During the 2019 Pilgrimage of Hadrian’s Wall (see CA 353), participants considered a key question relating to the ancient fortification: did the eponymous emperor who commissioned its construction live to see it completed? David Breeze and Erik Graafstal explore the evidence.
What sparked the unusual chariot burials associated with the Arras Culture in East Yorkshire? Migration has been proposed as an explanation, but a new book asks whether there are other ways by which chariot-making knowledge and burial practices could have been transferred. The reality is perhaps more mundane but, at the same time, highly informative about the diversity of lifestyles and burial practices in the British Iron Age and the ways in which people expressed their regional identity. Chris Catling reports.
St Mary Spital was London’s first religious house founded by Londoners. Between 1197 and 1539, the Augustinian priory flourished, developing from a small roadside hospital into a large institution serving the capital’s poor and sick – a story brought to light by almost two decades of excavations, as Susan M Wright reports.
The Royal Mail (see Sherds, p.64) no longer regards county names as part of your postal address, a fact that the Association of British Counties – set up ‘to promote awareness of the continuing importance of the 92 historic (or…
On the Maya road The first LiDAR study of the longest road in the Maya area has shed new light on settlement in Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula. The 100km- long Sacbe 1 was built in the 7th century AD and connected…
A possible 14th-century shrine adorned with medieval carvings has been discovered in a cave following a landslip near Guildford. The initial discovery was made by rail workers from Osborne carrying out repair works on behalf of Network Rail, after which…
Lead pollution produced by 12th-century mines in Britain can be seen in Alpine ice cores, new research reports – directly mirroring historical records and demonstrating the impact of political events of the time. Lead-silver ores have been mined for centuries,…
An archaeological project on Alderney has uncovered information about the labour and concentration camp of Sylt that once stood on the island, shedding light on the lives of prisoners during the Nazi occupation of the Channel Islands in the Second…
Excavations on the site of Tetley’s Brewery in Leeds have revealed intriguing insights into the 18th- and 19th-century development of the city. Carried out by Archaeological Services WYAS, the investigation explored buildings along Hunslet Lane, including the location of the…
Recent DNA analysis of whalebone artefacts found at The Cairns, Orkney, has shed light on the relationship between these marine mammals and the site’s Iron Age community, as well as hinting why the large local broch may have been demolished…
British Museum launches protective platform The British Museum has launched a global platform called ‘Circulating Artefacts’ (CircArt) to fight against the looting and trafficking of antiquities. This initiative combines a restricted object database with an online public service where users…
Resting in the silty mud of the Thames Estuary, the London represents a remarkable time capsule of the Stuart era – but its remains are rapidly deteriorating. Geoff Downer describes an ambitious campaign to raise and preserve the wreck before it is lost to time and tide.
Remembering Richard Carlile I thought this little-known fact about the Peterloo Massacre (see CA 357) really important when I came across it recently. It raises the whole issue of how / why people are remembered, and the frequent unfairness of…