Deir el-Bahri, 1894
The exquisite results can be seen in Paget’s watercolour of bulls from one wall, and Howards Carter’s reproduction of a scene in which Thutmosis I and his mother Seniseneb make offerings to the god Anubis.
World
Paranthropus robustus
The discovery of a two-million-year-old skull in South Africa is shedding important new light on microevolution in an early hominin species, as Jesse Martin and Angeline Leece reveal.
World news in brief
10,000 year old footprints identified in New Mexico, Neolithic assemblage found in Norway, and AMS dating of Upper Palaeolithic cave art in Spain.
Cooking cereals in prehistoric China
A project looking at the history of crops in prehistoric China has identified differences in regional diets and changes over time, which may be connected to varying cooking practices in these areas.
Victims of Vesuvius
The remains of two individuals who died during the eruption of Vesuvius have been found at a suburban villa near Pompeii.
Life and Death in Sefidkuh
An ongoing study in the Makran Sefidkuh region of Iran is shedding light on the culture and archaeological remains of communities in the area, stretching back to prehistory. The project, led by Hossein Vahedi in collaboration with the Research Institute…
Rare child burial in Indonesia
A sub-adult burial dating to the early-mid Holocene, c.8000 BP, has been found in Makpan Cave on Alor Island, south-eastern Indonesia. To date, only a few complete pre-Neolithic burials have been found in Island South-east Asia, despite the region’s vast…
Ship shape: Viking burial found
Boat burials emerged in northern Europe in the 1st century AD and disappeared with the introduction of Christianity in the 10th and 11th century. The ship burial reflects the ultimate display of status, wealth, and connection.
Cuzco: the centre and head of all the land
Cuzco was the heart of the vast Inca empire, but all changed in the 16th century when the capital was conquered by Spanish invaders. Michael J Schreffler investigates the Inca city, and how it went from the centre of one empire to the periphery of another.
Sharing the secrets of a 2,700-year-old Phoenician shipwreck
The initial exploration of an ancient Phoenician shipwreck discovered off the Maltese coast was reported on in CWA 88. Now, thanks to groundbreaking technological developments, the wreck can be explored underwater in minute detail using virtual reality in a new online museum. Timmy Gambin, Lucy Woods, and Maja Sausmekat take us for a closer look.
Arctic: culture and climate
Humans have been calling the Arctic home for tens of thousands of years. But over the millennia, changes in climate have repeatedly forced groups to adapt or make way for incomers bearing superior tools. Amber Lincoln and Jago Cooper told Matthew Symonds about the archaeology of the circumpolar world.
Grave Disturbances: the archaeology of post-depositional interactions with the dead
Grave Disturbances focuses on a much-neglected area of funerary archaeology. Disturbed human remains are frequently encountered within burial contexts, but are often given scant attention in comparison to more complete remains in expected anatomical configuration. The case studies in the…
Digging Deeper: how archaeology works
How do archaeologists know where to dig? How do they find out how old things are? And who gets to keep the objects they find? It is questions like these, often asked by curious members of the public, that Eric…
City Walls in Late Antiquity: an empire-wide perspective
City walls are the largest structures associated with cities in the Roman Empire, but they seem still to be far from understood – maybe simply because they are such large structures and dating is a topic open to discussion and…
In praise of volunteers
My excavations, including Khok Phanom Di, have yielded well over 1,000 human graves, and often the dead were interred with multiple mortuary offerings from fine pottery vessels to thousands of ornaments in gold, silver, bronze, iron, carnelian, glass, shell, and agate.
Statue of Ramesses VI
What is it? This granite statue depicts Pharaoh Ramesses VI, who reigned 1144-1137 BC. On the back is a hieroglyphic inscription that reads: ‘May [he] live, [the] good god, son of [the god] Amun, the protector, bull of Thebes, king…
New thinking in scholarship
A paper is not necessarily of value because it is heretical, of course; it may just be wrong.
The Dancing Satyr of Mazara del Vallo
Oliver Gilkes contemplates an ancient masterpiece plucked from the sea.
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.
Living in luxury in rural Sicily: the late Roman villa of Caddeddi
Sicily was famed in antiquity for its agricultural prosperity. An eloquent witness of its late Roman wealth is provided by the great villa near Piazza Armerina, a UNESCO World Heritage site. But the villa, built c.AD 320/330, is not unique in Sicily. Tucked away in the south-east corner of the island in the province of Syracuse, 5km south of the wonderful baroque town of Noto, is another rich Roman villa. It is not as large, but it was also constructed in the 4th century and also boasts fine mosaics. The site is little known, however, and barely gets any visitors at all. Roger Wilson is our guide.
The horizon of Khufu: inside the Great Pyramid
The sheer scale of Khufu’s Great Pyramid is breathtaking, but there is more to this audacious monument than immediately meets the eye, as Matthew Symonds recalls.
Preserving and presenting heritage
Today, 757 synagogues are deemed to be at risk, which illustrates the scale of the task facing the FJH in its mission to ‘celebrate and honour Europe’s lost Jewish communities’ and rescue these emblematic buildings as ‘powerful places of education’ offering ‘valuable insights into Jewish life and its impact on wider society’.
A feline find
On the strength of stylistic comparisons, researchers have dated the feline to around 200 BC.
Europe without borders
The exhibition Iron Age – Europe without Borders is divided into cultural-historical, chronological, and geographical sections. In addition to relics of largely unknown cultures, the exhibition focuses on the legacies of peoples such as the Celts, Etruscans, Scythians, and Sarmatians.
The Battle of Kircholm, 1605 – Sweden’s Greatest Defeat
Poltava is more famous, but, explains historian Magnus Olofsson, Kircholm was probably the greatest defeat in Swedish history.
Unearthing a tyrant
And here is the weird thing. Polykrates is the greatest figure in Samian history. The Late Archaic age is the only time when the island could be considered a great power. And the archaeological imprint is truly awesome. Yet our local minibus driver didn’t even know the way to the ancient walls!
Cancel culture
No doubt those early Christians would say it was relatively mild revenge for the sufferings of the martyrs.
AI and ancient languages
Available in English and Arabic, Fabricius is an enjoyable introduction to hieroglyphs, but also presents new approaches for professional Egyptologists.
In Praise of Antiquity
There is no email I await with greater anticipation and, indeed, trepidation, than one captioned ‘Your radiocarbon results’.
Uncovering Kalkriese
A remarkable piece of Roman armour has been discovered at the site of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.
News in brief: Italy, Persia, North America
Late Neanderthal tooth Investigation into a canine tooth found at Riparo Broion, a rock shelter in Vicenza, north-eastern Italy, has revealed that it may represent an important piece of direct evidence for late Neanderthal occupation in the area. The tooth…
Accessibility at ancient Greek sanctuaries
A study of the architecture of ancient Greek temples and sanctuaries dedicated to healing has determined that these spaces were deliberately made accessible to individuals with impaired mobility. Individuals with mobility impairments were relatively common in ancient Greek society, as…
Pre-Hispanic flood-management in the Pampa de Mocan
For thousands of years, areas along the north coast of Peru have been subject to huge flooding as a result of El Niño, a periodic warming in the atmosphere of the Pacific Ocean, which causes torrential rainfall in the eastern…
Early human footprints in Saudi Arabia
The footprints were discovered as part of the Palaeodeserts Project, which is examining climate change and human evolution in Saudi Arabia.
Mayflower 400: Legend & Legacy
On entering the gallery, visitors are reminded that, despite their prominence in the story of the early colonists, the passengers of the Mayflower were not the first Europeans to settle in the ‘New World’.
Earliest evidence for ball games in Eurasia
Ball games are known to have been played in Egypt c.4,500 years ago and in Central America at least 3,700 years ago, but it was previously thought that they were not present in Europe and Asia until much later.