egyptians the spoken word was even more potent than the written.
Finally, we mark another anniversary in Egyptology with a special review of some of the latest books on Tutankhamun, whose tomb was discovered 100 years ago.
