They were the world’s most feared killers. But, in 1114, the Assassins were thwarted – not by elite bodyguards, but by a group of middle-aged women who weren’t prepared to be pushed around. Steve Tibble reveals all.
In the latest season of fieldwork this year, a team led by Artur Obłuski, director of the PCMA UW, cleaned the dome of a large tomb and the wall of the church’s apse, revealing paintings with two rows of monumental figures, possibly apostles.
From Malta, we now travel to its sister-island Gozo, where Nadia Durrani encountered two new major restoration projects.
In the second part of our mini-series based on Barry Cunliffe’s new book Europe between the Oceans, our focus is the period c.2800-140 BC. We see the rise and fall of great civilisations, and a looming clash between a Mediterranean-based superpower and the Celtic peoples of Iron Age Europe. Once again, it is the movement of people, goods, and ideas that is central to Cunliffe’s vision of Europe’s distinctive history.