Giove: In Jupiter’s shadow
I first came to the Umbrian hilltop village of Giove half a lifetime ago. I was seeking sanctuary in the real Italy as I navigated potential closure of the British School at Rome (where I was director) at the hands of Mrs…
Richard Hodges
Homage to Gallarus Oratory
Fifty years ago, one of the most daring expeditions in modern times left Ireland’s Dingle Peninsula. Tim Severin set out with a crew of three in a curragh – a skin-boat shaped like a banana – from Brandon Creek to…
Crossing to Inis Cealtra
Firsts. I first went to Inis Cealtra – Holy Island in County Clare – with my first girlfriend, Leigh, in 1973. From County Antrim, a northerner, she had an esprit de vie that I always associate, like the constant drizzle,…
A Mediterranean Valley redux
My son looked at me askance and muttered ‘more nostalgia’. I smiled, recognising he was right. My Mediterranean journey really began in this unlikely valley and its off-the-beaten-track places that I have dreamed of revisiting. For two full days, my…
Charles Williams and the Corinth Roman Painting Project
In the second – and final – part of his interview, Richard Hodges talks to Charles K Williams about the remarkable Roman frescoes he discovered in Corinth.
Byllis and the end of the Roman Empire
When I think of spring, one of the first images that comes to mind in the depth of winter is the carpet of flowers at Byllis, high above the Vjosa valley. This is, in all but name, arcadia. No crowds.…
Cosmic psychopomps and apotropaic pentagrams: A pot with a difference
Archaeology essentially illuminates human entanglement with things, James Deetz pointed out 50 years ago in his classic book In Small Things Forgotten. ‘Don’t read what we have written; look at what we have done’, Deetz concluded in a clarion call…
Ashby and Strong: A golden partnership and its end
Dedicated to the memory of Amanda Claridge In 1925, thanks to Winston Churchill, Britain returned to the gold standard; Italy slipped into a dictatorship under Benito Mussolini after a speech to the Chamber of Deputies on 3 January; the USA…
Master of Actium
Richard Hodges introduces the Emperor Augustus’ city of victory at Actium and interviews its renowned excavator, Kostas Zachos.
Saving Saranda
Strictly speaking Saranda cannot be saved. When I first came here in September 1993, a year after Albania became a democracy, it was a blissful Ionian seaport. Many of its citizens had left for Greece, so it felt empty, yet…
In the footsteps of N G L Hammond
On a cold March day in 1995, fortune blessed me. I had written to the ancient historian N G L Hammond to see if he might meet me. He was 87, so it was a long shot. Not only did…
Bluetooth’s Kingdom
I have embarked on an odyssey to revisit Viking Denmark decades after I first became familiar with it through editing Klavs Randsborg’s landmark book The Viking Age in Denmark (1980). Randsborg’s book was regarded as heresy at the time, but…
The apogee of Monte Cassino
In the second of a two-part feature examining Monte Cassino, Richard Hodges examines how the monastery developed from the late 9th century onwards.
Excavations at Monte Cassino
In the first of a two-part feature, Richard Hodges untangles the early evolution of the famed Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino.
In praise of Tating Ware (and high-definition archaeology)
Fifty years ago, I received a life-changing letter. David Peacock, my tutor at Southampton University, offered me a doctoral scholarship to study the imported Frankish pottery from Hamwic, the 7th- to 9th-century emporium at Southampton. The newly formed Southampton Archaeological…
St George’s Hill, Damoulianata, Kefalonia
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…
Penn Museum: a museum for the coming decades
The symbol of the new Penn Museum is in the refurbished main entrance hall. On a prominent podium behind the ticket desks sits the Museum’s celebrated sphinx. Richard Hodges reports.