Hellenistic

The Graeco-Roman museum in Alexandria

Geoffrey Lenox-Smith visits the archaeological museum in Alexandria, now reopened after a long period of renovation.

Terenouthis: a Roman town in Egypt

Maiken Mosleth King explores life in Terenouthis, an important mining and trade centre that rose to prominence in the Graeco-Roman era.

Corinth’s greatest treasure

In the first of a two-part piece, Richard Hodges visits Corinth for a conversation with its legendary excavator Charles K Williams.

Kea: Settlement and sculpture on a Cycladic island

A visit to Kea allows Martin J P Davies to dip into the archaeology of a charming island.

On 1 August 1960, I visited Mycenae for the first time. In my diary I described it as a terribly moving experience, seeing the shaft graves and the famed treasuries of Atreus and Clytemnestra. Looking back, what I recall most clearly was the romance of it all.

The Oxyrhynchus Papyri: From ancient trash to historical treasure

What can the famous papyrus corpus tell us about the ordinary people of late-ancient Egypt? Richard J Britton investigates.

Master of Actium

Richard Hodges introduces the Emperor Augustus’ city of victory at Actium and interviews its renowned excavator, Kostas Zachos.

Ancient theatre of Aptera

This theatre is part of the archaeological site of Aptera, near present-day Chania, in western Crete. The ancient coastal city-state was once one of Crete’s most important commercial centres, at its peak in the Hellenistic period (late 4th-3rd centuries BC).…

The Cities of the Plain: Urbanism in Ancient Western Thessaly

REVIEW BY JOHN BINTLIFF This is a rather frustrating volume, although we need to know more about ancient Thessaly, a land of fertile plains in north-central Greece. The book focuses on 22 ancient cities in western Thessaly, typical for the…

A remarkable Roman residence

A luxurious domus dating to the late Republican period has been discovered in Rome in the area between the Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum. The site, which has been named the Domus del Vicus Tuscus, was first discovered in…

The Past

Coastal erosion threatens archaeological sites in Libya

The study suggests that the archaeological sites of Apollonia, Ptolemais, and Tocra are at risk of extensive erosion.

In the lap of luxury: decadence in the ancient Persian and Greek worlds

A new exhibition at the British Museum delves into drinking and decadence in the ancient Persian and Greek worlds. Henry Bishop-Wright tells Lucia Marchini how elements of luxury could be adopted and adapted to express power across cultures.

Left The theatre of Dodona, a site famed for its oracle. The theatre was built by Pyrrhus in the 3rd century BC.

Touring the ancient theatres of Epirus, Greece

The mountains and forests of Epirus offer a dramatic backdrop for a tour through the theatres of the Greek region’s ancient cities. Diana Bentley finds stories of a famed oracle and a celebrated victory along the way.

The British Institute at Ankara: 75 years researching Turkey

As the British Institute at Ankara celebrates a major birthday, CWA casts an eye over what it has achieved, and where it is heading.

The Past

Previously unrecorded rituals identified at ancient Egyptian shrine

The remarkable discoveries of headless falcon skeletons and a stele depicting an Egyptian falcon deity have led researchers to dub the temple the 'Falcon Shrine'.

Aï Khanoum, 1968-1973

One archaeological milestone this year is the centenary of the founding of the Délégation archéologique française en Afghanistan (DAFA) in 1922. Their century of research has included investigations at Aï Khanoum, a Hellenistic city on the banks of the Oxus…

PHOTO: Vladik Lifshitz, Israel Antiquities Authority PHOTO: Vladik Lifshitz, Israel Antiquities Authority

Remains of a Hellenistic fortress revealed in Israel

Weapons, pottery, charred wooden beams, and dozens of coins dating to the late 2nd century BC were also unearthed.

The Past

Ancient Greece Quiz

Which philosopher was the tutor of Alexander the Great?

Below The archaeological park of Libarna, showing its amphitheatre (on the right), two city blocks (left), and theatre (top centre), bisected by railways and a highway.

Libarna: revealing the complex history of a colonial city

How did the Romans learn to incorporate new groups and regions into their empire? Libarna, a Roman colony in what was the Gallic part of Italy, may hold the key to answering this question. Katherine V Huntley reveals the ancient, and modern, significance of the city.

The Spartans

Ancient historian Paul Rahe, whose monumental history of Sparta is just out, analyses the origins of the feared Spartan hoplite phalanx.

BELOW The famous Alexander Mosaic from the House of the Faun in Pompeii. It depicts the encounter between Alexander (on the left) and Darius (on the right) on the battlefield of either Issus or Gaugamela. Like virtually all our source material for Alexander, it is mythologising propaganda that offers no real clues as to what actually happened.

The Battle of Gaugamela, 1 October 331 BC

Neil Faulkner analyses one of history’s greatest tactical triumphs.

BELOW LEFT Imported Greek ceramics, including the lidded vessel and lamp seen here, were among the funerary offerings found at the burial mound in the city, in use at the end of the 5th / beginning of the 4th century BC.

Ship-shape finds from a sunken city

The newly discovered Ptolemaic galley was found under 5m of dense Nile clay and building remains.

ABOVE The front ring display of the new Cosmos model. The planets are shown by marker beads in semi precious stones and there are pointers for the Moon (with a display of its phase), Sun, Line of Nodes, and Date. In the centre is the Earth, with the semi silvered ball representing the Moon attached. Beyond that, the rings represent Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.

The Antikythera Mechanism: an ancient Greek machine rewriting the history of technology

A seemingly unassuming lump of corroded bronze has confounded investigators for more than a century, ever since it proved to contain precision gearwheels that simply should not have existed in the ancient Greek world. A new study, using cutting-edge techniques, has now revealed what this machine could do, and how it did it, as Tony Freeth explains.

OPPOSITE William Pars, Ruins of the temple of Apollo at Didyma, from the north east¸ October 1764. Pen and grey and black ink, watercolour, with gum arabic and some body colour. Size: 299 x

In search of ancient Ionia

William Pars’s poetic images of the ruins he encountered on an expedition to Ionia and Athens helped shape the taste for Greek styles in 18th-century Britain. Louise Stewart takes us on a journey to Ionia through the eyes of this young artist.

Jerash: revealing a ‘peripheral’ part of an ancient city in northern Jordan

In AD 749, the ancient city of Jerash was hit by a devastating earthquake. Excavating private houses that collapsed during the disaster has revealed a wealth of information about the Umayyad city. These, though, are just some of the finds encountered during recent archaeological work in the north-western part of the site, as Achim Lichtenberger, Eva Mortensen, and Rubina Raja reveal.