Aberdeenshire is known for its Pictish symbol stones, but until recently evidence for Pictish settlements in the region was sparse and our understanding of Pictish sites even more tenuous. This has now changed dramatically, in large part due to a…
Study of the monuments at Jelling has revealed much about an extraordinary royal complex in 10th-century Denmark. Olympia Bobou, Ilaria Bucci, Rowan S English, and Rubina Raja explore the evolution of the site.
Put your military history knowledge to the test with our competition.
In the first part of our special feature for this issue, Stephen Roberts traces the life of this extraordinary individual; while in the second part, he looks in more detail at Charlemagne’s victory at Pavia, which helped him establish the foundations of the Holy Roman Empire.
Infographics: Amy Brunskill
Although there are some statues of Amenemhat III as a young man, others depict him in later years with large ears and what appears to be a careworn expression. AE recounts the life and times of this, the last major king of the Twelfth Dynasty.
The Predynastic tomb found in 1988 sheds light on the development of the earliest Egyptian state.
REVIEW BY FINBAR McCORMICK This book is the first interdisciplinary analysis of early Irish kingship based on both historical and archaeological sources; it was formerly the preserve of just historians. This new approach is a fresh contribution to our understanding…
REVIEW BY TIMOTHY MATNEY The academic world inhabited by Sumerologists and Assyriologists is highly specialised and largely inaccessible for even the hardiest lovers of history. The texts themselves are fragmentary, often pieced together from disparate copies, deliberately anachronistic, and range…
Philippe Rosset explores the iconography of this ceremonial weapon, which marks a transitional moment in Egyptian kingship.
Wolfram Grajetzki continues his series on the Twelfth Dynasty pharaohs with one of the lesser-known kings of the Middle Kingdom: Nubkaura Amenemhat II.
The Narmer Palette may be regarded as the world’s first historical document, recording the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt in about 3000 BC.
Review by Kelly Kilpatrick The Picts first appear in written sources as a cultural entity to the north of the Roman frontier, and disappear from the written record before the turn of the 1st millennium. In combination with their still…
Summer is in full swing, bringing with it the promise of long, bright days under the shining sun. This all-powerful celestial body has long been linked with kingship: Louis XIV of France, for example, famously chose the sun as his…
In this latest publication in the ‘50 Finds’ series from the Portable Antiquities Scheme, John Naylor draws on a selection of 50 early medieval coins from the 10,000 recorded in the PAS database to present a sweeping yet engaging history…