mortuary archaeology

Grave concerns: Exploring the history of the British cemetery and its uncertain future

The cemetery – defined as a burial ground without an attached primary church or chapel – is a place where artistic, architectural, horticultural, historical, and literary interests are combined. Many were planned as places of botanical and geological instruction, while the epitaphs, extolling the moral virtues of the deceased, were intended to encourage emulation by the living. Appreciating their great value is a vital step towards ensuring that these spaces do not succumb to neglect and decline, as Chris Catling reports.

Brutality at Brading? Reinterpreting human remains from a Roman villa on the Isle of Wight

Recently published research suggests that the bones found around Brading Roman Villa could reflect violent events linked to 4th-century political upheaval. Kathryn Krakowka reports.

Living and Dying in a Lancashire Cotton Town

REVIEW BY REBECCA GOWLAND The town of Blackburn in Lancashire was a key player in Britain’s industrial cotton boom, which saw a quadrupling of its inhabitants during the first half of the 19th century. This volume presents the results of…

China unearthed: A hidden history of tombs and offerings

Deep underground, the ancient inhabitants of what is now China built remarkable houses and palaces. But these dwellings were not homes for the living. Instead, the dead would be laid there, not to rest, but to live out their afterlife in comfort. The objects and attendants that accompanied them shed light on both the deceased and the birth of a unified China, as Jessica Rawson told Matthew Symonds.

The Archaeology of Egyptian Non-Royal Burial Customs in New Kingdom Egypt and Its Empire

Review by Anna Garnett Traditional Egyptological narratives often placed Egypt at the centre, to the detriment of neighbouring cultures, with the result that our understanding of the complexities of those cultures can be partial and biased. It is always refreshing…

Darkness Visible: the Sculptor’s Cave, Covesea, from the Bronze Age to the Picts

Caves can be portals to otherworlds, and Covesea Cave on Scotland’s Moray Firth is no exception. Armit and Büster’s handsomely produced volume transports us back in time to both the late Bronze Age and Roman Iron Age, revealing exciting new…

Early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries: kinship, community, and identity

It has been more than two decades since Sam Lucy’s seminal book The Anglo-Saxon Way of Death, and in the intervening years new cemeteries, methodologies, and mortuary archaeology theory have advanced to the point that we are due a sequel.…