cwa114

Above A typical fast food shop at Pompeii with four food containers placed in an L shaped counter. Note that to the left there is an entrance way into a fairly grand house: even the poshest residences would have space either side of the gate for commercial purposes. Of course, it would be convenient

Let’s go on a pub crawl around Pompeii!

Join Andrew Selkirk for a trip around the bars in Pompeii and find out where to go with your loved one for a slap-up meal.

Above Excavations at Powars II, in Wyoming, have revealed that it is the site of America’s earliest known ochre mine. right Archaeologists uncovered a wealth of material from the site, including many stone, bone, and antler tools and projectile points.

America’s oldest ochre mine identified

Artefacts made of non-local materials indicate that the quarry may have been the source of much of the ochre found across the American midcontinent

CWA 114 Crossword, and answers to 113

Across 6 Ancient Greek historian and geographer (6)8 Emperor whose return to Rome from campaigns in Spain and Gaul was honoured by the building of the Ara Pacis (8)10 Member of a Germanic people believed to have invaded Britain in…

CWA 114 Letters

Your observations, your objections, and your opinions.

Athens at the Margins: Pottery and People in the Early Mediterranean World

Review by Robin Osborne. Thirty-three years ago, I attempted to push 7th-century BC Athens and Attica into the limelight. I managed to stimulate critical engagement from Anna-Maria D’Onofrio and James Whitley, but failed to convince the wider world that this…

World news in brief: maya dentistry, medieval hand grenades and early Islamic burials

A round up of some of the latest archaeological news from around the globe.

ABOVE The Roman era brought many embellishments to Athens. Here we see a theatre known as the Odeon of Herodes Atticus. It was funded by a Roman senator of Greek descent.

Dedicated followers of fashion: what did the Romans ever do for Athens?

Ancient Rome’s enthusiasm for all things Greek is well known, and archaeological echoes of these influences can be found across the Empire. Looking in the other direction, though, what traces did the Romans leave in Athens, the city at the heart of their idealised view? Carly Hilts reports.

The Temple of Khnum

Conservators working in the Temple of Khnum in Esna, Upper Egypt, have uncovered new details of the building’s colourful ceiling frescoes. Construction on the temple began in the Ptolemaic period and continued into the Roman period, with decoration completed during…

Qatar: Evidence of the Palaeolithic Earliest People Revealed

Review by George Nash. The visible prehistoric sites of the Arabian Peninsula are all too clear to see, with burial-ritual and settlement sites of the Neolithic, Bronze Age, and, in particular, Iron Age providing the most obvious presence. Less visible…

Bronze figurine

What is it? This small female figurine made of bronze is 14.7cm tall and weighs 155g. The figure has an egg-shaped head with a prominent nose, and a flat body with looped arms, two knobs on the chest signifying breasts,…

Above The Great Maya Aquifer project is dedicated to understanding and preserving the submerged world beneath the Yucatán Peninsula. Diving is an indispensable tool for their research and conservation work.

The Great Maya Aquifer: exploring a hidden world beneath the Yucatán Peninsula

Southeast Mexico is rich in caves. This extraordinary underworld has influenced human activity for thousands of years. Now a project dedicated to understanding and preserving this realm is shedding new light on the archaeology of the Yucatán Peninsula, as Guillermo de Anda told Matthew Symonds.

Life and death in an early South Australian colony

Information about the health of early migrants to South Australia was obtained through analysis such as micro-CT scanning of their teeth.

Left One of the most moving pieces in the exhibition is a set of photographs showing a young Egyptian boy wearing a large necklace found in the tomb. The photos were supposedly intended simply to show the ‘method of suspension’, but the boy’s expression reflects the weight of the history on his shoulders a reminder of the significance of Tutankhamun’s legacy in a newly independent Egypt.

Tutankhamun: excavating the archive

A century after Tutankhamun’s tomb first captured the world’s attention, a new exhibition at the Bodleian Library offers fresh insights into the famous discovery through archival material. Amy Brunskill visited to find out more.

A new project by researchers from Lund University has used 3D modelling (RIGHT) and virtual reality technology (BELOW) to investigate how Roman visitors would have experienced the House of the Greek Epigrams (BELOW RIGHT).

Exploring a Roman house in VR

In order to explore how this lavish home was experienced by Roman viewers, researchers first used 3D-modelling software to create a reconstruction of the house. This 3D model was based on information from an earlier Lund University project that digitally mapped a neighbourhood in Pompeii, in combination with records from the excavation of the house and other information about Roman architecture.

Above The Congress inspects the partially reconstructed fort rampart at Pfünz, Germany, in 2015.

The Congress of Roman Frontier Studies

Discussions were prematurely halted by the receipt of a coded telegram from the War Office summoning Birley home to join Military Intelligence, to which he had previously been recruited owing to his fluent German and knowledge of the Roman army.

Above A photograph of Johannes Østrup taken shortly after his return from his travels (1893 1896). The photographer is William Anthon Henry Augustinus, and the photograph can be found in the Danish Royal Library’s image collection.

Johannes Østrup’s journey of discovery: exploring the value of centuries-old scientific records

Dig into archive records. Leaf through forgotten research in books that were written in foreign tongues. Centuries-old observations can provide important perspectives on the archaeological record, as Eva Mortensen and Rubina Raja highlight in this account of a pioneering Danish explorer in the Syrian Desert.

BELOW This tiny infant was buried with 20 pots, 2,154 shell beads, and a copper axe. Note, too, the bivalve shells, which we think symbolised rebirth. The big bangle is made of marble.

Rise of the elites

... you can peer down into a deep square where Bronze Age burials are left in the ground following an earlier Thai excavation. Your eyes alight on the grave of a man accompanied by a remarkable number of pottery vessels and a socketed copper-base axe.

Right The popular archaeological quiz show What in the World? being filmed. From left to right we see Wilton M Krogman, Sir Mortimer Wheeler, and Schuyler V R Cammann, with host (and show creator) Froelich Rainey

David Attenborough, What in the World? and Mortimer Wheeler

A letter in the Penn Museum archives sets Richard Hodges and Alessandro Pezzati on the trail of a memorable moment in the pioneering days of archaeological broadcasting.

The Red Sea Scrolls: How Ancient Papyri Reveal the Secrets of the Pyramids

Review by Miroslav Bárta. The Old Kingdom papyri count among the rarest of finds. For several decades, the Abusir papyri archives from the pyramid complexes of the Fifth Dynasty kings Neferirkare and Nyuserre and queen-mother Khentkaus were among the earliest…

RIGHT Oslo’s Viking Ship Museum is currently undergoing rebuilding work, and is scheduled to reopen in 2026.

Unearthing, preserving, and presenting history

Raiding parties often consisted of genetically similar people, suggesting that they probably came from a single community or were members of the same family, such as the four brothers in one boat burial in Estonia who died on the same day.

Below This statue of Venus was found to the south of Rome and dates to the 2nd century AD. The nudity reinforces her identity as a goddess of love, but Venus was also associated with victory, harmony, and statecraft.

Divine or demonised? The many faces of feminine power

How has female authority been expressed through belief? Examining goddesses, demons, and spiritual beings from around the world exposes the true scope of feminine power, as Belinda Crerar told Matthew Symonds and Amy Brunskill.

Denisovan tooth found in Laos?

The molar has been dated to between 164,000 and 131,000 years ago.

ABOVE The study focused on ten bronze daggers found among the remains of the Bronze Age village.

New study reveals Bronze Age daggers were not status symbols, but used for animal processing

New research finally answers the question of what Bronze Age daggers were used for, as Isabella Caricola and Andrea Dolfini reveal.

Assyrian art found in underground complex

Between c.900 and 600 BC, the Neo-Assyrian empire expanded across south-eastern Anatolia, establishing rule over many Aramean city-states, and using Assyrian art to express and consolidate their power.

Palaeolithic people created art by firelight, new study suggests

The research focused on a collection of 50 limestone plaquettes from the rock-shelter site of Montastruc in southern France, which was occupied in the Magdalenian period (23,000-14,000 years ago).

Bar brawl in Pompeii

Two gladiators wearing helmets with abundant, bristling crests are immortalised in paint in this Roman fresco, recently discovered at Pompeii. On the left, a murmillo stands tall and holds his large shield high in victory, while his vanquished opponent, a…