For the last three years, excavations outside the walls of Birdoswald Roman fort have been helping to characterise the community who lived in its shadow. Carly Hilts visited the site and spoke to Ian Haynes to learn more.
A new five-year project by the Vindolanda Trust is shedding unprecedented light on Magna Roman fort and nearby Milecastle 46, as well as providing invaluable data about how the local environment – and the underlying archaeology – is being affected by climate change. Carly Hilts visited Rachel Frame and Franki Gillis on site to hear the story so far.
Colchester was the first capital of Roman Britain, and excavations within the town frequently uncover evidence of this chapter of its past. Colchester Castle, built over the ancient temple of Claudius, is currently home to an exhibition exploring one aspect of Roman life (and, for many unlucky participants, death): the gladiatorial games. Glynn Davis is our guide.
For 40 years, since the establishment of the Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England in 1983, Historic England has been protecting the country’s parks and gardens – with the Register now comprising more than 1,700…
Joe Flatman explores over half a century of reports from the past.
REVIEW BY ROB IXER After a slight temporal dip, we are back riding up on to a crest of the sine curve called ‘popular Stonehenge book publication’ (sadly, for a sun-orientated temple, this appears out of phase with the solar…
Christopher Catling, Contributing Editor for CA, delves into the eccentricities of the heritage world.
We are grateful to LPRS Council member Simon Oliver for contributing this month’s ‘Odd Socs’ column.
REVIEW BY NEIL HOLBROOK Did all the buildings in the Roman countryside that we call ‘villas’ perform the same function? Were they mostly nicely appointed homes of people who had done well at farming, or country residences of the well-to-do…
REVIEW BY MATTHEW SYMONDS Roman Scotland has long been a battleground. The remarkable remains of military works testify to the manpower that Rome committed to northern Britain, while the ancient literature reports fighting of varying intensity. An absence of any…
REVIEW BY JACQUELINE A NOWAKOWSKI Mount’s Bay, west Cornwall, hosts a major drowned landscape. This attractive and well-produced monograph successfully integrates results of the excavation of a Bronze Age enclosure barrow, east of Penzance in the littoral zone, with excellent…
REVIEW BY ANDREW TIBBS The study of Roman frontiers goes from strength to strength, as demonstrated in this volume, which marked the 30th annual conference of the Arbeia Society, the organisation that manages the Roman fort and recreated buildings at…
REVIEW BY JOHN HUNT Burton Dassett, in the Warwickshire Feldon, has previously attracted attention as representing rural settlements in the area that suffered depopulation in the late medieval period. This long-awaited publication of the excavations undertaken at Southend between 1986…
This is a unique early Bronze Age pin, made from the first phalanx (or toe-bone) of a golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos). It is the only example ever found in a Bronze Age funerary context in England, with only one other…
Rubina Raja and Søren M Sindbæk on low-density urbanism at ancient sites
When La Tène was discovered more than 150 years ago, the site gave its name to the second half of the Iron Age across much of Europe, and objects of La Tène type are often equated with the Celts. But what was found at La Tène? Andrew Fitzpatrick and Marc-Antoine Kaeser explore the changing interpretations of this iconic site.
In 1950, Peter Williams-Hunt published a paper in Antiquity entitled ‘Irregular earthworks in eastern Siam: a review’. A former RAF pilot, he had pored over wartime aerial photos taken of the extensive Khorat Plateau in North-east Thailand. He was intrigued…
In the south-eastern margins of the Zimbabwe plateau sit the ruins of southern Africa’s first major city, Great Zimbabwe. The city was established as the capital of the Karanga kingdom in the 11th century AD, and remained occupied until the…
The release of the latest Indiana Jones film presents an opportunity to reflect on how archaeology has been depicted in the franchise. Hélène Maloigne investigates the realities of archaeological fieldwork in the eras spanned by the movies.
Last summer, one day stands out. While on holiday on the Ionian island of Kefalonia, I persuaded three friends to spend a morning investigating a castle that has intrigued me. Situated on a high hill, the ruins command breathtaking views…
The impressive ancient temples, villas, and theatres of Sicily understandably attract the attention of many visitors, but looking beyond the monuments to their spectacular natural surroundings and the stories they inspired also offers a way to understand the island’s ancient societies. David Stuttard guides us through Sicily’s mythological landscapes.
For over 30 years a pioneering project has investigated the prehistory of the Izmir region of Turkey. What has it discovered? Vasıf Şahoğlu told Matthew Symonds an epic tale of rise and fall, connectivity and technology, and the long shadows cast by devastating natural disasters.
What is it? This gold pendant, known to specialists as a bracteate, is 5cm in diameter and comes from a Danish hoard dated to the 6th century AD – the object itself dates to the early 5th century. The front…
REVIEW BY TIM WILLIAMS This book is a collection of papers that focus on themes of human migration, communication, and cross-cultural exchange along the Silk Roads, from the 3rd millennium BC to the early 2nd millennium AD. The volume is…
REVIEW BY GEORGE NASH Due to current climate change, the coastline of north-western Europe is in a state of flux, resulting in the slow but inevitable inundation of the sea. This change in coastline is clearly witnessed by the ongoing disappearance…
REVIEW BY ROLAND ENNOS Given the preponderance of stone, bronze, and iron artefacts found at archaeological sites, and their usefulness in enabling archaeologists to date their finds, it has perhaps been inevitable that so much research has concentrated on these…
Buried in lead The excellent Museum of Antiquities in Rouen, Normandy, has mounted a special exhibition called Le Plomb et l’homme (Lead and Man; open until 5 March 2024) devoted to the large number of Gallo-Roman lead coffins and funerary…
Just over 30 years after the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863, a young reporter who had never heard a shot fired in anger managed to produce a literary classic that not only captured the intensity and confusion of the bitter…
To mark the 225th anniversary of Nelson’s spectacular victory off the coast of Egypt, Stephen Roberts analyses the battle that made his name as a naval commander.
MHM’s round-up of the latest military history titles
John Lock resumes his occasional series on the ‘Butterfly Effect’ by examining another event that would have unforeseen consequences. This time, he turns his attention to Paul Revere’s ‘midnight ride’ and the events that became known as the ‘shot heard round the world’.
DAVID PORTER ON MILITARY HISTORY’S DOOMED INVENTIONS
Graham Goodlad analyses the events that enabled Parliament to win control of northern England.
When the army of Europe’s most powerful monarch besieged the Tuscan city in 1554, it took terror and hunger to achieve what cannon and arquebus could not, as William E Welsh explains.
It was the critical time, when the tide finally turned in the West. But even victories at Stalingrad, in North Africa, and in Sicily could not mask the tensions between the Allied ‘Big Three’. Eighty years on, Taylor Downing describes a pivotal period in World War II.
Graham Goodlad examines the relationship that broke the Royalist cause in the English Revolution.