The origins of the imposing East Sussex hill figure known as the Long Man of Wilmington have long posed a mystery for archaeologists. Rodney Castleden discusses recent research suggesting a Tudor date for the monument – and a possible political message.
Large infrastructure projects have led to some remarkable discoveries down the years – think of Heathrow Terminal 5, as well as the more recent work along the route of HS2
It is always interesting to find a new book about bricks. Often ignored, these little marvels need to be celebrated, and, for this reviewer at least, there can never be too many opportunities to do so. The ability to manufacture…
Founded in 1846, Sussex Archaeological Society is one of the UK’s oldest county-based archaeology societies – but how did it begin? Carly Hilts spoke to Emma O’Connor to learn more about the birth of the organisation, as well as an exhibition marking its 175th birthday.
Birdoswald is one of the most-excavated Roman forts on Hadrian’s Wall, but the area beyond the fort walls has been investigated in much less detail. Following the launch of a new four-year project to explore its remains, Current Archaeology's Carly Hilts visited the excavation to hear the latest news from Ian Haynes and Tony Wilmott.
The wife of the ‘heretic’ king Akhenaten, Queen Nefertiti is today one of the most iconic of all ancient Egyptians, thanks to her painted bust revealed to the world in 1923. Aidan Dodson charts the career of this remarkable queen, a hard-headed pragmatist who became a forgotten – and possibly murdered – king.
The Phoenicians occupied the coast of the Levant for over 1,000 years, but knowledge of their trade network and practices remains elusive. In 2007, an ancient wreck containing a large cache of ceramic containers was discovered off Malta. This ship proved to be one of only a handful of known Phoenician vessels. Since 2014, further exploration of the site has yielded some very exciting results. Project Director Timmy Gambin and Lucy Woods reveal some of its mysteries, and the challenges of excavating a shipwreck 110m below sea level.
There is much we don’t know about the people who lived in Neolithic Malta, but they left their mark on the islands through vast temples and tombs. Luc Amkreutz and Sharon Sultana explore what these impressive structures and the figurines found in them can tell us about a vanished civilisation.
With small tiles of marble and glass, Roman mosaicists created intricate mythological images, realistic scenes from nature, and other complex compositions to decorate the floors and walls of tombs, sanctuaries, and homes. Dalu Jones explores some mosaic masterpieces normally hidden in stores in Rome’s museums.
Flinders Petrie is called the father of Egyptian archaeology; well, he was assisted on all of his excavations by his wife Hilda, who has never really achieved the due recognition that she deserves.
In September 1224, St Francis of Assisi had a vision in which an angel marked him with the wounds of Christ. As Norman Hammond explains, this was a popular scene on plates for pilgrims, but sometimes these plates could offer up a more unusual image.
Frost fitted herself out with an improvised breathing hose at a party in order to explore a 17th-century well.
Soon after the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC came another famous battle as allied Greek city-states fought to resist the invading armies of the Persian Empire. The Greek victory at Salamis 2,500 years ago was mythologised by Athenian playwrights and others, monumentalising their city’s role in saving all that was good and Greek. David Stuttard guides us through the drama.
What can archaeological surveys of battlefields add to historical accounts of the fighting? Road improvements at Killiecrankie provided an opportunity to see how traces of fighting tallied with a commanding officer’s account of the clash, as Maureen Kilpatrick and Warren Bailie report.
Jeremy Black analyses the military and political significance of the Jacobite Risings that punctuated British history between 1689 and 1746.
Overshadowed by Culloden the following year – the battle that finally terminated the century-old Jacobite cause – Prestonpans is little known. Chris Bambery researches the story.
The Highland valley of Glencoe is notorious as the location of a brutal 1692 massacre, but until recently little was known about what remained of the settlement that existed at this time. Now, though, archaeological fieldwork by the National Trust for Scotland has shed new light on 17th- and 18th-century remains within the glen, as Derek Alexander reports.
Have you ever wondered why there is often a big hole in the wall just inside a medieval church doorway? This book is primarily a study of the bar locks they were made to hold. Some were huge – like…
This is a 7th-century gesture figurine of a man, made of copper alloy. It was found by a metal-detectorist last December in the parish of Kintbury, West Berkshire.
This volume largely stems from the 2018 European Association of Archaeologists (EAA) annual meeting in Barcelona. The editors have obviously taken great care in compiling a cohesive and comprehensive collection of papers that work towards providing a new academic narrative…
Furnished graves smacked of paganism, along with the idea that worldly goods should be laid in the grave for the use of the deceased in the afterlife.
The landscape of Wiltshire is full of indications of the county’s rich history, but perhaps some of the most compelling information about the area’s past comes from the hoards buried beneath its soil. The contents of these hoards vary widely,…
The Isle of Iona, located off the south-western coast of Mull in the Inner Hebrides, has been described by the poet Robert Crawford (b. 1959) as a place where ‘spirit, imagination, and physical exertion mingle’. Iona’s assemblage of early medieval carved stones and grave slabs constitute a special part of the island’s magic, forming a collection of early medieval art for which there are few parallels in the rest of Europe. The importance of one cross in particular – the 8th-century Cross of St John – has only recently been realised, in part because of a study of its concrete replica, as Current Archaeology's Chris Catling reveals.
This report describes the results of excavations conducted in 2015-2016 on the Brooklyn Hall site, south of the River Derwent, opposite the fort at Malton, and immediately west of the main road from York. All those involved are to be…
The image shown here represents a fire altar with a triple-pointed crown in the flames as a central motif, surrounded by plant scrolls containing stylised leopards and tigers.
Time Team taught me to look outside my trench and think about how everything fed into a wider story. And as for Tony [Robinson] – I like to call him my TV dad.
This remarkable and important study of the art and culture of northern Roman Britain has been published almost two decades after my own – The Heirs of King Verica (Tempus, 2002; 2nd edition: Amberley, 2010), which dealt almost entirely with…
Perhaps Sussex’s most famous ‘site’ of all featured in CA 286, when the Time Team examined rival theories of the location of the AD 1066 Battle of Hastings.
‘The late medieval sheep of Britain have so engaged the attention of the agrarian historians that other aspects of stock husbandry appear to have been neglected. Our knowledge of the cattle of the period, and of how they were kept,…
Fresh excavations at Valkenburg are shedding surprising new light on a seemingly well-known site. Wouter Vos, Edwin Blom, Brecht Cornelisse, Jasper De Bruin, Jeroen Loopik, Arjan Ruiter, Adrie Tol, and Lourens Van der Feijst lay out the arguments for an unsuspected legionary fortress, and its possible role in the invasion of Britain.
In this dizzying digital era, it can be startling to remember that our love affair with technology began millions of years ago with someone banging two stones together. But it is increasingly apparent that desiring tools with which to shape our world is not just a human trait. As Tomos Proffitt and Alastair Key told Current World Archaeology's Matthew Symonds, we were not – and are not – alone.
It would be fair to say that Nero’s reputation survives him. But could it be that this notorious imperial bad boy has been unfairly condemned by history? While the charge sheet levelled against him by the ancient historians is truly horrifying, archaeology paints a more nuanced picture, as Thorsten Opper told Current World Archaeology's Matthew Symonds.
This, the third volume to tackle the legacy data from Malta (Tanasi et al. 2011; 2015), effectively lays the groundwork from which to launch renewed archaeological investigations. Its reinterpretation of past excavations highlights the fragile nature of the archaeological remains…
This ring is a significant discovery because it represents the earliest gold object from a clear and well-dated context discovered in this region so far.
In a warning of what might occur again in the future, a paper in the journal Nature blames climate change for interpersonal violence among Nile Valley dwellers in the Late Pleistocene.
Growing Up in the Ice Age represents both the first book-length work on the lives of children throughout the Plio-Pleistocene, and a superlative example of how the study of children can be fully integrated into more traditional areas of Palaeolithic…