Excavations at Conington, Cambridgeshire, uncovered the remains of a young woman who, unusually, had been laid face-down in her early medieval grave. What can this burial tell us about her life and death, and how she may have been perceived by her community? Carly Hilts reports.
The recent re-analysis of an unusual Iron Age burial from the Isles of Scilly – which contained grave goods typical of both men and women from this period – has shown that its occupant was biologically female. Discovered on the…
Mirrors, as we know them, did not exist in ancient Egypt, so what did the elite use to check their elaborate make-up?
For this issue, Dr Campbell Price chooses a beautifully painted object from the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Two mummification workshops – the largest and most complete ever found – have been discovered by the Egyptian mission working in the Sacred Animal Cemetery (Bubasteum) at Saqqara. Dating to the Thirtieth Dynasty and Ptolemaic periods, each structure was made…
This is a unique early Bronze Age pin, made from the first phalanx (or toe-bone) of a golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos). It is the only example ever found in a Bronze Age funerary context in England, with only one other…
A large Roman mausoleum, used to bury high-status individuals, was recently discovered by MOLA during excavations in advance of the redevelopment of a site near Borough Market in Southwark, by Landsec and Transport for London (TfL). The foundations, which measured…
Buried in lead The excellent Museum of Antiquities in Rouen, Normandy, has mounted a special exhibition called Le Plomb et l’homme (Lead and Man; open until 5 March 2024) devoted to the large number of Gallo-Roman lead coffins and funerary…
REVIEW BY JENNIFER FOSTER This most useful, extensive analysis concerns Iron Age inhumed bones in eastern England. The burial types start in the late Bronze Age, with most people buried in settlements: ‘normal’ pit/ditch, crouched, and north–south orientated; disarticulated bones;…
In June 2017, contractors digging an electricity service trench, just inland from Longis Bay in Alderney, began to find human bones. Archaeologists from Guernsey quickly flew up to investigate, and so began six (COVID-19-interrupted) years of research into the biggest, and best-preserved, Iron Age and Gallo-Roman site in the Channel Islands. With another excavation just concluded, this seemed a good opportunity to summarise the results so far, as Philip de Jersey reports.
In the second of his series focusing on remarkable people of their period, Wolfram Grajetzki introduces us to an important official whose tomb has recently been discovered.
The Egyptian archaeological mission working at the Meir archaeological site in el-Quseyya (Asyut Governorate) has uncovered a building dating to the Byzantine era. The structure consisted of a courtyard with a number of rooms, storage spaces, and a fireplace. The…
REVIEW SHANE MCLEOD This handsomely produced book acts as a 20-year celebration of the earlier Vikings in Scotland: an archaeological study by James Graham-Campbell and Colleen Batey, and as a continuation of that still indispensable work. Both of those authors contribute…
The image was chosen as the winner of the CWA Photo of the Year 2023 Competition (sponsored by Ace Cultural Tours).
The Konya Plain presents an extraordinary glimpse of what the shift from a mobile existence to Neolithic lifestyles could mean for individuals. Douglas Baird, Ian Hodder, and Michele Massa share some exciting results from the long-running investigations of a set of sites in central Anatolia.
One of the interments contained a lead coffin with a female occupant; such coffins are relatively uncommon in Britain, and would probably have been expensive.
Until now, evidence of drug use in prehistoric Europe has mostly been derived from archaeobotanical remains, artistic depictions, and chemical analysis of artefacts
Inside the cist tomb were the remains of a man and a woman, thought to have died in their 30s
Review by Anna Garnett Traditional Egyptological narratives often placed Egypt at the centre, to the detriment of neighbouring cultures, with the result that our understanding of the complexities of those cultures can be partial and biased. It is always refreshing…
Other tasks carried out by the team this season included conservation work on the murals of the basilica on site
Katherine Slinger searches for patterns in the locations of private tombs on the slopes above the royal mortuary temples of Luxor.
In this issue, Dr Campbell Price describes an intriguing Predynastic artefact in the Brooklyn Museum.
Many of the amulets are made of gold, including a golden tongue inside the mouth
A round-up of some of the latest archaeology news from around the world.
Review by Hugh Cheape Professor Ian Bradley has identified a network of routes extending for miles across our upland and island areas and radiating out from long-used burial grounds. The routes are marked by cairns where funerals, carrying the deceased…
A new exhibition running at St James’s Church in Piccadilly tells the story of how HS2 works uncovered a huge Georgian and Victorian burial ground near Euston Station, and introduces some of the individuals laid to rest there. Carly Hilts visited to find out more.
Govan Old Parish Church is home to one of the most significant collections of Viking Age carved stones in the British Isles, and recent fieldwork in the churchyard has revealed the presence of further examples buried beneath the turf. Carly Hilts spoke to Stephen Driscoll about the latest findings, and about an initiative to forge new connections between the church, its archaeological holdings, and the local community.
The artefact was found at Bar Hill, approximately four miles north-west of Cambridge, and is believed to date to the Iron Age (c.750 BC-AD 43).
New research is expanding our understanding of the human remains deposited in peatlands around Europe.
The 1,600-year-old site has yielded the remains of a high-status Roman woman interred in a lead coffin.
The positions of the skeletons indicate that they were thrown or rolled into the grave, and many of the remains are disarticulated or incomplete.
This discovery represents the earliest example of its kind found in the ancient Near East.
At its height, the Roman Empire grew to an area of around two million square miles, stretching from Mesopotamia in the east to Lusitania (modern-day Portugal) in the west – a distance of some 4,000 miles. But for all our…
A round-up of some of latest archaeology news from around the world.
When an unusual female burial was discovered in the apse of All Saints Church, York, it was interpreted as possibly representing the remains of a religious recluse. Since then, archaeological science and historical research have given new perspectives on the woman’s life, as Carly Hilts reports.
Archaeologists from MOLA were excavating the site in Northamptonshire when they uncovered a group of some 30 pendants, other grave goods, and fragments of tooth enamel in a grave.