Hilary Wilson on… Earrings
For this issue, Hilary turns her attention to one form of jewellery worn by both women and men in ancient Egypt.
material culture
Medieval Women: In Their Own Words
A new exhibition at the British Library shines vivid light on female deeds and desires between 1100 and 1500, as Carly Hilts reports.
Finds Tray – Vulcan figurine
This figurine was found by a metal-detectorist near Holton-le-Clay in East Lindsey, Lincolnshire. Although it is lacking its head, enough stylistic features have survived to identify it as representing Vulcan, Roman god of fire and the forge, who lends his…
Artefact
REVIEW BY CH Corinium is how the Romans knew Cirencester; today it is the name of the Cotswold town’s museum. Its displays include a wealth of Roman finds, as well as artefacts spanning prehistory to the present day – and…
From Samarkand to Sutton Hoo: Exploring the impact of the Silk Roads on early medieval Britain and Ireland
A new exhibition running at the British Museum explores the vast network of cultural and commercial connections that spanned Europe, Africa, and Asia in AD 500-1000. Carly Hilts visited to learn how diverse ideas, materials, and people filtered along these routes to the British Isles.
50 Early Medieval Finds
REVIEW BY AB Once characterised as a ‘Dark Age’, Britain’s early medieval period is dark no more. These days, impressions of the era have been transformed by headline finds like the intricate gold filigree metalwork from Sutton Hoo and the…
Scraps of memory: Illuminating the imaginative worlds of Sutton House’s 17th-century schoolgirls
A handful of tiny paper items discovered at Sutton House in Hackney offer a unique insight into the interests of the girls who were educated there in the 17th century. Carly Hilts spoke to Nathalie Cohen, Isabella Rosner, Kate Simpson, and Abigail Winslow to find out more.
Seeking the Silk Roads: An extraordinary story of the power of connections
The Silk Road has long been seen as a conduit for exotic goods travelling both east and west. But taking a wider perspective reveals how extraordinary objects and ideas were moving much more widely, as Sue Brunning and Luk Yu-ping told Matthew Symonds.
Etruscan bronze lamp
What is it? This ornate bronze hanging oil lamp, 60cm in diameter and weighing 57.72kg, comes from the Etruscan civilisation. It is decorated with a unique combination of iconography that has been the subject of discussion since its discovery. In…
Byblos: A Legacy Unearthed
REVIEW BY PAUL NEWSON This lavishly produced A4 book is one outcome of a recent major exhibition jointly organised by the Netherlands and Lebanese antiquities services, and held in the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden during the winter of 2022…
A home for hunter-gatherers? Reconstructing ‘Britain’s oldest house’ at the Yorkshire Museum
A recent experimental archaeology project has seen the construction of a replica of one of Star Carr’s 11,000-year-old structures in York’s Museum Gardens. Carly Hilts visited the build and spoke to Professor Nicky Milner, Dr Jess Bates, and Dr Adam Parker to learn more.
Current Research in Egyptology: Beyond ethnicity
Marwan Kilani reconsiders our ideas about collective identities in New Kingdom sources.
Faking it: The new kingdom’s faux-stone funerary vessels
James Harrell looks at the time-honoured practice of imitating costly materials with cheaper ones.
New origin for an ancient game
The game of 58 Holes – also known as ‘Hounds and Jackals’ – is one of the oldest games in the world. It was long thought to have originated in Egypt, with the oldest example dating to the Eleventh Dynasty…
The Archaeology of Pharaonic Egypt: Society and Culture, 2700-1700 BC
REVIEW BY ANNA GARNETT For those undertaking formal or informal study of Egyptian archaeology, a number of key textbooks focusing on the social lives of the ancient Egyptian people will always be on the reading list – Barry Kemp’s seminal…
Museum of Cornish Life: a new archaeology display
A new display drawing on the Museum of Cornish Life’s extensive archaeological collections was recently unveiled. Laura Miucci introduces its key themes and highlights her favourite finds.
Six Lives at the National Portrait Gallery, London
Carly Hilts visited a new exhibition aiming to restore individuality to six women often grouped merely as the ‘wives of Henry VIII’.
Finds Tray – Roman glass
Found in 2019, but only recently uploaded to the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) website, this beautiful piece of Roman glass once formed part of a colourful bracelet. It dates to c.AD 50-200 and was discovered in East Riding, Yorkshire, as…
50 Finds from Childhood: Objects from the Portable Antiquities Scheme
REVIEW BY RP Unlike other books from the 50 Finds series, Kayt Hawkins’ volume explores objects that are grouped not by geographical location or chronological period, but instead collected as an assemblage under the broad theme of ‘childhood’. The majority…
Creatures of the Nile: What animals did for ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt owed many debts to the creatures that lived in and beside the Nile. Both wild and domesticated animals offered an abundance of food, raw materials, and inspiration. But just as animals helped shape ancient Egypt, so too humans had an impact on the species roaming the Nile valley, as Gina Criscenzo-Laycock and Juliet Spedding told Matthew Symonds.
Napoleonic-era graffiti found at Dover Castle
This image shows a castle door, which was etched with some macabre graffiti by English soldiers during the Napoleonic era. The simple wooden plank door, from the top of a remote tower in Dover Castle, was rediscovered years ago, but…
Finds Tray – Doll
This unusual-looking doll was found by a mudlarker in a brook in Leicestershire earlier this year. A remarkable find, the lead- alloy female figure is the only complete example of such a doll currently recorded on the PAS database. The…
Archaeology of the Roman Conquest: Tracing the legions, reclaiming the conquered
REVIEW BY JOHN REID The attraction of ancient Rome is as potent today as it has ever been – just turn on your TV or look at any popular history bookstand – and how can we resist such an alluring…
Current Research in Egyptology: Unveiling Ancient Egyptian Black Coffins
Marwa Abdel Razek and Mounira Raslan explore the role of Pauserhat, ‘scribe of the textile workshops’, and the significance of his black coffin.
Must Farm revisited: Extraordinary insights into everyday Bronze Age life
Between 2015 and 2016, Cambridge Archaeological Unit excavated Britain’s most completely preserved prehistoric settlement outside Whittlesey, near Peterborough. As a time-capsule of late Bronze Age life, Must Farm is unique; now, with post-excavation analysis published in full, Carly Hilts explores how the site’s significance lies in its ordinariness.
Finds Tray – Glass bead
This glass bead was a surface find by a metal-detectorist in Wanston. It is an example of an ‘eye’ bead, possibly dating to the Early Iron Age (c.800-c.350 BC), and was found on an area of farmland known to have…
CWA #125 crossword, and answers to crossword #124
Across 6 Large knife often found among Anglo-Saxon grave goods (9)8 Fertility goddess worshipped at Carthage (5)10 ___ Wall, Roman fortification in Scotland (8)11 Extinct Tibeto-Burman language (6)12 Opponent of Greece at the battles of Thermopylae and Salamis (6)13 US…
Dead Man’s Chest: exploring the archaeology of piracy
REVIEW BY SHANNON LEE DAWDY Dead Man’s Chest is a collection of essays and research reports by practising archaeologists and historians who have conducted work on shipwrecks, terrestrial sites, artefact collections, and archival sources. It is the third book in…
Living in the Ice Age
REVIEW BY AB What was life like for the inhabitants of Europe in the last Ice Age? How did they make their clothes? Did children play with toys? What was their relationship with dogs? These are just some of the…
Combing through history: Ipswich, Suffolk
A new publication, An Early Medieval Craft: antler and bone working from Ipswich excavations 1974-1994, details the extraordinary Viking Age finds discovered over the course of 20 years of digging in the town by Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service (SCCAS).…
Forum: Comments and conundrums
Your observations, your objections, and your opinions: send them to cwaletters@world-archaeology.com
Rethinking migrations in late prehistoric Eurasia
REVIEW BY MS Migrations are back. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, large-scale population movements were frequently the go-to explanation for the appearance in the archaeological record of new ways of doing things – be it novel building styles,…
Iberians
A collaborative exhibition explores the Iron Age people of the Iberian Peninsula. Amy Brunskill spoke to curator Laurent Gorgerat to find out more.
Historic game boards in Kenya
A collection of shallow pits carved into a rock ledge, believed to be mancala game boards, have been identified in central Kenya. Mancala is a group of two-player strategy games that involve moving tokens across rows of shallow holes in…
Zimingzhong 凝时聚珍: clockwork treasures from China’s Forbidden City
London’s Science Museum is currently home to more than 20 examples of intricately ornate timepieces loaned from the Palace Museum in Beijing. Carly Hilts visited to find out more.
Making Flour the German Way in Roman Britain: Distribution, use, and deposition of imported lava quernstones and millstones
REVIEW BY ROB IXER Broken fragmentary Niedermendig (Banfield convincingly suggests that Mayen is the better term) lava is commonly recorded, but seemingly in passing, from Roman (and later) sites. This 190-page, very well-figured text corrects this slight, and must now…