A painting depicting a key moment before the Battle of Waterloo has gone on public display for the first time in a generation. Dawn of Waterloo, painted by Victorian artist Lady Butler, was acquired by the National Army Museum (NAM)…
Plans for a new, more sustainable garden within the ruins of Scotney Castle in Kent have given archaeologists the rare opportunity to explore the medieval mansion’s buried remains. Carly Hilts visited Nat Cohen on site to find out more.
This is a medieval seal matrix found by a metal-detectorist in the parish of Lockerley, Hampshire. It is made of cast copper-alloy and most likely dates to between 1470 and 1520. Measuring a diminutive 6cm by 4cm, it is a…
Aseries of 25 Mesolithic pits have been discovered in Linmere, near Houghton Regis in Bedfordshire. This is the highest number of pits from this period ever found at a single site in England, making this one of the largest Mesolithic…
Wood, for obvious reasons, is a rare discovery in the world of archaeology, with any and all recovered artefacts made from such a material heavily prized for research opportunities. Because of its relative scarcity, though, the best methodologies for analysing…
Palaeolithic portable art Several small limestone slabs, found at an open-air site at Bellegarde in south-eastern France in 2015 by Inrap archaeologists, have recently been identified as containing rare carvings made during the Upper Palaeolithic. Portable art from this period…
Last month we reported on the launch of the first modern excavations at Magna Roman fort and the nearby Milecastle 46 on Hadrian’s Wall, and finds from this period have already started to appear. One of the most exciting artefacts…
An Iron Age hoard consisting of 15 gold coins known as ‘staters’ was discovered in Llangoed Community, Anglesey, by three metal-detectorists between July 2021 and March 2022. This is the first hoard of gold staters to be found in all…
The recent re-analysis of an unusual Iron Age burial from the Isles of Scilly – which contained grave goods typical of both men and women from this period – has shown that its occupant was biologically female. Discovered on the…
In the wake of the discovery of the Antonine Wall fortlet found at Carleith Farm in West Dunbartonshire (see CA 400), another one has been revealed, this time at Bonnyside, near Falkirk, on the more eastern side of the wall.…
A stone used by Neolithic people to sharpen stone axes, known as a ‘polissoir’, has been discovered in the Valley of Stones near Portesham in Dorset. Previously, most polissoirs in England had only been discovered buried in chambered tombs, placed…
Europe’s first commercial steamship scheduled The wreck of the Comet – a wooden paddle steamer, created by Henry Bell in the early 19th century – has recently been designated as a scheduled monument by Historic Environment Scotland. It was built…
A round-up of some of the latest news from the world of ancient Egypt.
Analysis of the contents of a Ptolemaic Bes-shaped jug from the Tampa Museum of Art in Florida has revealed a complex concoction of fermented fruit, psychoactive plant-based substances, and human fluids that include breast milk, oral and vaginal fluids, and…
A study just published by an interdisciplinary team from Belgium and France has revealed small changes and ‘touch-ups’ to paintings in Theban tombs, showing that images were often adapted and reworked during their execution, rather than created by means of…
Routine work on fragments of a Ptolemaic Period papyrus at the University of Graz Library in Austria has revealed traces of stitching, suggesting the text was once part of a book, rather than a scroll. Found at el-Hiba necropolis in…
The American-Egyptian South Abydos Project team has completed the restoration of the Tetisheri Pyramid, the last such structure to be built for an Egyptian queen. It was erected as a memorial to the queen by her grandson Ahmose I, founder…
Evidence of an ancient hydraulic engineering system has been discovered along the banks of the Nile by the British Museum’s Amara West Research Project. Satellite imagery and aerial drone and ground surveys revealed a 600-mile network of nearly 1,300 river…
Analysis of the silver bracelets belonging to the Fourth Dynasty queen Hetepheres I has revealed the origins of the silver ore used in Egypt, and the extent of Egypt’s trading networks. A team led by researchers from Macquarie University in…
Tutankhamun’s face has been recreated by researchers from Australia, Italy, and Brazil to demonstrate a new modelling technique based on the use of digitised graphic information. Although the team did not have access to the king’s actual remains, they were…
Two mummification workshops – the largest and most complete ever found – have been discovered by the Egyptian mission working in the Sacred Animal Cemetery (Bubasteum) at Saqqara. Dating to the Thirtieth Dynasty and Ptolemaic periods, each structure was made…
The latest on exhibitions, acquisitions, and key decisions.
For almost 30 years, the Cambridge Archaeological Unit (CAU) has been uncovering diverse archaeological features and finds at one of the UK’s largest sand- and gravel-extraction sites. Excavations have illuminated a landscape of prehistoric settlements, field systems, and monuments, located just three miles east of St Ives in Cambridgeshire. Matthew Brudenell, Charles Barker, Jonathan Tabor, and Chris Wakefield report on the latest discoveries.
A facial reconstruction of the early medieval teenager who was laid to rest in a bed burial in Trumpington, Cambridgeshire, has been carried out by forensic artist Hew Morrison for a new exhibition, ‘Beneath Our Feet: archaeology of the Cambridge…
Pre-Hispanic landscape of Bolivia illuminated A large archaeological survey across the Carangas region of highland Bolivia has identified 135 hilltop sites, each with a number of circular walls built on terraces, ranging between two and nine per location. Ceramics discovered…
Bayesian statistical modelling of a series of radiocarbon dates from the Neolithic site of Dorstone Hill, in south- west Herefordshire (recently published in Antiquity: ), suggests that it may represent some of the earliest Neolithic activity in the West Midlands,…
Researchers from the University of York, York Museums Trust, and Heritage360 have recently carried out a 3D scan of a Roman gypsum burial – a practice in which liquid gypsum was poured over the body before interment. This project, the…
Recent excavations by Cotswold Archaeology in Harnham, along Netherhampton Road on the western edge of Salisbury, have uncovered a large barrow cemetery, consisting of at least 20 burial mounds. While several Bronze Age barrow cemeteries have been identified in the…
Excavations at Manor Farm in Frindsbury, Kent – in advance of the construction of a Maritime Academy – have revealed more than 800 stone artefacts found within sediments thought to relate to a Middle Pleistocene tributary of the River Medway.…
Strontium isotope analysis has become a standard in mobility research, featuring in many post-excavation analyses of human and animal remains. While ‘typical’ strontium analysis is able to tell us much about movement in the past, new techniques are being applied…
A large Roman mausoleum, used to bury high-status individuals, was recently discovered by MOLA during excavations in advance of the redevelopment of a site near Borough Market in Southwark, by Landsec and Transport for London (TfL). The foundations, which measured…
A recent study has used geochemical analysis to compare brass manillas traded with West Africa in the 16th-19th centuries with the materials used to make the famous Benin Bronzes, in order to find out more about their possible origins.
Archaeologists working at Old Dongola in Sudan have stumbled across a set of unusual 13th-century Christian wall paintings.
A rare example of Upper Palaeolithic portable art has been found at an open-air site in south-eastern France. Bellegarde, located between Nîmes and Arles, was discovered in 2015 by Inrap archaeologists. Excavations across c.2,000m2 of the multi-phase site have produced…
A recent study has determined that a leather saddle found in north-western China may be the oldest surviving example currently known. Exactly when horse-riding and the use of saddles began is still a subject of some debate, but the latest…
Archaeological surveys in the Carangas region of highland Bolivia have identified a previously unrecognised concentration of religious sites built by the pre-Hispanic inhabitants of the area, including one site with characteristics currently unique in the Andes. The survey identified 135…