REVIEW BY HUGH WILLMOTT This volume was prompted by a decade of excavations by Peter Davey following Rushen Abbey’s purchase by the Isle of Man government in 1998. While these form the core of the work, the volume also synthesises…
REVIEW BY CH The N25 New Ross Bypass in Co. Wexford was designed to alleviate the notorious peak-time tailbacks that were known to extend for miles on either side of the historic town of New Ross. Its 14km route, stretching…
REVIEW BY MICHAEL TUNNICLIFFE During the Twenty-seventh Dynasty (c.525-404 BC), Egypt was part of the sprawling Persian Empire. Material survivals from this time are scarce, and the Persians themselves left few documents relating to Egypt. One important exception comes from…
REVIEW BY MICHAEL TUNNICLIFFE This work comprises 14 essays spanning the late Roman Period to the present day, focusing on the daily life of the Copts, who have always been a minority community. The aim is to understand daily concerns…
REVIEW BY SARAH GRIFFITHS This new Archaeopress volume, with its eye-popping cover, is in effect a manifesto for ‘Egypopcult’, an emerging multi-disciplinary project studying ancient Egypt as reflected in contemporary popular culture, going beyond the use of Egyptian motifs, narratives,…
REVIEW BY SARAH GRIFFITHS When José María Barrera visited the Temple of Dendera for the first time, he was left breathless by the spectacular celestial ceiling of the pronaos – so much so, he returned a few years later armed…
REVIEW BY ANNA GARNETT The site of Tell el-Amarna presents a unique opportunity to understand aspects of the daily lives of ancient Egyptian people more than 3,000 years ago. The high level of preservation of the ancient city and its…
REVIEW BY PATRICK DANIEL This book summarises 17 years of work by MOLA Northampton/Northamptonshire Archaeology at a 70ha development by the Roman road north of Doncaster. The earliest remains comprised a ring ditch with early Bronze Age cremation burials, an…
REVIEW BY DANIEL JACKSON Hampton Court Palace, nestled within a bend of the Thames 13 miles from the centre of London, has a fascinating history, during which it grew from a medieval agricultural estate to one of the greatest palaces…
REVIEW BY AB The archaeological exploration of Worcester began with antiquarian works several hundred years ago, but the bulk of the research has been carried out since the mid-20th century. These excavations have revealed a wealth of information about Worcester’s…
REVIEW BY ROB IXER Over the decades, O’Brien has recorded, in intense detail, the earliest prehistoric copper mining in south-west Ireland, namely Beaker People’s Chalcolithic to early Bronze Age exploitation at Ross Island (now known for its massive contribution to…
REVIEW BY CH Infrastructure projects often offer exciting archaeological opportunities to explore an area’s past on a large scale. The construction of a windfarm off the Yorkshire coast was one such case: the cables connecting it to the National Grid…
REVIEW BY KK This is the third book in Alice Roberts’ recent series, which began with Ancestors (highlighting seven famous burials from prehistoric Britain; see CA 380), followed by Buried, which covered the quickly evolving funerary traditions from late Iron…
REVIEW BY GEORGE NASH If I had been asked a few months ago what I knew about a vast rock-art assemblage in Tibet, I would have simply shrugged my shoulders and asked what, when, where, and why. But then, thinking…
REVIEW BY NICK EVANS Abdudzhalil Abdudzhalilov called himself the ‘last of the Mohicans’. Until his death in 2015, he was the last inhabitant of the village of Gamsutl in Dagestan, in the south of the Russian Federation. A spectacular image…
REVIEW BY JOHN BINTLIFF This is a rather frustrating volume, although we need to know more about ancient Thessaly, a land of fertile plains in north-central Greece. The book focuses on 22 ancient cities in western Thessaly, typical for the…
REVIEW BY MS Migrations are back. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, large-scale population movements were frequently the go-to explanation for the appearance in the archaeological record of new ways of doing things – be it novel building styles,…
REVIEW BY AMARA THORNTON Popular histories of archaeology have been published, in one form or another, for centuries. These narratives, at least those produced for European and American readers, frequently lean heavily on adventures and derring-do, thrilling revelations of ancient…
REVIEW BY AB In the 1990s, archaeologists excavating in West Sussex made a remarkable discovery: human remains belonging to ancient humans who lived around half a million years ago. These discoveries from Boxgrove continue to represent the oldest human remains…
REVIEW BY CHRIS JONES This important book is the product of 11 seasons of careful fieldwork by members of the Northumberland Archaeological Group. The book is structured around the five main areas of the project, beginning with the geoarchaeological survey…
REVIEW BY DEREK ALEXANDER Eilean Donan Castle is indeed a Scottish icon, featuring on many calendars and in movies – Highlander for one. You can’t fail to notice it if you are driving to the Isle of Skye, as it…
REVIEW BY ROB IXER Broken fragmentary Niedermendig (Banfield convincingly suggests that Mayen is the better term) lava is commonly recorded, but seemingly in passing, from Roman (and later) sites. This 190-page, very well-figured text corrects this slight, and must now…
REVIEW BY HOWARD WILLIAMS A truly stupendous achievement of synthesis and evaluation, Life in Early Medieval Wales is a first for Welsh archaeology. Nancy Edwards’ concise prose draws on the experience of a lifetime spent teaching and researching early medieval…
REVIEW BY HILARY WILSON Histories of ancient Egypt have traditionally been written from a royal perspective, due largely to the availability of source material. This approach underestimates the role of the provinces, their administration and social structure, in the overall…
REVIEW BY ANNA GARNETT The Cambridge Elements: Ancient Egypt series delves into wider Egyptological themes and debates in fresh ways, beyond traditional approaches. Specialist authors collate primary source materials to illustrate complex themes in a way that readers can easily…
REVIEW BY SARAH GRIFFITHS Aidan Dodson’s Lives and Afterlives series continues with the often-neglected Twenty-fifth Dynasty: the Kushite kings who ruled Egypt for nearly a hundred years (c.755-656 BC). Nubia and Egypt were intimately linked throughout most of pharaonic history,…
REVIEW BY AB Until the mid-20th century, England was covered with orchards. But these quintessential features of the historic landscape did not simply spring into being: the story of England’s orchards is filled with generations of people who cultivated them.…
REVIEW BY KK With additional contributions by I M Betts, Lyn Blackmore, Julian Bowsher, Jacqui Pearce, and Alan Pipe, this latest book on London by John Schofield and Stephen Freeth offers a comprehensive assessment of life on the Thames during…
REVIEW BY JACQUELINE PITT This monograph successfully compiles the results of a series of excavations into a comprehensive chronology of a former MOD site south of Bicester. Evidence for prehistoric to modern activity was identified, along with a significant medieval…
REVIEW BY CHRISTOPHER EVANS Thoroughly researched and well-written, this is simply a very good read, one informed by its author’s long experience of archaeological fieldwork. In it, Mackay tracks down the route of Boudica and her rebel followers, as well…
REVIEW BY EDWARD BIDDULPH How did a giant ship create the White Cliffs of Dover? Why can Oxfordshire’s Rollright Stones never be counted? Which ghost said to haunt Lake Windermere was recorded on Ordnance Survey mapping? The answers can be…
REVIEW BY CH Large infrastructure schemes are often archaeologically exciting because they allow us to explore underlying features on a landscape scale. This comprehensive monograph summarises the results of one such excavation, by Cotswold Archaeology, where the creation of a…
REVIEW BY KK This brief volume provides a succinct overview of the main castles and fortifications found across the West Country. Starting in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, Powell-Thomas then gives special attention to examining the Palmerston forts surrounding…
REVIEW BY AB We have so many written and pictorial records created between 1500 and the present day that it might be supposed that artefacts from this time are of less importance than for earlier periods. Laura Burnett and Rob…
REVIEW BY MARIE THERESE FLANAGAN Discovering Medieval Ferns, Co. Wexford, focuses on the town as a regional religious and royal centre in the Kingdom of Leinster during the medieval period. It provides reports on surveys and excavations at three sites.…
REVIEW BY ROBBIE MACNIVEN It is sometimes best to start a review with a comment on what a book is not: War Paths is not an academic work, as the lack of footnotes or a proper bibliography make clear. Fortunately,…