Gold tongues and Homer
A Spanish mission working at the ancient site of Oxyrhynchus (Bahnasa, in Minya) has found a Roman tomb containing wooden coffins and a number of mummies, three with gold tongues, and one with a tongue of copper. Some of the…
funerary rites
The Bamburgh Bowl Hole Anglian-period Cemetery: a bioarchaeological study ofa Northumbrian royal site
In 1815, Mount Tambora erupted, producing one of the largest volcanic eruptions in modern history, and causing extreme weather events for several years. Violent storms in winter 1816-1817 eroded a series of stone lined graves in the sand south of…
Lechlade’s buried secrets: Revisiting a long-lived ritual landscape in Gloucestershire
In 2017, excavations revealed an unusual Bronze Age burial alongside other signs of ceremonial activity spanning thousands of years. With some of the grave goods now on display, CA returns to the story of the Lechlade ‘chieftain’.
The swords in the stones: New insights from an unusual child burial in Gloucestershire
Recent analysis of the remains of two children who were buried in the same grave in 7th-century Gloucestershire has revealed them to be brother and sister. CA reports.
The History of Ancient Egypt Explored Through its Gods, Myths and Rituals
As Lucia Gahlin explains in the final chapter of this book, popular perceptions of ancient Egyptian culture are traditionally informed by the works of Graeco-Roman writers, and by modern interpretations of Egypt’s ancient history in literature and film. But in…
Pets & their People
Today, 17 million UK households have at least one pet. Carly Hilts visited a new exhibition in Oxford exploring humans’ long and varied relationships with animals.
Cremation in the Early Middle Ages: death, fire, and identity in north-west Europe
REVIEW BY SAM LEGGETT This volume reads as a ‘Who’s Who’ of early medieval cremation research, with most of the top historians, funerary-, and bio-archaeologists assembled. Williams and Lippok have been truly innovative here with how they have assembled the…
Getting off on the right foot in Roman Canterbury
Researchers from Canterbury Christ Church University have developed a novel method for visualising Roman footwear, even in cases where the leather has completely disintegrated, by using radiography on soil-blocks containing hobnails. The study was based on a Romano-British (late 3rd…
Analysing an ancient Egyptian genome
A recent study has successfully carried out full genome sequencing of a person from ancient Egypt for the first time.
Violent victory celebrations
Recent analysis has shed new light on the circumstances surrounding a pair of unusual Neolithic mass graves in north-east France. Around a decade ago, two late Middle Neolithic burial pits were discovered at the sites of Bergheim and Achenheim in…
The dangerous dead: Exploring the cross-cultural continuity of deviant burials
Vampires and zombies are not just the fictional creation of 19th-century novelists, nor modern film directors and creators of computer games – John Blair’s new book, Killing the Dead, shows that there is a long history of belief in the ability of the dead to leave their graves and cause harm to the living. Making sure this cannot happen results in extraordinary burial practices, as Chris Catling reports.
Intact Etruscan chamber tomb discovered
An untouched Etruscan chamber tomb dating to the 7th century BC has been uncovered in the San Giuliano necropolis in Lazio, central Italy. Investigations in the area have been carried out since 2016 by the San Giuliano Archaeological Research Project,…
Mum’s the word: tracing a matrilocal society in Iron Age Dorset
Analysis of human remains from Winterborne Kingston in Dorset (see CA 281) has revealed evidence of female-centred societal structures in this area of Iron Age Britain, as well as genetic links to Continental Europe. Matrilocality, a societal pattern whereby marriage…
Rare Bronze Age coffin sheds light on ancient funerary rites
The coffin, thought to date back c. 4,000 years, was crafted from a hollowed-out oak tree trunk
‘We are only sleeping master’: tracing the evolution of pet cemeteries
Burial grounds dedicated to domestic animals offer unique opportunities to investigate how our relationships with pets have changed over time. When and how did these cemeteries develop? Recent research by Eric Tourigny holds the key to new understanding, as Current Archaeology reports.