What does Stonehenge have to do with Christmas? How did the Romans celebrate midwinter? Was Jesus really born on 25 December? How did the Medieval church merge the celebration of the Nativity with earlier pagan tradition? Why did Parliament abolish Christmas in the 17th century? What are the origins of Christmas trees, carols, and crackers? And who is Santa Claus?
Review by Graham Keevill The Historic Towns Trust was established in 1965 as part of the International Commission for European Towns to publish analytical maps of our historic urban centres. The early publications in the 1960s-1970s were multi-town volumes covering…
Review by Duncan W Wright. The fens of eastern England are usually characterised as unremittingly flat, with big skies but little topographical variation. This (frankly lazy) assumption fails to account for the subtle differences in geology and height above sea…
Review by Susan Greaney. This elegant new volume is the first book for over 60 years to focus specifically on how the world-famous Neolithic monument of Stonehenge was constructed. The narrative progresses through the step-by-step process of the extraction, transport,…
For me, the crux of this book comes on page 132. Peter Davenport explains that ‘the plan of the Classical temple [was altered] into something quite similar to the more usual plan of temples in the north-west of the empire,…
The Hundred Years' War began in 1337. For how long did it actually continue?
London Clay is an impressionistic survey of London and its history, filtered through the prism of the underlying geological strata. It is at once personal and overarching, meandering from pre-Roman to Victorian, south London to north, via what Chivers (a…
The find has been dubbed the ‘biggest mammoth discovery for a generation’
A brief look at some of the latest stories within the realm of UK archaeology, including evidence of crucifixion from Roman Cambridgeshire, the discovery of Tudor wall paintings at Old Hall in Yorkshire, and the creation of a 3D model of Neolithic Orkney's Skara Brae settlement.
Is there room for another general history of early medieval Britain? The answer is ‘yes, of course’ when it is as fresh and interesting as this one. Its USP is that it examines the history of the different peoples of…
It is 70m from where archaeological remains thought to represent a 1st-century AD temple were discovered
An intricate Roman mosaic depicting the triumph of the Greek warrior Achilles over Hector of Troy, recently unearthed in Rutland, has been hailed as the region’s most stunning archaeological discovery to-date. Hazel Blair spoke to John Thomas, Anthony Beeson, David Neal, and Peter Kruschwitz to find out more about the meaning behind its motifs.
The results will be shared in spring, in a new episode of Time Team that will air on the ‘Time Team Official’ YouTube Channel.
Recent analysis of a 1st-century lead figurine at Wall Roman site in Staffordshire, depicting a man from sub-Saharan Africa, has shed new light on perceptions of identity in Roman Britain. Carly Hilts spoke to Cameron Moffett to find out more.
These results could be used to distinguish between skeletal remains that have been cremated, and those that may have been heated as part of ritualistic defleshing practices
The excavation of a Bronze Age roundhouse on Salisbury Plain has fed into a new reconstruction at Butser Ancient Farm, using experimental archaeology to interpret its ephemeral outline. Trevor Creighton, Richard Osgood, and Rachel Pope explain.
Coins of Harold II Godwinson (r. 1066), killed at the Battle of Hastings, are not common – the British Museum’s Portable Antiquities Scheme has recorded only 28 such single finds in 24 years. Even rarer are those minted in Harold’s…
A look at the latest archaeology stories from across the globe, including a 4th century galley sunk off Egypt, evidence of social links between Mayan cities, and a study of Late Pleistocene husbandry.
The letters form part of the Honresfield Library, a private collection of manuscripts and books associated with some of the greatest writers in English and Scottish literature.
The investigations at this historic site will feature in a new series of Time Team – which last aired seven years ago.
A document detailing the process by which Henry VIII dissolved one of England’s wealthiest monasteries has been rediscovered. The Reformation-era blueprint, which discusses the suppression of Furness Abbey, was found recently by an English Heritage historian in the National Archives…
Battersea Power Station is one of several sites to have been removed from Historic England’s ‘heritage at risk’ register, the organisation has announced. The former electricity station in southwest London is in the final stages of an extensive redevelopment project…
The military museum, based in Gillingham, is the largest of its kind in Kent and contains many exhibitions telling the story of Britain’s military engineers from the Roman period through to the modern Corps of Royal Engineers.
Archaeologists excavating the ruined St Mary’s Old Church in Stoke Mandeville, Buckinghamshire, ahead of the construction of HS2 have discovered the remains of what is thought to be an Anglo-Saxon predecessor
The Fitted Rigging House at the Historic Dockyard Chatham won The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) South East Sustainability Award 2021 for its £8.2m preservation project.
The practice appears to have begun in central Europe sometime before the 6th-century AD, and then spread across the continent before reaching its peak around two-hundred-years later.
Archaeologists have long puzzled over fragments of human bone that have been found scattered around late Bronze Age settlements and placed in early Bronze Age burials like grave goods. Carly Hilts examines a recent study that sheds intriguing light on these enigmatic practices.
The remarkable preservation at Must Farm promised insights into day-to-day life that would revolutionise our knowledge of the late Bronze Age. As excavations at the site reach completion, it is already clear that we will never see that era in the same way again. Mark Knight, Susanna Harris, and Grahame Appleby told Matthew Symonds about life in a Bronze Age settlement.
These remains come from sites scattered from the Scottish Highlands to Dorset, and range in date from c.2200-750 BC
Just how quickly did Bronze Age people bury their dead? New work by Lauren Bailey, Martin Green, and Martin J Smith at Canada Farm suggests that they went to some lengths to display the deceased prior to their finally entering the earth.
Stonehenge is merely one part of a much wider sacred landscape represented today by the Stonehenge World Heritage Site. The evidence is mounting that Stonehenge itself represented a domain of the ancestors, and, as such, a place in which the final rites were performed in elaborate ceremonies marking the passage of the recently deceased from life to death.
Eberhard Sauer reports on the incredible discovery of a tombstone in Alchester, Oxfordshire; and not just any tombstone, but one which could rewrite the history of the Roman invasion and conquest of Britain.