In those days, Mesoamerican archaeology was not for the faint-hearted, and Sylvanus Griswold Morley – ‘physically frail, short of stature, squeaky-voiced and near-sighted’, according to Prudence Rice and Christopher Ward – wasn’t really cut out for it. He suffered stomach…
PhD research by Taneash Sidpura refutes a well-established theory.
John Coleman and Colleen Darnell present new interpretations of the imagery from the fascinating reign of Akhenaten and Nefertiti.
Review by Sarah Griffiths This new exploration of Akhenaten and Nefertiti’s unique vision for Egypt and their rise to divine status is presented in an unusual format, with each chapter headed by a short dramatic reconstruction. Such vignettes are perhaps…
The exhibition Golden Mummies of Egypt opens in February at Manchester Museum for its only European showing after an international tour that has included venues in the USA and China. Curator Campbell Price discusses the artefacts on display and their significance to the Greek and Roman Egyptians and to modern visitors.
Julia Skinner explores the life and work of the pioneering photographer
who documented the great monuments of ancient Egypt.
In each issue of Ancient Egypt magazine, Dr Campbell Price describes a key artefact from Egyptology collections around the world. His choice for AE 135 is from the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MMA).
Review: Hilary Forrest Many readers will be familiar with the name Francis Frith, which is associated with the world of picture postcards, often of seaside views or famous sights. What you will discover from this fascinating and detailed work is…
The double-curved seat of the ancient Egyptian stool makes it much more comfortable than the traditional Western styles. When examples were discovered by early Egyptologists, the design was soon copied by contemporary furniture-makers.
REVIEW: Cathie Bryan Fashion is a neglected subject in reception studies of ancient Egypt, with the exception of the Egyptianising vogue inspired by the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb (1922). Campagnol, a teacher of the history of fashion in Milan, goes…
Each issue, AE magazine goes off the beaten track to explore some of Egypt’s lesser known sites, new museums, and newly opened monuments, with tips to help the independent traveller. In this issue, the intrepid Karl Harris searches for a small New Kingdom temple in the Wadi Hilal at Elkab.
Following his exploration of rock art in the Western Desert in AE 127, Julian Heath continues his occasional series exploring Egypt’s prehistoric past, looking for evidence for the earliest settlements in the Western Desert.
The amazing discovery of more than 50 royal mummies.
REVIEW: Anna Garnett For many of us, it is the human stories behind major archaeological discoveries that first spark our fascination with Egyptology. Who were the people on the excavation teams? What did they do, and how did they spend…
This pendant, known as a bulla, was found by a metal-detectorist in the Melton district of Leicestershire in November 2021. It is hemispherical in shape and formed of two plain gold sheets, one formed into a hollow dome and the…
Last September, an excavation at Arminghall Henge in Norfolk reopened a trench first dug by Grahame Clark almost a century earlier – revealing a glimpse of a large timber monument that may have met a fiery end. Andy Hutcheson, Matt Brudenell, and Mark Knight report.
before I leave the Mainland, I must mention one other site of this era, the stunning Neolithic house at St Ola, just south of Kirkwall... Here was discovered the oldest art yet found on the islands.
Making people laugh in the 12th century proved to be lucrative work for Rahere (d. 1143), who is variously described as a jester, minstrel, and courtier to Henry I (c.1068-1135; r. 1100-1135). But that was in his early life: Rahere later became a devout cleric who, falling ill on a pilgrimage to Rome, vowed to establish a hospital in London if he survived. The result was St Bartholomew, founded in 1123 as a joint foundation of hospital and priory. A commemorative volume has just been published to mark the 900th anniversary of the church, as Chris Catling reports.
The latest on exhibitions, acquisitions, and key decisions.
Review by Finbar McCormick Skellig Michael, a rocky outcrop off the south-west coast of Ireland, boasts the best-surviving early medieval monastery in Ireland, if not western Europe. Ironically, despite the richness of Ireland’s early medieval documentary sources, mentions of the…
David Breeze, Tatiana Ivleva, and Rebecca Jones consider the contribution made to the study of Roman frontiers by Brenda Heywood, who died last December, and other contemporary female archaeologists.
Review by Nathalie Cohen This monograph, the result of a project started by David Neal and Warwick Rodwell in 2015 to examine the historic floors in the eastern arm of Canterbury Cathedral, is a stunning achievement. Over nearly 400 pages,…
Review by Joe Flatman I do not disagree with anything that Kalliopi Fouseki says in this book about the management of cultural heritage. As she summarises in its conclusion, ‘heritage as a thing and as a process is a dynamic,…
Review by Andrew Tibbs The importance of Chester in the Roman period cannot be overestimated. Not only was it an important military centre with the establishment of a legionary fortress (Deva) in the 1st century, but the subsequent development of…
The British Cartographic Society (BCS) was formed in 1963, and since then map-making has undergone a revolution, from land survey using theodolites to digital survey using satellites. But the infrastructure for the old ways still exists and the most recent…
Review by Mark Knight There is something of a contradiction between the main title of this publication and the archaeology presented within its pages. The book details and interprets an impressively large-scale, decade-long excavation of a low-lying Bronze Age site…
The National Trust cares for more than 250,000ha of land, encompassing historic sites and structures spanning prehistory to the present day – but what do the Trust’s archaeologists do? Joe Flatman highlights some of their diverse roles, recent research, and how routes into the profession are evolving.
Between 2015 and 2020, Oxford Archaeology and MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) investigated, prior to development, parts of a Civil War rampart buried below an access yard to Savile House at New College School in Oxford. The city’s defences were…
Review by Neil Holbrook Many people have a favourite archaeological site, an evocative place that has a personal resonance with the past. The landscape setting is frequently inspirational, sometimes more so than the actual remains of the site itself. Roger…
The treatment of Tennyson and Chaucer stands as a warning to us all not to adopt similarly reductive techniques in our interpretations of history, heritage, and archaeology.
What can a freshly discovered tomb reveal about the emergence of Andean civilisations? The early date of this rich burial is raising new questions about how and when social elites appeared, as Yuji Seki reveals.
As the British Institute at Ankara celebrates a major birthday, CWA casts an eye over what it has achieved, and where it is heading.
Archaeology is not immune to wider social changes... the #BlackLivesMatter movement focused attention on the colonial pasts of many nations and on the challenges of the post-colonial present.
Supplying Constantinople with water was a monumental challenge that received a monumental solution. Examining the extraordinary remains of aqueducts, bridges, and cisterns reveals the ingenuity – and expense – committed to sating a thirsty ancient metropolis, as James Crow explains.
Review by David J Breeze John William Burgon’s description of Petra as ‘the rose-red city, half as old as time’ dates to 1845, well within the timeframe covered in this book. It remains an apt statement, underlined by the choice…
Even reputable observers like Pliny the Younger often ended up at the mercy of the competence of later scribes. As his writings only survive as copies, it may be no more than a scribal slip of the hand that immortalised August as the month when Pompeii met its fate.