War Classics: ‘The Face of Battle’
The Vietnam War and associated public distaste for military intervention also provided a challenge as to how the study of warfare was conducted and presented.
Paid
The Great Defiance: How the world took on the British Empire
REVIEW BY ANDREW MULHOLLAND This is a provocative book which will ruffle feathers, perhaps among some MHM readers. But it is also an important one. While the heart of The Great Defiance is historic, presenting an alternative narrative of what…
The Women Behind the Few: the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force and British Intelligence during the Second World War
REVIEW BY COLIN POMEROY With The Women Behind the Few, Sarah-Louise Miller has produced a truly excellent book telling the story of women in multiple roles during the Second World War. The book actually begins with the Great War, with…
Hitler’s Panzer Generals: Guderian, Hoepner, Reinhardt, and Schmidt unguarded
REVIEW BY CALUM HENDERSON ‘The longer the war lasts the lesser my opinion of the generals.’ These were the words in April 1943 of Ulrich von Hassell, a German diplomat who was executed for his role in the 20 July…
Gateway to Britannia: reimagining Richborough Roman fort
Richborough in Kent was one of the key locations in the early stages of the Roman invasion of Britain, later flourishing into a wealthy port town and then a significant military site. Over the last century, excavations have provided an extraordinary array of insights into the experiences of people who lived and worked within its walls – now, following a transformation of the on-site museum and the presentation of the outdoor archaeology, what new stories are there to tell? Carly Hilts visited to find out more.
Wren 300
In CA 373, we lamented the lack of a society ready to take on the task of managing the tercentenary of the death of Sir Christopher Wren. Fortunately, the Georgian Group has put on the mantle of chief co-ordinator of…
The Public Archaeology of Treasure
Review by Emily A Freeman The term ‘Treasure’ is complicated and has a variety of connotations for those inside and outside the heritage sector. This book of collected papers explores the legal and cultural attitudes towards ‘Treasure’, with many of the…
Deciphering the Stone of Destiny
The Stone of Destiny – an ancient symbol of the Scottish monarchy – has undergone extensive new analysis in preparation for its role in the Coronation of Charles III at Westminster Abbey. The Stone was taken by Edward I during…
Tarradale Through Time: community archaeology on the Black Isle
Review by CH This beautifully presented book (illustrated in colour throughout) showcases the results of an archaeological initiative that set out to engage the Tarradale community with their local heritage, and, through six excavations between 2017 and 2019 (see CA…
Found and lost: tracing a later prehistoric engraved stone from Shropshire
When a rock carved with late prehistoric imagery was uncovered in Shropshire – a county where examples of ancient artwork are notably scarce – it was recognised as a very significant find. George Nash reports on the discovery, its motifs, its place in British rock-art research, and its uncertain future.
Rethinking Roundhouses: later prehistoric settlement in Britain and beyond
Review by Trevor Creighton This book is, in part, an update of D W Harding’s 2009 publication, The Iron Age Roundhouse. Significant new insights from the author justify the updated title, however. The chronology now extends from the later Neolithic…
Beyond the sea
Humans in the late Palaeolithic lived mainly on the coastline at a time when sea levels were up to 100m lower than they are today, meaning much of the archaeology of this period now lies below the waves.
Signalling and Performance: ancient rock art in Britain and Ireland
Review by Ceri Pennington This book presents a compilation of new interpretations of prehistoric rock art across Britain and Ireland. The beautifully illustrated volume is filled with images displaying art from a range of different sites. Case studies originate from…
Excavating the Lowlands and Borders
The Scots borders have it all in terms of archaeological content. Within a discrete area, this column spans the Neolithic through to the post-medieval period
Whispering Walls: First World War graffiti
Review by AB Almost every village in the Hauts-de-France region is home to a quarry, dug centuries ago as a source of limestone for their houses and churches, and often used as hiding places in times of trouble over the…
Scent back in time: how ancient odours can bring the past to life
For half a century, AromaPrime has been creating historically accurate scents for museum exhibits and heritage attractions. Carly Hilts spoke to Heritage Scenting Consultant Liam R Findlay to learn more about how smells can help to conjure up the distant past.
In the lap of luxury: decadence in the ancient Persian and Greek worlds
A new exhibition at the British Museum delves into drinking and decadence in the ancient Persian and Greek worlds. Henry Bishop-Wright tells Lucia Marchini how elements of luxury could be adopted and adapted to express power across cultures.
The Etruscans in the Modern Imagination
Review by Lucy Shipley This book is very clearly a passion project, the result of a lifetime’s love for and engagement with the Etruscan past. It provides a rare opportunity to hear the views of a specialist from another discipline,…
The rise of royalty in prehistoric Europe
Extraordinary burials discovered in south-eastern Europe marked out individuals even at a time of egalitarian societies. Attila Gyucha and William A Parkinson guide us through spectacular finds from eleven countries that show how the elite grew their power in prehistory.
Nubia: Lost Civilizations
Review by Nigel Fletcher-Jones In recent years there has been increasing desire among travellers to visit the archaeological sites of southern Egypt and Sudan in search of ‘ancient Nubia’, an elongated oval that stretched either side of the Nile from…
Siena’s medieval monuments
As the Tuscan city of Siena grew in prosperity, its citizens made their mark through magnificent art and architecture, from aristocratic towers to allegorical frescoes. Historian Jane Stevenson takes us on a tour of its medieval monuments.
Brigit: Irish goddess turned Christian saint?
She is a goddess of poetry, medicine, and blacksmithing, but there is no mention of the fire that becomes associated with her sainted counterpart.
Wooden wonders of Herculaneum
An astonishing array of wooden objects has survived from Herculaneum, carbonised by the volcanic eruption that destroyed the town. This invaluable material may be less showy than the celebrated marble and bronze statuary, but it was still used for everything from beams and boats to purses and small shrines, as Dalu Jones finds out.
Face to face with Fayum mummy portraits
The Fayum mummy portraits are masterpieces of ancient painting, but are they portraits? With an exhibition of these paintings and golden mummies on view in Manchester, Lucia Marchini speaks to Egyptologist Campbell Price to find out more.
Margaret Alice Murray (1863-1963)
These same people would not hesitate to wear a scarab-ring taken off a dead man’s hand… Their objections – their opinions even – are an offence to science.
Gods of Thunder: How Climate Change, Travel, and Spirituality Reshaped Precolonial America
Review by Eric Singleton It is a welcome departure to see a scholar stepping outside their regionalised field of study to offer an interconnected view of North American history that is not often discussed. This is what Timothy Pauketat, an…
Jalame, 1963-1971
Viewers of the Netflix competition series Blown Away will be familiar both with the mesmerising transformations that take place under extreme heat as glass is blown, shaped, and decorated, and with the Corning Museum of Glass in upstate New York,…
A family of god-kings: divine kingship in the early Nineteenth Dynasty
Peter J Brand begins a new series focusing on the Ramesside Period by exploring the divinity of the early Ramesside kings.
Tomb offerings: a wish list for eternity
Ancient Egyptians believed that the foods and goods listed in their tombs would magically become available to them for eternity. Hilary Wilson reports.
Alexandria Antiqua: A topographical Catalogue and Reconstruction
Review by Sarah Griffiths The city of Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great (c.331 BC), was strategically situated on the Mediterranean coast at the junction of three continents, protected by reefs, headlands, and the Pharos Island to the north, and…
Ancient Egyptian Statues: Their Many Lives and Deaths
Review by Campbell Price This finely produced book from AUC Press is written with eloquence by statue scholar and curator Simon Connor. Opening with recent debates about the role and identity of ‘public’ statues, the book sets out to investigate…
Horemkhauef of Hierakonpolis
In the first of an occasional series focusing on remarkable people of their period, Wolfram Grajetzki introduces the ‘First Inspector of the Priests’ at Nekhen during the Second Intermediate Period.
Min: the most popular deity in the Eastern Desert?
Sean Rigby traces the worship of this distinctive-looking ancient Egyptian god.
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…
The Temple of Mentuhotep II at Deir el-Bahri
Geoffrey Lenox-Smith explores the innovative Middle Kingdom monument that inspired Hatshepsut’s famous Deir el-Bahri temple.
The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Nubia
Review by Anna Garnett The past two decades have seen greater recognition that the cultures of Nubia represent the earliest complex societies in inner Africa in their own right: scholars of ancient Nile cultures now more frequently seek to look…