archaeological finds

Finds Tray: Bronze Age button

This Bronze Age button comes from a hoard of three copper-alloy items that also included two axe heads. One of the axe heads was noticed by a farm worker in 2021, while backfilling a water pipe trench in Lessingham, Norfolk.…

Trysor

An absorbing new exhibition at Oriel Môn in Llangefni highlights Anglesey’s long and varied archaeological heritage. Carly Hilts visited the displays.

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Finds Tray: Early medieval finger-ring

This early medieval finger-ring was found by a metal-detectorist near Quadring in Lincolnshire, south-west of Boston, in May 2024, and has more recently been declared Treasure. It is made of silver and dates to c.AD 700-1000. The middle of the…

Bronze Age watering hole found near Gloucester

Excavations south of Gloucester have uncovered a remarkably well preserved Bronze Age watering hole, with many of its wooden structures surviving in situ. The discovery was made last year during investigations by Cotswold Archaeology. When they first stripped back the…

Ancient Egypt December listings

FROM THE HUDSON TO THE NILE: DOWS DUNHAM AND THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF EGYPT AND SUDAN This exhibition explores Dows Dunham’s pioneering fieldwork in Egypt and Sudan, including excavations at Giza, Gebel Barkal, and Nuri, and the discovery of the Tomb…

Finds Tray: Zoomorphic figurines

This is a trio of zoomorphic figurines that was recently acquired by Worthing Museum thanks to the kindness of the finder and landowner, who both agreed to waive their value. They were discovered a year ago, on two separate occasions,…

Bust of Ankhhaf

An unusually lifelike piece of sculpture, supposedly depicting an important Old Kingdom official, is analysed by Campbell Price.

The world’s oldest book?

Routine work on fragments of a Ptolemaic Period papyrus at the University of Graz Library in Austria has revealed traces of stitching, suggesting the text was once part of a book, rather than a scroll. Found at el-Hiba necropolis in…

IMAGE: © Kent County Council, licensed under CC BY 2.0

Finds tray – Seal of Matilda de Cornhill

Seal matrices are inscribed, flat-bottomed metal items used to make impressions on wax to create ‘seals’ – marks of authentication commonly appended to medieval documents. They are made, typically, of lead or copper-alloy and, more rarely, of precious metal. This…

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Picasso: echoes of Iberia

From myths of the Minotaur to Cycladic sculpture, the influence of the ancient world on Picasso is well known. But a less familiar part of the artist’s relationship with the distant past is his fruitful engagement with the art of ancient Iberia, as Cécile Godefroy and Hélène Le Meaux explain.