Diarmaid MacCulloch, the eminently readable author of numerous books on ecclesiastical history, gave his bestselling work on the history of Christianity the provocative subtitle ‘The first three thousand years’, making the point that there is much in Christian ritual and iconography that is drawn from pre-Christian practice.
A wooden beam decorated with a lifelike human face has been discovered in Lake Lednica, Poland. Systematic underwater archaeological research in Lake Lednica has been taking place since the 1980s and has uncovered a wealth of material. Among the finds…
This past autumn a rare gold shilling – called a thrymsa – was found in a field near Norwich by a metal-detectorist. It represents a completely new type of coin, dated to the 7th century and containing both Christian and…
A major exhibition at the National Museum of Denmark is exploring the mysterious Viking Age Völva.
These days, some would have us believe that Christmas has been ‘hijacked’ – that the season of good cheer has been rudely stripped of its religious connotation (of ‘mass on Christ’s day’) and replaced instead by a secular and commercially…
There are some things we can say with certainty about the Roman god Mithras. We know, for instance, that this wonderfully enigmatic deity flourished between the 1st and 4th centuries AD, but was inspired by the much more ancient Indo-Iranian…
What name is given to the king of Rome's gods?
I was conscious of being several decades older than most of the other graduates, but as Rosemary Cramp said when I told her about my plans, ‘Nobody under 50 should study for a PhD because they don’t have enough experience to make an original contribution.’
Archaeologists unearthed the figurine in a prehistoric gully near a Hallstatt period settlement occupied in the 8th-6th century BC.
It’s a scary thought for parents. After an enforced pause in 2020, Halloween spending is expected this year to return to something like pre-pandemic levels – which in 2019 stood at £474m in the UK alone, according to market analyst…
Is the Cerne Abbas Giant a prehistoric creation honouring a fertility god, or perhaps even a crude representation of Oliver Cromwell?
Relationships between contemporary Pagan groups and those who work in the fields of archaeology and heritage management have been strained for many years due to disagreements over ancient sites and human remains. Inspired by Francis Pryor’s assertion that both groups…
Following our feature exploring the Cerne Abbas Giant’s date, Brian Edwards offers some thought-provoking insights into the Dorset hill figure’s historical context.