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The Phoenician shipwrecks of Mazarrón are two wrecks dated to the late seventh or sixth century BC, found off the coast of Mazarrón, in the Region of Murcia, Spain. The shipwrecks demonstrate hybrid shipbuilding techniques including pegged mortise and tenon joints, as well as sewn seams, providing evidence of technological experimentation in maritime construction during the Iron Age. The ship is considered "extremely important" for historic research into "naval construction, commercial goods, navigation routes, and the relationships between the Phoenicians and the local population of that time. In comparison to other similar findings, Mazarrón ships and their lead cargo remained in a "reasonable conservation state".
The shipwreck site was identified in 1988 by archaeologists from the Spanish National Museum of Subaquatic Archaeology and the National Center for Underwater Archaeological Research. In July 1991, the remains of a first ship, dubbed Mazarrón I, were identified, and has undergone excavation, extraction, and restoration since 1993. It is currently on display at the National Museum of Subaquatic Archaeology in Cartagena. The second shipwreck, dubbed Mazarrón II, was discovered in 1994, and was found in a better state of preservation. After years of study, its was extracted in November 2024.
In 2009, the Centro de Interpretación del Barco Fenicio del Puerto de Mazarrón (Interpretation Center of the Phoenician Ship of the Port of Mazarrón) was inaugurated to showcase an exhibition dedicated to Mazarrón I and Mazarrón II. It serves as a center for learning, offering visitors insights into the historical and cultural significance of the Mazarrón ships. (Full article...)
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Anchor Church is a series of caves in a KeuperSandstone (Triassic conglomerate) outcrop, close to the village of Ingleby, Derbyshire, England. The caves have been extended by human intervention to form a crude dwelling place, complete with door and window holes.
The sandstone outcrop once formed part of the banks of the River Trent and the caves were formed by the action of the river on the rock. The course of the river has altered and left the caves opening onto a backwater pool. It has been designated as both a Regionally Important Geological Site, and as a Local Wildlife Site. (Full article...)
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Krak des Chevaliers (French:[kʁakdeʃ(ə)valje]; Arabic: قلعة الحصن, romanized: Qalʿat al-Ḥiṣn, Arabic:[ˈqalʕatalˈħisˤn]; Old French: Crac des Chevaliers or Crac de l'Ospital, lit.'karak [fortress] of the hospital'; from Classical Syriac: ܟܪܟܐ, romanized: karəḵā, lit.'walled city') is a medieval castle in Syria and one of the most important preserved medieval castles in the world. The site was first inhabited in the 11th century by Kurdish troops garrisoned there by the Mirdasids. In 1142 it was given by Raymond II, Count of Tripoli, to the order of the Knights Hospitaller. It remained occupied by them until it was reconquered by the Muslims in 1271.
The Hospitallers began rebuilding the castle in the 1140s and were finished by 1170 when an earthquake damaged the castle. The order controlled castles along the border of the County of Tripoli, a state founded after the First Crusade. Krak des Chevaliers was among the most important and acted as a center of administration as well as a military base. After a second phase of building was undertaken in the 13th century, Krak des Chevaliers became a concentric castle. This phase created the outer wall and gave the castle its current appearance. The first half of the century has been described as Krak des Chevaliers' "golden age". At its peak, Krak des Chevaliers housed a garrison of around 2,000. Such a large garrison allowed the Hospitallers to exact tribute from a wide area. From the 1250s the fortunes of the Knights Hospitaller took a turn for the worse and in 1271 the Mamluk Sultanate captured Krak des Chevaliers after a siege lasting 36 days, supposedly by way of a forged letter purportedly from the Hospitallers' Grand Master that caused the knights to surrender.
Renewed interest in Crusader castles in the 19th century led to the investigation of Krak des Chevaliers, and architectural plans were drawn up. In the late 19th or early 20th century a settlement had been created within the castle, causing damage to its fabric. The 500 inhabitants were moved in 1933 and the castle was given over to the French Alawite State, which carried out a program of clearing and restoration. When Syria declared independence in 1946, it assumed control.
Today, the village of al-Husn exists around the castle and has a population of nearly 9,000. Krak des Chevaliers is approximately 40 kilometres (25 mi) west of the city of Homs, close to the border of Lebanon, and is administratively part of the Homs Governorate. Since 2006, the castles of Krak des Chevaliers and Qal'at Salah El-Din have been recognised by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites. It was partially damaged in the Syrian civil war from shelling and recaptured by the Syrian government forces in 2014. Since then, reconstruction and conservation work on the site had begun. Reports by UNESCO and the Syrian government on the state of the site are produced yearly. (Full article...)
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Freston is a Neolithiccausewayed enclosure, an archaeological site near the village of Freston in Suffolk, England. Causewayed enclosures were built in England from shortly before 3700 until at least 3500 BC; they are characterised by the full or partial enclosure of an area with ditches that are interrupted by gaps, or causeways. Their purpose is unknown; they may have been settlements, meeting places, or ritual sites.
The Freston enclosure was first identified in 1969 from cropmarks in aerial photographs. At 8.55 ha (21.1 acres) it is one of the largest causewayed enclosures in Britain, and would have required thousands of person-days to construct. The cropmarks show an enclosure with two circuits of ditches, and a palisade that ran between the two circuits. There is also evidence of a rectangular structure in the northeastern part of the site, which may be a Neolithic longhouse or an Anglo-Saxon hall. In 2018, a group from McMaster University organized a research project focused on the site, beginning with a geophysical survey and a pedestrian survey to collect any items of archaeological interest from the surface of the site. This was followed by an excavation in 2019 which recovered some Neolithic material and obtained radiocarbon dates indicating that the site was constructed in the mid-4th millennium BC. Other finds included oak charcoal fragments believed to come from the palisade, and evidence of a long ditch to the southeast that probably predated the enclosure, and which may have accompanied a long barrow, a form of Neolithic burial mound. The site has been protected as a scheduled monument since 1976. (Full article...)
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Nohmul (or Noh Mul) is a pre-ColumbianMaya archaeological site located on the eastern Yucatán Peninsula, in what is today northern Belize. The name Nohmul may be translated as "great mound" in Yucatec Maya. It is the most important Maya site in northern Belize. The site included a large pyramid, about 17 meters (56 ft) tall, built around 250 BC. Most of the pyramid was destroyed in May 2013 by contractors tearing it apart for rocks and gravel to use to fill roads, leaving only the core of the pyramid behind. (Full article...)
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South Somerset is a local government district in Somerset, England. The South Somerset district covers an area of 370 square miles (958 km2) ranging from the borders with Devon and Dorset to the edge of the Somerset Levels. It has a population of approximately 162,000. The administrative centre of the district is Yeovil.
A scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or monument which is given legal protection by being placed on a list (or "schedule") by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport; Historic England takes the leading role in identifying such sites. The legislation governing this is the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979. The term "monument" can apply to the whole range of archaeological sites, and they are not always visible above ground. Such sites have to have been deliberately constructed by human activity. They range from prehistoric standing stones and burial sites, through Roman remains and medieval structures such as castles and monasteries, to later structures such as industrial sites and buildings constructed for the World Wars or the Cold War.
The Zayit Stone is a 38-pound (17 kg) limestone boulder dating to the 10th century BCE, discovered on 15 July 2005 at Tel Zayit (Zeitah) in the Guvrin Valley, about 50 kilometres (31 mi) southwest of Jerusalem. The boulder measures 37.5 by 27 by 15.7 centimetres (14.8 in × 10.6 in × 6.2 in) and was embedded in the stone wall of a building. It is the earliest known example of the complete Phoenician or Paleo-Hebrew alphabet as it had developed after the Bronze Age collapse out of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet.
The flat side of the boulder is inscribed with a complete abecedary, although in a different order to the traditional version. The first line contains eighteen letters (aleph through tsadi), while the second contains the remaining four letters (qoph through tav) followed by two enigmatic zigzag symbols. (Full article...)
Al-Gailani was born in Baghdad and completed her education in Iraq and the United Kingdom. Her doctoral study of Old Babylonian cylinder seals was considered a landmark in the field. Based in London, in her later career she was known for maintaining links between British and Iraqi archaeology under the Saddam Hussein regime, and her efforts to preserve cultural heritage in the aftermath of the Iraq War. She was closely involved in the reconstruction of the National Museum of Iraq, where she had worked as a curator in the 1960s, and the founding of the Basrah Museum.
The Bog People: Iron-Age Man Preserved is an archaeological study of the bog bodies of Northern Europe written by the Danish archaeologist P.V. Glob. First published in 1965 by Gyldendal under the Danish title of Mosefolket: Jernalderens Mennesker bevaret i 2000 År, it was translated into English by the English archaeologist Rupert Bruce-Mitford and published by Faber and Faber in 1969. In 1966 it was translated into German by Thyra Dohrenburg and published by Winkler Verlag Munich under the title Die Schläfer im Moor (English: The Sleepers in the Bog).
The Bog People is divided into six chapters. The first is devoted to Tollund Man, and the second to Grauballe Man, two of the best known Iron Age bog bodies to have been discovered in Jutland, Denmark. The third and fourth chapters are devoted to the wider context of bog bodies first in Denmark and then in other parts of Europe. The final two chapters are devoted to a wider exposition of life and death in Iron Age Denmark.
Glob's book received positive reviews from both Barry Cunliffe in Nature and Ralph M. Rowlett in American Anthropologist. They praised Glob's arguments as well as his writing style and use of illustrations, alongside Bruce-Mitford's translation. In subsequent decades, it has received both praise and criticism from specialists in the field, who have lauded the publicity which it brought to the subject, but rejected many of Glob's conclusions as being based on insufficient evidence. (Full article...)
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Spanish Hill is a hill located in the borough of South Waverly, Pennsylvania. Opinions regarding the origin of structures found on the site vary from embankments created by early farmers, to the remnants of a Native American village and battlements, due to the site's similarity to the description found in the account of Étienne Brûlé of a settlement called Carantouan. The area in the hill's vicinity was previously occupied by Susquehannock Native Americans. It was a common site for both amateur and professional archaeology, as well as relic hunting. The source of the name remains unknown, but various theories have been proposed as to its origin. (Full article...)
In its earliest form, the castle consisted of a stone keep, with an enclosure protected by an earthen bank and a wooden palisade. When the castle was built, Robert de Vieuxpont was one of the only lords in the region who were loyal to King John. The Vieuxponts were a powerful land-owning family in North West England, who also owned the castles of Appleby and Brough. In 1264, Robert de Vieuxpont's grandson, also named Robert, was declared a traitor, and his property was confiscated by Henry III. Brougham Castle and the other estates were eventually returned to the Vieuxpont family, and stayed in their possession until 1269, when the estates passed to the Clifford family through marriage.
With the outbreak of the Wars of Scottish Independence, in 1296, Brougham became an important military base for Robert Clifford, 1st Baron de Clifford. He began refortifying the castle: the wooden outer defences were replaced with stronger, more impressive stone walls, and a large stone gatehouse was added. The importance of Brougham and Robert Clifford was such that, in 1300, he hosted King Edward I of England at the castle. Robert's son, Roger Clifford, was executed as a traitor, in 1322, and the family estates passed into the possession of King Edward II of England, although they were returned once his son Edward III became king. The region was often at risk from the Scots, and in 1388, the castle was captured and sacked.
Following this, the Cliffords began spending more time at their other castles, particularly Skipton Castle in North Yorkshire. Brougham descended through several generations of Cliffords, intermittently serving as a residence. However, by 1592, it was in a state of disrepair, as George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland was spending more time in southern England due to his role as Queen's Champion. The castle was briefly restored in the early 17th century, to such an extent, that King James I of England was entertained there in 1617. In 1643, Lady Anne Clifford inherited the estates, including the castles of Brougham, Appleby, and Brough, and set about restoring them. Brougham Castle was kept in good condition for a short time, after Lady Anne's death in 1676; however, Thomas Tufton, 6th Earl of Thanet, who had inherited the Clifford estates, sold the furnishings in 1714. The empty shell was left to decay, as it was too costly to maintain. As a ruin, Brougham Castle inspired a painting by J. M. W. Turner, and was mentioned at the start of William Wordsworth's poem The Prelude, as well as becoming the subject of Wordsworth's Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle upon the Restoration of Lord Clifford, the Shepherd, to the Estates and Honours of his Ancestors. The castle was left to the Ministry of Works, in the 1930s, and is today maintained by its successor, English Heritage. (Full article...)
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The Stone Age in the territory of present-day Poland is divided into the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic eras. The Paleolithic extended from about 500,000 BCE to 8000 BCE. The Paleolithic is subdivided into periods, the Lower Paleolithic, 500,000 to 350,000 BCE, the Middle Paleolithic, 350,000 to 40,000 BCE, the Upper Paleolithic, 40,000 to 10,000 BCE, and the Final Paleolithic, 10,000 to 8000 BCE. The Mesolithic lasted from 8000 to 5500 BCE, and the Neolithic from 5500 to 2300 BCE. The Neolithic is subdivided into the Neolithic proper, 5500 to 2900 BCE, and the Copper Age, 2900 to 2300 BCE.
The Stone Age era lasted 800,000 years, and involved three different Homo species: Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens. The Stone Age cultures ranged from early human groups with primitive tools to advanced agricultural societies, which used sophisticated stone tools, built fortified settlements and developed copper metallurgy. As elsewhere in eastern and central Europe, the Stone Age human cultures went through the stages known as the Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic, each bringing new refinements of the stone tool making techniques. The Paleolithic period Homo activities (the earliest sites are about 500,000 years old) were intermittent because of the recurring periods of glaciation. With the recession of the last glaciation, a general climate warming and the resulting increase in ecologicenvironment diversity was characteristic of the Mesolithic (from 9000-8000 BCE). The Neolithic brought the first settled agricultural communities; their founders migrated from the Danube River area (from 5500 BCE). Later the native post-Mesolithic populations also adopted and further developed the agricultural way of life (from 4400 to about 2000 BCE). (Full article...)
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There are nine castles in Greater Manchester, a metropolitan county in North West England. They consist of four motte-and-bailey castles, three fortified manor houses, an enclosure castle, and a possible shell keep. A motte-and-bailey castle is characterised by two elements: the motte is an artificial mound with a wooden stockade and stronghold on top, usually a stone keep or tower, while the bailey is a defended enclosure adjacent to the motte, typically enclosed by a ditch and a bank topped by a timber palisade or stone wall. Motte-and-bailey castles were the most common type of castle in England following the Norman Conquest. A shell keep was a motte with a stone wall rather than a wooden stockade on top; there would have been no tower within the walls. Four of Greater Manchester's castles are scheduled monuments: Buckton, Bury, Radcliffe Tower, and Watch Hill. A scheduled monument is a "nationally important" archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change.
The purpose of a castle was not simply militaristic, but was also considered to be a stamp of authority over the population of an area and a status symbol. Some would have acted as centres of trade and administration for a manor. The earliest castles in Greater Manchester are Dunham Castle and Watch Hill Castle in Trafford, Ullerwood Castle in Manchester, and Stockport Castle in Stockport. Dunham, Ullerwood, and Stockport castles were first recorded in 1173 as belonging to barons who had rebelled against Henry II, and Watch Hill likely dates from this period; and at least three were motte-and-bailey castles, probably because of the speed and ease with which they could be erected. Hamon de Massey, who owned the Trafford castles and Ullerwood, and Geoffrey de Constentyn, who owned Stockport Castle, were two of the three rebels from Cheshire; the other was the Earl of Chester, the owner of Chester Castle.
Castles continued to be built in the area, although the last to be built in Greater Manchester were two fortified manor houses near Bury, built more for comfort than as utilitarian military structures. Bury Castle and Radcliffe Tower followed the national trend in the 13th century; they would most likely have acted as the centre of the manor they served. (Full article...)
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The Rephaim text is an ancient Ugariticpoem consisting of three fragmentary tablets discovered in Ras Shamra and dating to the 14th century BCE. The text describes the Rephaim, a group of warrior-like figures, undertaking a three-day chariot journey to a threshing floor, where they partake in a seven-day feast. Scholars debate the identity of the Rephaim, with interpretations ranging from deified ancestors, minor deities, and underworld spirits to human cultic figures associated with fertility rites. The text is linked to the Tale of Aqhat, possibly as a prequel, and shares thematic elements with El’s Drinking Party. Though the precise meaning of the text remains uncertain, it emphasizes feasting, divine participation, and family lineage, suggesting the Rephaim were semi-divine or royal figures with connections to the gods. (Full article...)
YBC 7289 is a Babylonianclay tablet notable for containing an accurate sexagesimal approximation to the square root of 2, the length of the diagonal of a unit square. This number is given to the equivalent of six decimal digits, "the greatest known computational accuracy ... in the ancient world". The tablet is believed to be the work of a student in southern Mesopotamia from some time between 1800 and 1600 BC. (Full article...)
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The Olmec colossal heads are stone representations of human heads sculpted from large basalt boulders. They range in height from 1.17 to 3.4 metres (3.8 to 11.2 ft). The heads date from at least 900 BCE and are a distinctive feature of the Olmec civilization of ancient Mesoamerica. All portray mature individuals with fleshy cheeks, flat noses, and slightly-crossed eyes; their physical characteristics correspond to a type that is still common among the inhabitants of Tabasco and Veracruz. The backs of the monuments are often flat.
The boulders were brought from the Sierra de Los Tuxtlas mountains of Veracruz. Given that the extremely large slabs of stone used in their production were transported more than 150 kilometres (93 mi), requiring a great deal of human effort and resources, it is thought that the monuments represent portraits of powerful individual Olmec rulers. Each of the known examples has a distinctive headdress. The heads were variously arranged in lines or groups at major Olmec centres, but the method and logistics used to transport the stone to these sites remain unclear. The heads all display distinctive headgear and one theory is that these were worn as protective helmets, maybe worn for war or to take part in a ceremonial Mesoamerican ballgame. The discovery of the first colossal head at Tres Zapotes in 1862 by José María Melgar y Serrano was not well documented nor reported outside Mexico. The excavation of the same colossal head by Matthew Stirling in 1938 spurred the first archaeological investigations of Olmec culture. Seventeen confirmed examples are known from four sites within the Olmec heartland on the Gulf Coast of Mexico. Most colossal heads were sculpted from spherical boulders but two from San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán were re-carved from massive stone thrones. An additional monument, at Takalik Abaj in Guatemala, is a throne that may have been carved from a colossal head. This is the only known example from outside the Olmec heartland.
Dating the monuments remains difficult because many were removed from their original contexts prior to archaeological investigation. Most have been dated to the Early Preclassic period (1500–1000 BC) with some to the Middle Preclassic (1000–400 BC) period. The smallest weigh 5 tonnes (6 short tons), while the largest is estimated to weigh 36 to 45 t (40 to 50 short tons); it was abandoned and left uncompleted close to the source of its stone. (Full article...)
It is a wadi sitting on the west bank of the Nile, opposite Thebes (modern-day Luxor) and within the heart of the Theban Necropolis. There are two main sections: the East Valley, where the majority of the royal tombs are situated; and the West Valley, otherwise known as the Valley of the Monkeys.
With the 2005 discovery of a new chamber and the 2008 discovery of two further tomb entrances, the Valley of the Kings is known to contain 65 tombs and chambers, ranging in size from the simple pit that is KV54 to the complex tomb that is KV5, which alone has over 120 chambers for the sons of Ramesses II. It was the principal burial place for the New Kingdom's major royal figures as well as a number of privileged nobles. The royal tombs are decorated with traditional scenes from Egyptian mythology and reveal clues to the period's funerary practices and afterlife beliefs. Almost all of the tombs seem to have been opened and robbed in antiquity, but they still give an idea of the opulence and power of Egypt's pharaohs.
This area has been a focus for Egyptologists and archaeological exploration since the end of the 18th century, and its tombs and burials continue to stimulate research and interest. The Valley of the Kings garnered significant attention following the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922, and is one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world. In 1979, it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site alongside the rest of the Theban Necropolis. Exploration, excavation, and conservation continues in the area and a new tourist centre has recently been opened. (Full article...)
Olga TufnellFSA (26 January 1905 – 11 April 1985) was a British archaeologist who assisted on the excavation of the ancient city of Lachish in the 1930s. She had no formal training in archaeology, but had worked as a secretary for Flinders Petrie for a number of years before being given a field assignment. Olga then went on to join James Leslie Starkey in the expedition to find Lachish in 1929 and remained part of the team for the following seasons.
When Starkey was killed in 1938, the team finished the season then closed the site. Olga volunteered to write up the report of the dig and spent the following twenty years researching and writing up the majority of the excavation report. Olga's work has been regarded as the "pre-eminent source book for Palestinian archeology". Once the report was published, she turned her attention to cataloguing scarabs and other seals.
Many of Olga Tufnell's original letters and photographs are housed today at the Palestine Exploration Fund in London. Those published from 1927-1938 provide insights into dig life and archaeology, as well as the wider socio-cultural, political, and gendered context of colonial life within Mandate-era Palestine. (Full article...)
Causewayed enclosures were built in England from shortly before 3700 BC until at least 3500 BC; they are characterized by the full or partial enclosure of an area with ditches that are interrupted by gaps, or causeways. Their purpose is not known; they may have been settlements, meeting places, or ritual sites. Hillforts were built as early as 1000 BC, in the Late Bronze Age, and continued to be built through the Iron Age until shortly before the Roman occupation.
A chapel dedicated to St Roche was built on the hill around the end of the 14th century; it was in ruins by 1570. A windmill and a beacon were subsequently built on the hill. The site was occasionally used as a meeting place in the post-medieval period.
The hillfort is still a substantial earthwork, but the Neolithic site was unknown until 1925 when archaeologist O.G.S. Crawford obtained an aerial photograph of the Trundle, clearly showing additional structures inside the ramparts of the hillfort. Causewayed enclosures were new to archaeology at the time, with only five known by 1930, and the photograph persuaded archaeologist E. Cecil Curwen to excavate the site in 1928 and 1930. These early digs established a construction date of about 500 BC to 100 BC for the hillfort and proved the existence of the Neolithic site.
In 2011, the Gathering Time project published an analysis of radiocarbon dates from almost forty British causewayed enclosures, including some from the Trundle. The conclusion was that the Neolithic part of the site was probably constructed no earlier than the mid-fourth millennium BC. A review of the site in 1995 by Alastair Oswald noted the presence of fifteen possible Iron Age house platforms within the hillfort's ramparts. (Full article...)
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Nigel Reuben Rook Williams (15 July 1944 – 21 April 1992) was an English conservator and expert on the restoration of ceramics and glass. From 1961 until his death he worked at the British Museum, where he became the Chief Conservator of Ceramics and Glass in 1983. There his work included the successful restorations of the Sutton Hoo helmet and the Portland Vase.
Joining as an assistant at age 16, Williams spent his entire career, and most of his life, at the British Museum. He was one of the first people to study conservation, not yet recognised as a profession, and from an early age was given responsibility over high-profile objects. In the 1960s he assisted with the re-excavation of the Sutton Hooship-burial, and in his early- to mid-twenties he conserved many of the objects found therein: most notably the Sutton Hoo helmet, which occupied a year of his time. He likewise reconstructed other objects from the find, including the shield, drinking horns, and maplewood bottles.
The "abiding passion of his life" was ceramics, and the 1970s and 1980s gave Williams ample opportunities in that field. After nearly 31,000 fragments of shattered Greek vases were found in 1974 amidst the wreck of HMS Colossus, Williams set to work piecing them together. The process was televised, and turned him into a television personality. A decade later, in 1988 and 1989, Williams's crowning achievement came when he took to pieces the Portland Vase, one of the most famous glass objects in the world, and put it back together. The reconstruction was again televised for a BBC programme, and as with the Sutton Hoo helmet, took nearly a year to complete.
Williams died at age 47 of a heart attack while in Aqaba, Jordan, where he was working on a British Museum excavation. The Ceramics & Glass group of the Institute of Conservation awards a biennial prize in his honour, recognising his significant contributions in the field of conservation. (Full article...)
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The Angarium (Latin; from GreekἈγγαρήιονangareion) was the institution of the royal mounted couriers in ancient Persia. The messengers, called angaros (ἄγγαρος), alternated in stations a day's ride apart along the Royal Road. The riders were exclusively in the service of the Great King and the network allowed for messages to be transported from Susa to Sardis (2699 km) in nine days; the journey took ninety days on foot.
Herodotus, in about 440 BC, describes the Persian messenger system which had been perfected by Darius I about half a century earlier: A sentence of this description of the angarium, translated as "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds," is famously inscribed on the James A. Farley Building in New York City. (Full article...)
Blombos Cave is an archaeological site located in Blombos Private Nature Reserve, about 300 km east of Cape Town on the Southern Cape coastline, South Africa. The cave contains Middle Stone Age (MSA) deposits currently dated at between c. 100,000 and 70,000 years Before Present (BP), and a Late Stone Age sequence dated at between 2000 and 300 years BP. The cave site was first excavated in 1991 and field work has been conducted there on a regular basis since 1997, and is ongoing.
The excavations at Blombos Cave have yielded important new information on the behavioural evolution of anatomically modern humans. The archaeological record from this cave site has been central in the ongoing debate on the cognitive and cultural origin of early humans and to the current understanding of when and where key behavioural innovations emerged among Homo sapiens in southern Africa during the Late Pleistocene. Archaeological material and faunal remains recovered from the Middle Stone Age phase in Blombos Cave – dated to ca. 100,000–70,000 years BP – are considered to represent greater ecological niche adaptation, a more diverse set of subsistence and procurements strategies, adoption of multi-step technology and manufacture of composite tools, stylistic elaboration, increased economic and social organisation and occurrence of symbolically mediated behaviour.
The most informative archaeological material from Blombos Cave includes engraved ochre, engraved bone ochre processing kits, marine shell beads, refined bone and stone tools and a broad range of terrestrial and marine faunal remains, including shellfish, birds, tortoise and ostrich egg shell, and mammals of various sizes. These findings, together with subsequent re-analysis and excavation of other Middle Stone Age sites in southern Africa, have resulted in a paradigm shift with regard to the understanding of the timing and location of the development of modern human behaviour.
Cross-hatching done in ochre on a stone fragment found at Blombos Cave is believed to be the earliest known drawing done by a human in the world. (Full article...)
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The Temple of Eshmun (Arabic: معبد أشمون) is an ancient place of worship dedicated to Eshmun, the Phoenician god of healing. It is located near the Awali river, 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) northeast of Sidon in southwestern Lebanon. The site was occupied from the 7th century BC to the 8th century AD, suggesting an integrated relationship with the nearby city of Sidon. Although originally constructed by Sidonian king Eshmunazar II in the Achaemenid era (c. 529–333 BC) to celebrate the city's recovered wealth and stature, the temple complex was greatly expanded by Bodashtart, Yatonmilk and later monarchs. Because the continued expansion spanned many centuries of alternating independence and foreign hegemony, the sanctuary features a wealth of different architectural and decorative styles and influences.
The sanctuary consists of an esplanade and a grand court limited by a huge limestone terrace wall that supports a monumental podium which was once topped by Eshmun's Greco-Persian style marble temple. The sanctuary features a series of ritual ablution basins fed by canals channeling water from the Asclepius river (modern Awali) and from the sacred "YDLL" spring; these installations were used for therapeutic and purificatory purposes that characterize the cult of Eshmun. The sanctuary site has yielded many artifacts of value, especially those inscribed with Phoenician texts, such as the Bodashtart inscriptions and the Eshmun inscription, providing valuable insight into the site's history and that of ancient Sidon.
The Eshmun Temple was improved during the early Roman Empire with a colonnade street, but declined after earthquakes and fell into oblivion as Christianity replaced polytheism and its large limestone blocks were used to build later structures. The temple site was rediscovered in 1900 by local treasure hunters who stirred the curiosity of international scholars. Maurice Dunand, a French archaeologist, thoroughly excavated the site from 1963 until the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975. After the end of the hostilities and the retreat of Israel from Southern Lebanon, the site was rehabilitated and inscribed to the World Heritage Site tentative list. (Full article...)
The remains of an individual who would have stood about 1.1 m (3 ft 7 in) in height were discovered in 2003 at Liang Bua cave. As of 2015, partial skeletons of 15 individuals have been recovered; this includes one complete skull, referred to as "LB1".
Homo floresiensis is thought to have arrived on Flores around 1.27–1 million years ago. There is debate as to whether H. floresiensis represents a descendant of Javanese Homo erectus that reduced its body size as a result of insular dwarfism, or whether it represents an otherwise undetected migration of small, Australopithecus or Homo habilis-grade archaic humans outside of Africa.
This hominin was at first considered remarkable for its survival until relatively recent times, initially thought to be only 12,000 years ago. However, more extensive stratigraphic and chronological work has pushed the dating of the most recent evidence of its existence back to 50,000 years ago. The Homo floresiensis skeletal material at Liang Bua is now dated from 60,000 to 100,000 years ago; stone tools recovered alongside the skeletal remains were from archaeological horizons ranging from 50,000 to 190,000 years ago. Other earlier remains from Mata Menge date to around 700,000 years ago. (Full article...)
Causewayed enclosures were built in England from shortly before 3700 BC until at least 3500 BC; they are characterized by the full or partial enclosure of an area with ditches that are interrupted by gaps, or causeways. Their purpose is not known; they may have been settlements, meeting places, or ritual sites. Hillforts were built as early as 1000 BC, in the Late Bronze Age, and continued to be built through the Iron Age until shortly before the Roman occupation.
A chapel dedicated to St Roche was built on the hill around the end of the 14th century; it was in ruins by 1570. A windmill and a beacon were subsequently built on the hill. The site was occasionally used as a meeting place in the post-medieval period.
The hillfort is still a substantial earthwork, but the Neolithic site was unknown until 1925 when archaeologist O.G.S. Crawford obtained an aerial photograph of the Trundle, clearly showing additional structures inside the ramparts of the hillfort. Causewayed enclosures were new to archaeology at the time, with only five known by 1930, and the photograph persuaded archaeologist E. Cecil Curwen to excavate the site in 1928 and 1930. These early digs established a construction date of about 500 BC to 100 BC for the hillfort and proved the existence of the Neolithic site.
In 2011, the Gathering Time project published an analysis of radiocarbon dates from almost forty British causewayed enclosures, including some from the Trundle. The conclusion was that the Neolithic part of the site was probably constructed no earlier than the mid-fourth millennium BC. A review of the site in 1995 by Alastair Oswald noted the presence of fifteen possible Iron Age house platforms within the hillfort's ramparts. (Full article...)
In his Dream Pool Essays or Dream Torrent Essays (夢溪筆談; Mengxi Bitan) of 1088, Shen was the first to describe the magnetic needle compass, which would be used for navigation (first described in Europe by Alexander Neckam in 1187). Shen discovered the concept of true north in terms of magnetic declination towards the north pole, with experimentation of suspended magnetic needles and "the improved meridian determined by Shen's [astronomical] measurement of the distance between the pole star and true north". This was the decisive step in human history to make compasses more useful for navigation, and may have been a concept unknown in Europe for another four hundred years (evidence of German sundials made circa 1450 show markings similar to Chinese geomancers' compasses in regard to declination).
Alongside his colleague Wei Pu, Shen planned to map the orbital paths of the Moon and the planets in an intensive five-year project involving daily observations, yet this was thwarted by political opponents at court. To aid his work in astronomy, Shen Kuo made improved designs of the armillary sphere, gnomon, sighting tube, and invented a new type of inflow water clock. Shen Kuo devised a geological hypothesis for land formation (geomorphology), based upon findings of inland marinefossils, knowledge of soil erosion, and the deposition of silt. He also proposed a hypothesis of gradual climate change, after observing ancient petrifiedbamboos that were preserved underground in a dry northern habitat that would not support bamboo growth in his time. He was the first literary figure in China to mention the use of the drydock to repair boats suspended out of water, and also wrote of the effectiveness of the relatively new invention of the canal pound lock. Although not the first to invent camera obscura, Shen noted the relation of the focal point of a concave mirror and that of the pinhole. Shen wrote extensively about movable typeprinting invented by Bi Sheng (990–1051), and because of his written works the legacy of Bi Sheng and the modern understanding of the earliest movable type has been handed down to later generations. Following an old tradition in China, Shen created a raised-relief map while inspecting borderlands. His description of an ancient crossbow mechanism he unearthed as an amateur archaeologist proved to be a Jacob's staff, a surveying tool which wasn't known in Europe until described by Levi ben Gerson in 1321.
Shen Kuo wrote several other books besides the Dream Pool Essays, yet much of the writing in his other books has not survived. Some of Shen's poetry was preserved in posthumous written works. Although much of his focus was on technical and scientific issues, he had an interest in divination and the supernatural, the latter including his vivid description of unidentified flying objects from eyewitness testimony. He also wrote commentary on ancient Daoist and Confucian texts. (Full article...)
From 1894, Gilliéron maintained a business producing replicas of archaeological finds, particularly metal vessels, which were sold to museums and collectors across Europe and North America. This enterprise grew particularly successful after Gilliéron introduced his son, also named Émile, into the business around 1909. The Gilliérons' work has been credited as a major influence on the public and academic perception of Greek antiquity, particularly Minoan civilisation, and with disseminating the influence of ancient cultures to modernist writers, artists and intellectuals such as James Joyce, Sigmund Freud and Pablo Picasso.
Many of Gilliéron's restorations were made from highly fragmentary evidence, and he often made bold, imaginative decisions in reconstructing what he believed to be the original material. In several cases, his hypotheses have been challenged or overturned by more recent study. Gilliéron frequently muddied the distinction between his own restorations and the original material, and was criticised in his day for overshadowing ancient material with his own creations. He was also likely involved in the illegal export of forged antiquities from Greece, and has been accused of direct involvement in the manufacture of faked objects. (Full article...)
The Hampton Down Stone Circle is a stone circle located near to the village of Portesham in the south-westernEnglish county of Dorset. Archaeologists believe that it was likely erected during the Bronze Age. The Hampton Down ring is part of a tradition of stone circle construction that spread throughout much of Britain, Ireland, and Brittany during the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, over a period between 3,300 and 900 BCE. The purpose of such monuments is unknown, although archaeologists speculate that they were likely religious sites, with the stones perhaps having supernatural associations for those who built the circles. However, it has been suggested that the site is not a stone circle at all, but is instead made up of kerbstones from a Bronze Age round barrow.
A number of stone circles were built in the area around modern Dorset, typically being constructed from sarsen stone and being smaller than those found elsewhere. The Hampton Down ring was erected on an open downlandridge overlooking the coast. It originally contained either eight or nine sarsen stones and had a diameter of 20 feet (6.5 metres) across with a track leading to it from the north. By 1908 the circle had been shifted east of its original position, with a hedge built across the site, and the number of stones increased to sixteen. By 1964 the number of stones had further increased to twenty-eight. In 1965, Geoffrey J. Wainwright oversaw an archaeological excavation which revealed the circle's original location and dimensions, after which it was reconstructed in its original location with the extraneous stones removed. (Full article...)
Geologically, the hill is part of a local anticline in the chalk, which is of Turonian age in the Upper Cretaceous. The local ecology is dominated by the chalk, which results in a thin dark soil, a rendzina, which favours lime-loving plants from orchids to bellflowers. (Full article...)
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The Beulé Gate (French pronunciation:[bœ'le]) is a fortified gate, constructed in the Roman period, leading to the Propylaia of the Acropolis of Athens. It was constructed almost entirely from repurposed materials (spolia) taken from the Choragic Monument of Nikias, a monument built in the fourth century BCE and demolished between the second and fourth centuries CE. The dedicatory inscription from Nikias's monument is still visible in the entablature of the Beulé Gate.
The gate was integrated into the Post-Herulian Wall, a late Roman fortification built around the Acropolis in the years following the city's sack by the Germanic Heruli people in 267 or early 268 CE. Its construction marked the beginning of a new phase in the Acropolis's use, in which it came to be seen more as a potential defensive position than in the religious terms that had marked its use in the classical period. During the medieval period, the gate was further fortified and closed off, before being built over with a bastion in Ottoman times.
The monument was discovered by the French archaeologist Charles Ernest Beulé in 1852, and excavated between 1852 and 1853. Its discovery was greeted enthusiastically in France among the scholarly community and the press, though archaeologists and Greek commentators criticised the aggressive means – particularly the use of explosives – by which Beulé had carried out the excavation. In modern times, the gate has served primarily as an exit for tourists from the Acropolis. (Full article...)
Whitley Castle (Epiacum) is a large, unusually shaped Romanfort (Latin: castra) north-west of the town of Alston, Cumbria, England. The castrum, which was first built by the Roman Army early in the 2nd century AD, was partly demolished and rebuilt around 200 AD. It appears to have been sited to protect lead mining in the area as well as to support the border defences of Hadrian's Wall.
Unlike most Roman forts that have a "playing-card shape" (rectangular with rounded corners), Whitley Castle is lozenge-shaped to fit the site. Numerous banks and ditches ring the stone ramparts, making it among the most complex defensive earthworks of any fort known in the Roman Empire.
The site was surveyed by the geologist Thomas Sopwith in the 19th century and the historian R. G. Collingwood in the 20th century. In 2012, a geophysics survey was conducted by a team from Durham University but it has not been fully excavated. Among finds at the fort are altars with inscriptions to Hercules by Legio VI Victrix (normally stationed at Eboracum [York]) and to Apollo by the 2nd Cohort of Nervians, the garrison of auxiliaries. Other finds include a midden containing shoes; coins, fragments of Samian pottery, beads, nails, and a bronze handle shaped like a dolphin. (Full article...)
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Derwent Valley Mills is a World Heritage Site along the River Derwent in Derbyshire, England, designated in December 2001. It is administered by the Derwent Valley Mills Partnership. The modern factory, or 'mill', system was born here in the 18th century to accommodate the new technology for spinning cotton developed by Richard Arkwright. With advancements in technology, it became possible to produce cotton continuously. The system was adopted throughout the valley, and later spread so that by 1788 there were over 200 Arkwright-type mills in Britain. Arkwright's inventions and system of organising labour was exported to Europe and the United States.
Water-power was first introduced to England by John Lombe at his silk mill in Derby in 1719, but it was Richard Arkwright who applied water-power to the process of producing cotton in the 1770s. His patent of a water frame allowed cotton to be spun continuously, meaning it could be produced by unskilled workers. Cromford Mill was the site of Arkwright's first mill, with nearby Cromford village significantly expanded for his then-new workforce; this system of production and workers' housing was copied throughout the valley. To ensure the presence of a labour force, it was necessary to construct housing for the mill workers. Thus, new settlements were established by mill owners around the mills – sometimes developing a pre-existing community – with their own amenities such as schools, chapels, and markets. Most of the housing still exists and is still in use. Transport infrastructure was built to open new markets for the mills' produce.
Mills and workers' settlements were established at Belper, Darley Abbey, and Milford by Arkwright's competitors. Arkwright-type mills were so successful that sometimes they were copied without paying royalties to Richard Arkwright.
The cotton industry in the Derwent Valley went into decline in the first quarter of the 19th century as the market shifted towards Lancashire which was better positioned in relation to markets and raw materials. The mills and their associated buildings are well preserved and have been reused since the cotton industry declined. Many of the buildings within the World Heritage Site are also listed buildings and Scheduled Monuments. Some of the mills now contain museums and are open to the public.
The Derwent Valley Trust is now involved in the creation of a cycle-way running the entire length of the World Heritage site to promote sustainable tourism and travel. (Full article...)
Angkor Wat was built at the behest of the Khmer king Suryavarman II in the early 12th century in Yaśodharapura (present-day Angkor), the capital of the Khmer Empire, as his state temple and eventual mausoleum. Angkor Wat combines two basic plans of Khmer temple architecture: the temple-mountain and the later galleried temple. It is designed to represent Mount Meru, home of the devas in Hindu mythology and is surrounded by a moat more than 5 km (3.1 mi). Enclosed within an outer wall 3.6 kilometres (2.2 mi) long are three rectangular galleries, each raised above the next. At the centre of the temple stands a quincunx of towers. Unlike most Angkorian temples, Angkor Wat is oriented to the west with scholars divided as to the significance of this.
The temple complex fell into disuse before being restored in the 20th century with various international agencies involved in the project. The temple is admired for the grandeur and harmony of the architecture, its extensive bas-reliefs and devatas adorning its walls. The Angkor area was designated as a UNESCOWorld Heritage Site in 1992. The Angkor Wat is a major tourist attraction and attracts more than 2.5 million visitors every year. (Full article...)
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The tomb of Tutankhamun was discovered in the Valley of the Kings in 1922 by excavators led by the EgyptologistHoward Carter, more than 3,300 years after Tutankhamun's death and burial. Whereas the tombs of most pharaohs were plundered by graverobbers in ancient times, Tutankhamun's tomb was hidden by debris for most of its existence and therefore not extensively robbed. It thus became the only known near-intact royal burial from ancient Egypt.
The tomb was opened beginning on 4 November 1922 during an excavation by Carter and his patron, the 5th Earl of Carnarvon. The burial consisted of more than five thousand objects, many of which were in a highly fragile state, so conserving the burial goods for removal from the tomb required an unprecedented effort. The opulence of the burial goods inspired a media frenzy and popularised ancient Egyptian-inspired designs with the Western public. To the Egyptians, who had recently become partially independent of British rule, the tomb became a symbol of national pride, strengthening Pharaonism, a nationalist ideology that emphasised modern Egypt's ties to the ancient civilisation, and creating friction between Egyptians and the British-led excavation team. The publicity surrounding the excavation intensified when Carnarvon died of an infection, giving rise to speculation that his death and other misfortunes connected with the tomb were the result of an ancient curse.
After Carnarvon's death, tensions arose between Carter and the Egyptian government over who should control access to the tomb. In early 1924, Carter stopped work in protest, beginning a dispute that lasted until the end of the year. Under the agreement that resolved the dispute, the artefacts from the tomb would not be divided between the government and the dig's sponsors, as was standard practice in previous Egyptological digs, and most of the tomb's contents went to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. In later seasons media attention waned, apart from coverage of the removal of Tutankhamun's mummy from its coffin in 1925. The last of the burial goods were conserved and shipped to Cairo in 1932.
The tomb's discovery did not reveal as much about the history of Tutankhamun's time as Egyptologists had initially hoped, but it established the length of his reign and gave clues about the end of the Amarna Period, which preceded his reign. It was more informative about the material culture of Tutankhamun's time, demonstrating what a complete royal burial was like and providing evidence about the lifestyles of wealthy Egyptians and the behaviour of ancient tomb robbers. The interest generated by the find stimulated efforts to train Egyptians in Egyptology. Since the discovery, the Egyptian government has capitalised on its enduring fame by using exhibitions of the burial goods for purposes of fundraising and diplomacy, and Tutankhamun has become a symbol of ancient Egypt itself. (Full article...)
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Thomas Edward LawrenceCBDSO (16 August 1888 – 19 May 1935) was a British Army officer, archaeologist, diplomat and writer known for his role during the Arab Revolt and Sinai and Palestine campaign against the Ottoman Empire in the First World War. The breadth and variety of his activities and associations, and Lawrence's ability to describe them vividly in writing, earned him international fame as Lawrence of Arabia, a title used for the 1962 film based on his wartime activities.
After the outbreak of war in 1914, Lawrence joined the British Army and was stationed at the Arab Bureau, a military intelligence unit in Egypt. In 1916, he travelled to Mesopotamia and Arabia on intelligence missions and became involved with the Arab revolt against Ottoman rule. Lawrence was ultimately assigned to the British Military Mission in the Hejaz as a liaison to Emir Faisal, a leader of the revolt. He participated in engagements with the Ottoman military culminating in the capture of Damascus in October 1918.
After the war's end, he joined the Foreign Office, working with Faisal. In 1922, Lawrence retreated from public life and served as an enlisted man in the Army and Royal Air Force (RAF) until 1935. He published the Seven Pillars of Wisdom in 1926, an autobiographical account of his participation in the Arab Revolt. Lawrence also translated books into English and wrote The Mint, which detailed his service in the RAF. He corresponded extensively with prominent artists, writers and politicians, and also participated in the development of rescue motorboats for the RAF. Lawrence's public image resulted in part from the sensationalised reporting of the Arab Revolt by American journalist Lowell Thomas, as well as from Seven Pillars of Wisdom. In 1935, Lawrence died at the age of 46 after being injured in a motorcycle accident in Dorset.
Gedi is one of many medieval Swahili coastal settlements that stretch from Barawa, Somalia to the Zambezi River in Mozambique. There are 116 known Swahili sites stretching from southern Somalia to Vumba Kuu at the Kenya-Tanzania border. Since the rediscovery of the Gedi ruins by colonialists in the 1920s, Gedi has been one of the most intensely excavated and studied of those sites, along with Shanga, Manda, Ungwana, Kilwa, and the Comoros.
The site of Gedi includes a walled town and its outlying area. All of the standing buildings at Gedi, which include mosques, a palace, and numerous houses, are made from stone, are one-story, and are distributed unevenly in the town. There are also large open areas in the settlement which contained earth and thatch houses. Stone "pillar tombs" are a distinctive type of Swahili Coast architecture found at Gedi as well.
Gedi's location along the coast and association with similar sites along the Swahili Coast made it an important trade center. Although there are few historical documents specifically associating Gedi with Indian Ocean trade, the site is thought to have been one of the most important sites along the coast. Gedi's architecture and an abundance of imported material culture including pottery, beads, and coins provide evidence of the city's rising prosperity over the course of its occupation from as early as the eleventh century to its abandonment in the early seventeenth century. (Full article...)
Around 450 BC it was greatly expanded and the enclosed area nearly tripled in size to 19 ha (47 acres), making it the largest hill fort in Britain and, by some definitions, the largest in Europe. At the same time, Maiden Castle's defences were made more complex with the addition of further ramparts and ditches. Around 100 BC, habitation at the hill fort went into decline and became concentrated at the eastern end of the site. It was occupied until at least the Roman period, by which time it was in the territory of the Durotriges, a Celtic tribe.
After the Roman conquest of Britain in the 1st century AD, Maiden Castle appears to have been abandoned, although the Romans may have had a military presence on the site. In the late 4th century AD, a temple and ancillary buildings were constructed. In the 6th century AD the hill top was entirely abandoned and was used only for agriculture during the medieval period. Maiden Castle has provided inspiration for composer John Ireland and authors Thomas Hardy and John Cowper Powys. The study of hill forts was popularised in the 19th century by archaeologist Augustus Pitt Rivers. In the 1930s, archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler and Tessa Verney Wheeler undertook the first archaeological excavations at Maiden Castle, raising its profile among the public. Further excavations were carried out under Niall Sharples, which added to an understanding of the site and repaired damage caused in part by the large number of visitors. Today the site is protected as a Scheduled Monument and is maintained by English Heritage. (Full article...)
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The Alepotrypa Cave is an archaeological site in the Mani region of the Peloponnese peninsula. In addition to being inhabited by early farmers, this site was used for burial and cult purposes. Archaeological evidence has revealed that this is one of the largest Neolithic burial sites ever found in Europe. Two adult human skeletons were found at the site from a burial dating to the 4th millennium BC, as well as remains from at least 170 separate persons. Archaeologists are uncertain about the significance of a Mycenaen ossuary, which has been dated to the 2nd millennium BC and appears to have been reburied at Alepotrypa. While there is no direct evidence, it is possible that the ossuary may link Alepotrypa to Tainaron, which was regarded as the entrance to Hades in classical mythology. (Full article...)
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Barkhale Camp is a Neolithiccausewayed enclosure, an archaeological site on Bignor Hill, on the South Downs in West Sussex, England. Causewayed enclosures were built in England from shortly before 3700 BC until at least 3500 BC; they are characterized by the full or partial enclosure of an area with ditches that are interrupted by gaps, or causeways. Their purpose is not known; they may have been settlements, meeting places, or ritual sites. The Barkhale Camp enclosure was first identified in 1929, by John Ryle, and was surveyed the following year by E. Cecil Curwen, who listed it as a possible Neolithic site in a 1930 paper which was the first attempt to list all the causewayed enclosures in England.
A small trench was dug in 1930 by Ryle, and a more extensive excavation was undertaken by Veronica Seton-Williams between 1958 and 1961, which confirmed Curwen's survey and found a characteristically Neolithic assemblage of flints. Peter Leach conducted another excavation before the southern part of the site was cleared of trees in 1978, examining several mounds within the enclosure, and attempting to determine the line of the ditch and bank along the southern boundary. No material suitable for radiocarbon dating was recovered, which meant that dating the site was not possible with any precision, but Leach suggested that the site had been constructed in the earlier Neolithic, between 4000 BC and 3300 BC.
The term Harappan is sometimes applied to the Indus Civilisation after its type siteHarappa, the first to be excavated early in the 20th century in what was then the Punjab province of British India and is now Punjab, Pakistan. The discovery of Harappa and soon afterwards Mohenjo-daro was the culmination of work that had begun after the founding of the Archaeological Survey of India in the British Raj in 1861. There were earlier and later cultures called Early Harappan and Late Harappan in the same area. The early Harappan cultures were populated from Neolithic cultures, the earliest and best-known of which is named after Mehrgarh, in Balochistan, Pakistan. Harappan civilisation is sometimes called Mature Harappan to distinguish it from the earlier cultures.
The cities of the ancient Indus were noted for their urban planning, baked brick houses, elaborate drainage systems, water supply systems, clusters of large non-residential buildings, and techniques of handicraft and metallurgy. Mohenjo-daro and Harappa very likely grew to contain between 30,000 and 60,000 individuals, and the civilisation may have contained between one and five million individuals during its florescence. A gradual drying of the region during the 3rd millennium BCE may have been the initial stimulus for its urbanisation. Eventually it also reduced the water supply enough to cause the civilisation's demise and to disperse its population to the east.
Although over a thousand Mature Harappan sites have been reported and nearly a hundred excavated, there are five major urban centres: Mohenjo-daro in the lower Indus Valley (declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980 as "Archaeological Ruins at Moenjodaro"), Harappa in the western Punjab region, Ganeriwala in the Cholistan Desert, Dholavira in western Gujarat (declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2021 as "Dholavira: A Harappan City"), and Rakhigarhi in Haryana. The Harappan language is not directly attested, and its affiliations are uncertain, as the Indus script has remained undeciphered. A relationship with the Dravidian or Elamo-Dravidian language family is favoured by a section of scholars. (Full article...)
The fortifications form part of the Ring of Iron built by Edward I after his invasion of North Wales in 1282. Edward defeated the local Welsh princes in a major campaign and set about permanently colonising the area. He created new fortified towns, protected by castles, in which English immigrants could settle and administer the territories. The project was hugely expensive and stretched royal resources to the limit. Fresh Welsh revolts followed in 1294 under the leadership of Madog ap Llywelyn. Conwy and Harlech were kept supplied by sea and held out against the attack, but Caernarfon, still only partially completed, was stormed. In the aftermath, Edward reinvigorated the building programme and ordered the commencement of work at Beaumaris. Edward's wars in Scotland began to consume royal funding, however, and work soon slowed once again. Building work on all the fortifications had ceased by 1330, without Caernarfon and Beaumaris having been fully completed.
The fortifications played an important part in the conflicts in North Wales over the coming centuries. They were involved in the Welsh Revolt of the early 15th century and the Wars of the Roses in the late 15th century. Despite declining in military significance following the succession of the Tudor dynasty to the throne in 1485, they were pressed back into service during the English Civil War in the 17th century. In the aftermath of the conflict, Parliament ordered the slighting, or deliberate destruction, of parts of Conwy and Harlech, but the threat of a pro-Royalist invasion from Scotland ensured that Caernarfon and Beaumaris remained intact. By the end of the 17th century, however, the castles were ruinous. They became popular with visiting artists during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and visitor numbers increased as access to the region improved during the Victorian era. The British state invested heavily in the castles and town walls during the 20th century, restoring many of their medieval features. In 1986, the sites were collectively declared to be a World Heritage Site, as outstanding examples of fortifications and military architecture built in the 13th century, and are now operated as tourist attractions by the Welsh heritage agency Cadw.
For much of the 20th century, the castles and walls were considered primarily from a military perspective. Their use of concentric defences, barbicans, and substantial gatehouses led D. J. Cathcart King to describe them as the "zenith of English castle-building", and Sidney Toy to assess them as "some of the most powerful castles of any age or country". In the late 20th and 21st centuries, historians such as Michael Prestwich and Abigail Wheatley also highlighted the sites' roles as palaces and symbols of royal power. The location of castles such as Caernarfon and Conwy were chosen for their political significance as well as military functions, being built on top of sites belonging to the Welsh princes. The castles incorporated luxury apartments and gardens, with the intention of supporting large royal courts in splendour. Caernarfon's castle and town walls incorporated expensive stonework, probably intended to evoke images of Arthurian or Roman imperial power in order to bolster Edward's personal prestige. The precise role of the royal architect James of Saint George in the construction projects, and the influence of his native County of Savoy on the designs, also continues to be debated by academics. However, the primary sources do indicate he played a key role, describing him as "Magistro Jacobo de sancto Georgio, Magistro operacionum Regis in Wallia" or "Master James of Saint George, Master of the King’s Works in Wales." (Full article...)
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The Corp Naomh (Irish pronunciation:[kɔɾˠpˠn̪ˠiːvˠ], lit.'Holy or Sacred Body') is an Irish bell shrine made in the 9th or 10th century to enclose a now-lost hand-bell, which probably dated to c. 600 to 900 AD and belonged to an early Irish saint. The shrine was rediscovered sometime before 1682 at Tristernagh Abbey, near Templecross, County Westmeath. The shrine is 23 cm (9.1 in) high and 12 cm (4.7 in) wide. It was heavily refurbished and added to during a second phase of embellishment in the 15th century, and now consists of cast and sheetbronze plates mounted on a wooden core decorated with silver, niello and rock crystal. It is severely damaged with extensive losses and wear across almost all of its parts, and when discovered a block of wood had been substituted for the bell itself. The remaining elements are considered of high historical and artistic value by archaeologists and art historians.
Sections from its original, early Medieval phase include the cross on the reverse and the ornate semi-circular cap, which shows a bearded cleric holding a book. He is surrounded by horsemen above whom are large birds seemingly about to take flight. It was extensively refurbished in the 15th (and possibly 16th) centuries when the central bronze crucifix, the griffin and lion panel, the stamped border panels and the backing plate were added. The badly damaged crucifix and large enamel stud on the front date from at least the 15th century.
The shrine's medieval provenance is incomplete. It was probably held by hereditary keepers after the dissolution of Tristernagh Abbey in 1536 until it passed into the possession of the Anglo-Irish owners of the site. The Corp Naomh was first exhibited in 1853 by the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) and was transferred to the National Museum of Ireland in 1887. (Full article...)
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The relics of Sariputta and Moggallana refers to the cremated remains of the Buddhist disciples Sariputta (Sanskrit: Śāriputra; Pali: Sāriputta;Sinhala:Seriyuth සැරියුත්); and Moggallana (Sanskrit: Maudgalyāyana; Pali: Moggallāna;Sinhala: Mugalan මුගලන්). Sariputta and Moggallana (also called Maha Moggallana) were the two chief disciples of the Buddha, often stylized as the right hand and left hand disciples of the Buddha respectively. The two disciples were childhood friends who ordained under the Buddha together and are said to have become enlightened as arahants. The Buddha declared them his two chief disciples, after which they assumed leadership roles in the Buddha's ministry. Both of the chief disciples died a few months before the Buddha near the ancient Indian city of Rājagaha in what is now Bihar, and were cremated. According to Buddhist texts, the cremated remains of the disciples were then enshrined in stupas at notable monasteries of the time, with Sariputta's remains being enshrined at Jetavana monastery and Moggallana's remains being enshrined at Veḷuvana monastery. However, as of 1999 no modern archaeological reports have confirmed this, although in 1851 discoveries were made at other sites.
In 1851, British archaeologists Major Alexander Cunningham and Lieutenant Frederick Charles Maisey discovered relics attributed to the chief disciples during excavations of stupas in the Indian cities of Sanchi and Satdhara. Scholars have theorized that the relics were enshrined in stupas near Rajagaha after the disciples' deaths but were redistributed by later Indian kings such as King Asoka. Following the discovery, the Satdhara relics were sent to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1866, while the Sanchi relics are said to have been lost when a ship carrying the remains sank. Following a Buddhist revival movement in South Asia in the late 19th century, Buddhist organizations including the Maha Bodhi Society began pressuring the British government to return the relics to Asia so they can be properly venerated, with the British government eventually conceding. The relics were sent to Sri Lanka in 1947, where they were on display at the Colombo Museum for nearly two years, and then were put on tour around parts of Asia starting in 1949. The relics were then divided up and permanently relocated in 1952, with portions being enshrined at the Kaba Aye Pagoda in Yangon, Burma, the Maha Bodhi Society temple in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and the Chethiyagiri Vihara in Sanchi, India. (Full article...)
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Kenilworth Castle is a castle in the town of Kenilworth in Warwickshire, England, managed by English Heritage; much of it is in ruins. The castle was founded after the Norman Conquest of 1066; with development through to the Tudor period. It has been described by the architectural historian Anthony Emery as "the finest surviving example of a semi-royal palace of the later Middle Ages, significant for its scale, form and quality of workmanship".
Kenilworth played an important historical role: it was the subject of the six-month-long siege of Kenilworth in 1266, thought to be the longest siege in medieval English history, and formed a base for Lancastrian operations in the Wars of the Roses. Kenilworth was the scene of the removal of Edward II from the English throne, the perceived French insult to Henry V in 1414 of a gift of tennis balls (said by John Strecche to have prompted the campaign that led to the Battle of Agincourt), and the Earl of Leicester's lavish reception of Elizabeth I in 1575. It has been described as "one of two major castles in Britain which may be classified as water-castles or lake-fortresses...".
The castle was built over several centuries. Founded in the 1120s around a powerful Normangreat tower, the castle was significantly enlarged by King John at the beginning of the 13th century. Huge water defences were created by damming the local streams, and the resulting fortifications proved able to withstand assaults by land and water in 1266. John of Gaunt spent lavishly in the late 14th century, turning the medieval castle into a palace fortress designed in the latest perpendicular style. The Earl of Leicester then expanded the castle during his tenure in the 16th century, constructing new Tudor buildings and exploiting the medieval heritage of Kenilworth to produce a fashionable Renaissance palace. (Full article...)
The tetrastyleprostyle building has two doors that connect the pronaos to a square cella. To the back of the temple lie the remains of the adyton where images of the deity once stood. The ancient temple functioned as an aedes, the dwelling place of the deity. The temple of Bziza was converted into a church and underwent architectural modification during two phases of Christianization; in the Early Byzantine period and later in the Middle Ages. The church, colloquially known until modern times as the Lady of the Pillars, fell into disrepair. Despite the church's condition, Christian devotion was still maintained in the nineteenth century in one of the temple's niches. The temple of Bziza is featured on multiple stamps issued by the Lebanese state. (Full article...)
Blanche Wheeler Williams (January 9, 1870 – December 9, 1936) was an archaeologist and teacher best known for her work in the Isthmus of Hierapetra and her discoveries at Gournia with colleague Harriet Boyd Hawes. She was trained at Smith College and worked as a teacher at her aunt's preparatory school until her Cretan archaeological digs in 1900 and 1901. Williams was married in 1904 and did not return to the field after contributing to a 1908 publication, though she wrote a biography of her aunt and helped with her husband's travel book. (Full article...)
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Peter Charles van GeersdaeleOBE (3 July 1933 – 20 July 2018) was an English conservator best known for his work on the Sutton Hooship-burial. Among other work he oversaw the creation of a plaster cast of the ship impression, from which a fibreglass replica of the ship was formed. He later helped mould an impression of the Graveney boat, in addition to other excavation and restoration work.
Van Geersdaele studied at Hammersmith Technical College from 1946 to 1949, after which he engaged in moulding and casting at the Victoria and Albert Museum until 1951. From 1954 to around 1976 he was a conservator at the British Museum, rising to the position of senior conservation officer in the British and Medieval department. Following that he became an assistant chief of archaeology in the conservation division of the National Historic Sites of Canada for Parks Canada, and then the deputy head of the conservation department at the National Maritime Museum in London. He retired in 1993, and during that year's Birthday Honours was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, in recognition of his services to museums. (Full article...)
A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars usually consider a castle to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble. This is distinct from a mansion, palace, and villa, whose main purpose was exclusively for pleasance and are not primarily fortresses but may be fortified. Use of the term has varied over time and, sometimes, has also been applied to structures such as hill forts and 19th- and 20th-century homes built to resemble castles. Over the Middle Ages, when genuine castles were built, they took on a great many forms with many different features, although some, such as curtain walls, arrowslits, and portcullises, were commonplace.
European-style castles originated in the 9th and 10th centuries after the fall of the Carolingian Empire, which resulted in its territory being divided among individual lords and princes. These nobles built castles to control the area immediately surrounding them and they were both offensive and defensive structures: they provided a base from which raids could be launched as well as offering protection from enemies. Although their military origins are often emphasised in castle studies, the structures also served as centres of administration and symbols of power. Urban castles were used to control the local populace and important travel routes, and rural castles were often situated near features that were integral to life in the community, such as mills, fertile land, or a water source.
Many northern European castles were originally built from earth and timber but had their defences replaced later by stone. Early castles often exploited natural defences, lacking features such as towers and arrowslits and relying on a central keep. In the late 12th and early 13th centuries, a scientific approach to castle defence emerged. This led to the proliferation of towers, with an emphasis on flanking fire. Many new castles were polygonal or relied on concentric defence – several stages of defence within each other that could all function at the same time to maximise the castle's firepower. These changes in defence have been attributed to a mixture of castle technology from the Crusades, such as concentric fortification, and inspiration from earlier defences, such as Roman forts. Not all the elements of castle architecture were military in nature, so that devices such as moats evolved from their original purpose of defence into symbols of power. Some grand castles had long winding approaches intended to impress and dominate their landscape.
Although gunpowder was introduced to Europe in the 14th century, it did not significantly affect castle building until the 15th century, when artillery became powerful enough to break through stone walls. While castles continued to be built well into the 16th century, new techniques to deal with improved cannon fire made them uncomfortable and undesirable places to live. As a result, true castles went into a decline and were replaced by artillery star forts with no role in civil administration, and château or country houses that were indefensible. From the 18th century onwards, there was a renewed interest in castles with the construction of mock castles, part of a Romanticrevival of Gothic architecture, but they had no military purpose. (Full article...)
The trend of military sites continues from the Iron Age into the Roman period; two Roman forts in Greater Manchester are scheduled monuments and were the two main areas of Roman activity in the county. Of the nine castles in Greater Manchester, four are scheduled monuments: Buckton Castle, Watch Hill Castle, Bury Castle, and Radcliffe Tower. The last two are fortified manor houses, and although defined as castles were not exclusively military in nature; they probably acted as the administrative centre of the manors they were in. There are several other manor houses and country houses – some with moats – in the county that are protected as scheduled monuments. The Astley Green Colliery, the Marple Aqueduct, Oldknows Limekilns, and the Worsley Delph are scheduled relics of Greater Manchester's industrial history. (Full article...)
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The Crosby Garrett Helmet is a copper alloyRoman cavalry helmet dating from the late 2nd or early 3rd century AD. It was found by an unnamed metal detectorist near Crosby Garrett in Cumbria, England, in May 2010. Later investigations found that a Romano-British farming settlement had occupied the site where the helmet was discovered, which was located a few miles away from a Roman road and a Roman army fort. It is possible that the owner of the helmet was a local inhabitant who had served with the Roman cavalry.
The helmet appears to have been deliberately folded up and deposited in an artificial stone structure. It is thought to have been used for ceremonial occasions rather than for combat, and may already have been an antique by the time it was buried. It is of the same type as the Newstead Helmet (found near Melrose in Scotland in 1905). Its facial features are more akin to those of helmets found in southern Europe although its design also has similarities with the Ribchester Helmet (found in 1796) and the Hallaton Helmet (found in North Yorkshire in 2000). Its design may allude to the Trojans, whose exploits the Romans re-enacted in cavalry tournaments.
Ralph Jackson, Senior Curator of Romano-British Collections at the British Museum, has described the helmet as "... an immensely interesting and outstandingly important find ... Its face mask is both extremely finely wrought and chillingly striking, but it is as an ensemble that the helmet is so exceptional and, in its specifics, unparalleled. It is a find of the greatest national (and, indeed, international) significance."
On 7 October 2010, the helmet was sold at Christie's for £2.3 million (US$3.6 million) to an undisclosed private buyer. Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery in Carlisle sought to purchase the helmet with the support of the British Museum, but was outbid. The helmet has so far been publicly displayed four times, once in a 2012 exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, at Tullie House in 2013–14, followed by display at the British Museum in 2014. The helmet returned to Tullie House to be displayed in the Hadrian's Cavalry exhibition in the summer of 2017. (Full article...)
Authored by Darius the Great sometime between his coronation as king of the Persian Empire in the summer of 522 BC and his death in autumn of 486 BC, the inscription begins with a brief autobiography of Darius, including his ancestry and lineage. Later in the inscription, Darius provides a lengthy sequence of events following the death of Cambyses II in which he fought nineteen battles in a period of one year (ending in December 521 BC) to put down multiple rebellions throughout the Persian Empire. The inscription states in detail that the rebellions were orchestrated by several impostors and their co-conspirators in various cities throughout the empire, each of whom falsely proclaimed himself king during the upheaval following Cambyses II's death. Darius the Great proclaimed himself victorious in all battles during the period of upheaval, attributing his success to the "grace of Ahura Mazda".
The inscription is approximately 15 m (49 ft) high by 25 m (82 ft) wide and 100 m (330 ft) up a limestone cliff from an ancient road connecting the capitals of Babylonia and Media (Babylon and Ecbatana, respectively). The Old Persian text contains 414 lines in five columns; the Elamite text includes 260 lines in eight columns, and the Babylonian text is in 112 lines. A copy of the text in Aramaic, written during the reign of Darius II, was found in Egypt. The inscription was illustrated by a life-sized bas-relief of Darius I, the Great, holding a bow as a sign of kingship, with his left foot on the chest of a figure lying supine before him. The supine figure is reputed to be the pretender Gaumata. Darius is attended to the left by two servants, and nine one-meter figures stand to the right, with hands tied and rope around their necks, representing conquered peoples. A Faravahar floats above, giving its blessing to the king. One figure appears to have been added after the others were completed, as was Darius's beard, which is a separate block of stone attached with iron pins and lead. (Full article...)
Calakmul was a major Maya power within the northern Petén Basin region of the Yucatán Peninsula of southern Mexico. Calakmul administered a large domain marked by the extensive distribution of their emblem glyph of the snake head sign, to be read "Kaan". Calakmul was the seat of what has been dubbed the Kingdom of the Snake or Snake Kingdom. This Snake Kingdom reigned during most of the Classic period. Calakmul itself is estimated to have had a population of 50,000 people and had governance, at times, over places as far away as 150 kilometers (93 mi). There are 6,750 ancient structures identified at Calakmul, the largest of which is the great pyramid at the site. Structure 2 is over 45 metres (148 ft) high, making it one of the tallest of the Maya pyramids.
Four tombs have been located within the pyramid. Like many temples or pyramids within Mesoamerica the pyramid at Calakmul increased in size by building upon the existing temple to reach its current size. The size of the central monumental architecture is approximately 2 square kilometres (0.77 sq mi) and the whole of the site, mostly covered with dense residential structures, is about 20 square kilometres (7.7 sq mi).
Throughout the Classic Period, Calakmul maintained an intense rivalry with the major city of Tikal to the south, and the political maneuverings of these two cities have been likened to a struggle between two Maya superpowers.
Château Gaillard (French pronunciation:[ʃɑtoɡajaʁ]) is a medievalcastle ruin overlooking the River Seine above the commune of Les Andelys, in the French department of Eure, in Normandy. It is located some 95 kilometres (59 mi) north-west of Paris and 40 kilometres (25 mi) from Rouen. Construction began in 1196 under the auspices of Richard the Lionheart, who was simultaneously King of England and feudal Duke of Normandy. The castle was expensive to build, but the majority of the work was done in an unusually short period of time. It took just two years and, at the same time, the town of Petit Andely was constructed. Château Gaillard has a complex and advanced design, and uses early principles of concentric fortification; it was also one of the earliest European castles to use machicolations. The castle consists of three enclosures separated by dry moats, with a keep in the inner enclosure.
Château Gaillard was captured in 1204 by the king of France, Philip II, after a lengthy siege. In the mid-14th century, the castle was the residence of the exiled David II of Scotland. The castle changed hands several times in the Hundred Years' War, but in 1449 the French king captured Château Gaillard from the English king definitively, and from then on it remained in French ownership. Henry IV of France ordered the demolition of Château Gaillard in 1599; although it was in ruins at the time, it was felt to be a threat to the security of the local population. The castle ruins are listed as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture. The inner bailey is open to the public from March to November, and the outer baileys are open all year. (Full article...)
Born in Birkenhead, Jones first became involved in archaeology while studying at the University of Liverpool, where she volunteered on W. J. Varley's excavations. After graduating she worked as a wartime postal censor and freelance photojournalist, whilst continuing to volunteer on archaeological excavations around Britain. In 1956, Jones began working for the Ministry of Works as a freelance archaeologist in the burgeoning field of rescue archaeology. She worked at a number of sites, but is best known for her excavations at Mucking, a major Anglo-Saxon settlement and associated cemetery, with finds ranging from the Stone Age to the medieval period.
The Mucking excavation, which Jones directed from 1965 to 1978, became Britain's largest ever archaeological excavation. It produced an unprecedented volume of material, although some academic archaeologists have criticised the fact that the results did not appear in print until decades after the excavation had ended. Jones' work at Mucking, as well as her role in founding the campaign group Rescue, was influential in the establishment of modern commercial archaeology in Britain. (Full article...)
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Maiden Castle is an Iron Agehill fort, one of many fortified hill-top settlements constructed across Britain during the Iron Age, but one of only seven in the county of Cheshire in northern England. The hill fort was probably occupied from its construction in 600 BC until the Roman conquest of Britain in the 1st century AD. At this time the Cornovii tribe are recorded to have occupied parts of the surrounding area but, because they left no distinctive pottery or metalworking, their occupation has not been verified. Since then it has been quarried and used for military exercises. It is protected as a Scheduled Ancient Monument, and is owned by the National Trust. The hill fort is open to visitors, but unrestricted access to the site has resulted in it being classified as "at high risk" from erosion. (Full article...)
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A war elephant is an elephant that is trained and guided by humans for combat purposes. Historically, the war elephant's main use was to charge the enemy, break their ranks, and instill terror and fear. Elephantry is a term for specific military units using elephant-mounted troops.
St Melangell's Church (Welsh:[meˈlaŋeɬ]) is a Grade I listed medieval building of the Church in Wales located in the former village of Pennant Melangell, in the Tanat Valley, Powys, Wales. The church was founded around the 8th century to commemorate the reputed grave of Melangell, a hermit and abbess who founded a convent and sanctuary in the area. The current church was built in the 12th century and the oldest documentation of it dates to the 13th century. The building has been renovated several times, including major restoration work in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 1980s the church was in danger of demolition, but under new leadership it was renovated and a cancer ministry was started. In 1958, and again between 1987 and 1994, the site was subject to major archaeological excavations, which uncovered information about prehistoric and medieval activity at Pennant Melangell, including evidence of Bronze Age burials.
St Melangell's Church contains the reconstructed shrine to Melangell, considered the oldest surviving Romanesque shrine in northern Europe. The shrine dates to the 12th century, and was a major centre of cult activity in Wales until the Reformation. It was dismantled at some point, probably in the early modern era, and reconstructed in 1958 out of fragments found in and around the church. In 1989 the shrine was dismantled again and restored in 1991 according to newer scholarship. Pennant Melangell has continued to attract pilgrims of various backgrounds and motivations into the 21st century.
The church is built of several types of stone and has a single nave and a square tower. On the east end is an apse, known as the cell-y-bedd, which contains Melangell's traditional grave. The interior of the church holds historically valuable objects including a 15th-century rood screen depicting Melangell's legend, two 14th-century effigies, paintings, and liturgical fittings. The churchyard contains thousands of graves—the majority unmarked—and several yew trees. (Full article...)
The helmet was constructed by covering the outside of an iron framework with plates of horn and the inside with cloth or leather; the organic material has since decayed. The helmet would have provided some protection against weapons, but was also ornate and may have been intended for ceremonial use. It was the first Anglo-Saxon helmet to be discovered, with five others found since: Sutton Hoo (1939), Coppergate (1982), Wollaston (1997), Shorwell (2004) and Staffordshire (2009). The helmet features a unique combination of structural and technical attributes, but contemporaneous parallels exist for its individual characteristics. It is classified as one of the "crested helmets" used in Northern Europe from the 6th to 11th centuries AD.
The most striking feature of the helmet is the boar at its apex; this pagan symbol faces towards a Christian cross on the nasal in a display of syncretism. This is representative of 7th-century England when Christian missionaries were slowly converting Anglo-Saxons away from traditional Germanic paganism. The helmet seems to exhibit a stronger preference toward paganism, with a large boar and a small cross. The cross may have been added for talismanic effect, the help of any god being welcome on the battlefield. The boar atop the crest was likewise associated with protection and suggests a time when boar-crested helmets may have been common, as do the helmet from Wollaston and the Guilden Morden boar. The contemporary epic Beowulf mentions such helmets five times and speaks of the strength of men "when the hefted sword, its hammered edge and gleaming blade slathered in blood, razes the sturdy boar-ridge off a helmet". (Full article...)
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Edmund Buczynski (January 28, 1947 – March 16, 1989) was an American Wiccan and archaeologist who founded two separate traditions of Wicca: Welsh Traditionalist Witchcraft and The Minoan Brotherhood.
Born to a working-class family in New York City, Buczynski eventually embraced his homosexuality, moved to Greenwich Village, and immersed himself in the local gay scene. His relationship with Herman Slater led the two men to open The Warlock Shop, an occult supply store, in 1972. Following ordinations into various covens, Buczynski founded the Minoan Brotherhood in 1977 as a Wiccan tradition for gay and bisexual men. Buczynski was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in 1988, and died the following year. (Full article...)
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Combe Hill is a causewayed enclosure, near Eastbourne in East Sussex, on the northern edge of the South Downs. It consists of an inner circuit of ditches and banks, incomplete where it meets a steep slope on its north side, and the remains of an outer circuit. Causewayed enclosures were built in England from shortly before 3700 BC until at least 3500 BC; they are characterized by the full or partial enclosure of an area with ditches that are interrupted by gaps, or causeways. Their purpose is not known; they may have been settlements, meeting places, or ritual sites. The historian Hadrian Allcroft included the site in his 1908 book Earthwork of England, and in 1930 E. Cecil Curwen listed it as a possible Neolithic site in a paper which attempted to provide the first list of all the causewayed enclosures in England.
The enclosure has been excavated twice: in 1949, by Reginald Musson, and in 1962, by Veronica Seton-Williams, who used it as a training opportunity for volunteers. Charcoal fragments from Musson's dig were later dated to between 3500 and 3300 BC. Musson also found a large quantity of Ebbsfleet ware pottery in one of the ditches. Seton-Williams found three polished stone axes deposited in another ditch, perhaps not long after it had been dug. The site is only 800 m (870 yd) from Butts Brow, another Neolithic enclosure, and the two locations are visible from each other; both sites may have seen Neolithic activity at the same time. (Full article...)
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Beatriz Barba Ahuactzin (16 September 1928 – 29 January 2021) was a Mexican academic, anthropologist, and archaeologist, who was the second woman to earn a degree in archaeology in her country. She was a member of the National System of Researchers from 1985 and a member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences. Upon her fortieth anniversary of teaching, in 1991, she was honored with the gold Ignacio Altamirano Medal by the government of Mexico and the Secretariat of Education. In 2013, the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) paid tribute to her life's work. (Full article...)
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The Alepotrypa Cave is an archaeological site in the Mani region of the Peloponnese peninsula. In addition to being inhabited by early farmers, this site was used for burial and cult purposes. Archaeological evidence has revealed that this is one of the largest Neolithic burial sites ever found in Europe. Two adult human skeletons were found at the site from a burial dating to the 4th millennium BC, as well as remains from at least 170 separate persons. Archaeologists are uncertain about the significance of a Mycenaen ossuary, which has been dated to the 2nd millennium BC and appears to have been reburied at Alepotrypa. While there is no direct evidence, it is possible that the ossuary may link Alepotrypa to Tainaron, which was regarded as the entrance to Hades in classical mythology. (Full article...)
One skull fossil, given the name Apidima 1, shows a mixture of modern human and primitive features and has been dated to be more than 210,000 years old, older than a Neanderthal skull ("Apidima 2") found at the cave, which per some interpretations makes Apidima 1 the oldest proof of Homo sapiens living outside Africa, the second oldest being the maxilla from Misliya Cave in Mount Carmel, Israel, with a maximum age of about 190,000 years ago. Apidima 1 is more than 150,000 years older than previous H. sapiens finds in Europe. (Full article...)
In 2007, the Tussauds Group was purchased by the Blackstone Group, which merged it with Merlin Entertainments. Warwick Castle was then sold to Nick Leslau's investment firm, Prestbury Group, under a sale and leaseback agreement. Merlin continues to operate the site under a renewable 35-year lease. (Full article...)
UNESCO received Liverpool City Council's nomination for the six sites in 2003 and sent ICOMOS representatives to carry out an evaluation on the eligibility for these areas to be given World Heritage Site status. In 2004, ICOMOS recommended that UNESCO should award Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City World Heritage Site status. Its inclusion by UNESCO was attributed to it being "the supreme example of a commercial port at a time of Britain's greatest global influence."
In 2012, the site was added to the List of World Heritage in Danger due to the proposed Liverpool Waters project. In 2017, UNESCO warned that the site's status as a World Heritage Site was at risk of being revoked in light of contemporary development plans, with English Heritage asserting that the Liverpool Waters development would leave the setting of some of Liverpool's most significant historic buildings "severely compromised", the archaeological remains of parts of the historic docks "at risk of destruction", and "the city's historic urban landscape [...] permanently unbalanced."
Goell travelled to the Middle East in the 1930s, working with archaeologists in Jerusalem and Gerasa, before returning to New York. She returned to the Middle East after the Second World War, and in 1947 visited Nemrud Dagh for the first time; excavations there would become her life's work. Goell was involved in excavations at a number of other Middle Eastern sites over the course of her career, including at Tarsus and Samosata. Goell's work in Turkey "nearly single-handedly opened up ancient Commagene to the world". (Full article...)
It is a wadi sitting on the west bank of the Nile, opposite Thebes (modern-day Luxor) and within the heart of the Theban Necropolis. There are two main sections: the East Valley, where the majority of the royal tombs are situated; and the West Valley, otherwise known as the Valley of the Monkeys.
With the 2005 discovery of a new chamber and the 2008 discovery of two further tomb entrances, the Valley of the Kings is known to contain 65 tombs and chambers, ranging in size from the simple pit that is KV54 to the complex tomb that is KV5, which alone has over 120 chambers for the sons of Ramesses II. It was the principal burial place for the New Kingdom's major royal figures as well as a number of privileged nobles. The royal tombs are decorated with traditional scenes from Egyptian mythology and reveal clues to the period's funerary practices and afterlife beliefs. Almost all of the tombs seem to have been opened and robbed in antiquity, but they still give an idea of the opulence and power of Egypt's pharaohs.
This area has been a focus for Egyptologists and archaeological exploration since the end of the 18th century, and its tombs and burials continue to stimulate research and interest. The Valley of the Kings garnered significant attention following the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922, and is one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world. In 1979, it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site alongside the rest of the Theban Necropolis. Exploration, excavation, and conservation continues in the area and a new tourist centre has recently been opened. (Full article...)
The Corleck Head is a 1st or 2nd century AD three-faced Irish stone idol discovered in Drumeague in County Cavan c. 1855. Its dating to the Iron Age is based on its iconography, which is similar to that of contemporary northern European Celtic artefacts. Archaeologists agree that it probably depicts a Celtic god and was intended to be placed on top of a larger shrine associated with a Celtic head cult.
The head is carved in the round from a single block of limestone. It contains three relatively simply described faces, each with similar features, including protuding eyes, thin and narrow mouths and enigmatic expressions. Its dating and cultural significance are difficult to establish. The faces may depict all-knowing, all-seeing gods representing the unity of the past, present and future. Corleck Hill was a major religious centre during the late Iron Age and continued in use as such for the celebration of the Lughnasadh, a pre-Christian harvest festival.
Archaeologists assume that the head was buried in the Early Middle Ages, perhaps c. 900–1200 AD, due to its obvious paganism and association with human sacrifice. When unearthed, the sculpture was regarded as an insignificant local curiosity and for decades was placed on a farm gatepost. Its age and significance was realised in 1937 by the historian Thomas J. Barron and Adolf Mahr, then director of the National Museum of Ireland, which acquired it that year; it is usually on display there. (Full article...)
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The Indian Antiquary: A journal of oriental research in archaeology, history, literature, language, philosophy, religion, folklore, &c, &c (subtitle varies) was a journal of original research relating to India, published between 1872 and 1933. It was founded by the archaeologist James Burgess to enable the sharing of knowledge between scholars based in Europe and in India and was notable for the high quality of its epigraphic illustrations which enabled scholars to make accurate translations of texts that in many cases remain the definitive versions to this day. It was also pioneering in its recording of Indian folklore. It was succeeded by The New Indian Antiquary (1938–47) and the Indian Antiquary (1964–71). (Full article...)
Archaeologists have established that the monument was built by a pastoralist community shortly after the introduction of agriculture to Britain from continental Europe. Although representing part of an architectural tradition of long-barrow building that was widespread across Neolithic Europe, Jacket's Field Long Barrow belongs to a localised regional variant of barrows produced in the vicinity of the River Stour. Of these, it lies on the western side of the river, while Julliberrie's Grave and Shrub's Wood Long Barrow are found on the eastern side. The site was discovered in 1970, at which point it was concealed in dense woodland, although has yet to undergo thorough archaeological investigation. (Full article...)
The city was probably founded between 300 and 285 BC by an official acting on the orders of Seleucus I Nicator or his son Antiochus I Soter, the first two rulers of the Seleucid dynasty. There is a possibility that the site was known to the earlier Achaemenid Empire, who established a small fort nearby. Ai-Khanoum was originally thought to have been a foundation of Alexander the Great, perhaps as Alexandria Oxiana, but this theory is now considered unlikely. Located at the confluence of the Amu Darya (a.k.a. Oxus) and Kokcha rivers, surrounded by well-irrigated farmland, the city itself was divided between a lower town and a 60-metre-high (200 ft) acropolis. Although not situated on a major trade route, Ai-Khanoum controlled access to both mining in the Hindu Kush and strategically important choke points. Extensive fortifications, which were continually maintained and improved, surrounded the city.
Ai-Khanoum, which may have initially grown in population because of royal patronage and the presence of a mint in the city, lost some importance through the secession of the Greco-Bactrians under Diodotus I (c. 250 BC). Seleucid construction programmes were halted and the city probably became primarily military in function; it may have been a conflict zone during the invasion of Antiochus III (c. 209 – c. 205 BC). Ai-Khanoum began to grow once more under Euthydemus I and his successor Demetrius I, who began to assert control over the northwest Indian subcontinent. Many of the present ruins date from the time of Eucratides I, who substantially redeveloped the city and who may have renamed it Eucratideia, after himself. Soon after his death c. 145 BC, the Greco-Bactrian kingdom collapsed—Ai-Khanoum was captured by Saka invaders and was generally abandoned, although parts of the city were sporadically occupied until the 2nd century AD. Hellenistic culture in the region would persist longer only in the Indo-Greek kingdoms.
Robinson's Arch was a monumental staircase carried by an unusually wide stone arch, which once stood at the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount. It was built as part of the expansion of the Second Temple initiated by Herod the Great at the end of the 1st century BCE. Recent findings suggest that it may not have been completed until at least 20 years after his death. The massive stone span was constructed along with the retaining walls of the Temple Mount. It carried traffic up from ancient Jerusalem's Lower Market area and over the Tyropoeon street to the Royal Stoa complex on the esplanade of the Mount. The overpass was destroyed during the First Jewish–Roman War, only a few decades after its completion.
The arch is named after Biblical scholar Edward Robinson who identified its remnants in 1838, though it was noticed earlier by Frederick Catherwood. Robinson published his findings in his landmark work Biblical Researches in Palestine, in which he drew the connection with a bridge described in Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews and The Jewish War, concluding that its existence proves the antiquity of the Walls of Jerusalem. Excavations during the second half of the 20th century revealed both its purpose and the extent of its associated structures. Today the considerable surviving portions of the ancient overpass complex may be viewed by the public within the Jerusalem Archaeological Park. As it is adjacent to Jerusalem's Western Wall worship area, a portion is used by some groups as a place of prayer. (Full article...)
Boudica's husband Prasutagus, with whom she had two daughters, ruled as a nominally independent ally of Rome. He left his kingdom jointly to his daughters and to the Roman emperor in his will. When he died, his will was ignored, and the kingdom was annexed and his property taken. According to the Roman historian Tacitus, Boudica was flogged and her daughters raped. The historian Cassius Dio wrote that previous imperial donations to influential Britons were confiscated and the Roman financier and philosopher Seneca called in the loans he had forced on the reluctant Britons.
In 60/61, Boudica led the Iceni and other British tribes in revolt. They destroyed Camulodunum (modern Colchester), earlier the capital of the Trinovantes, but at that time a colonia for discharged Roman soldiers. Upon hearing of the revolt, the Roman governorGaius Suetonius Paulinus hurried from the island of Mona (modern Anglesey) to Londinium, the 20-year-old commercial settlement that was the rebels' next target. Unable to defend the settlement, he abandoned it. Boudica's army defeated a detachment of the Legio IX Hispana, and burnt both Londinium and Verulamium. In all, an estimated 70,000–80,000 Romans and Britons were killed by Boudica's followers. Suetonius, meanwhile, regrouped his forces, possibly in the West Midlands, and despite being heavily outnumbered, he decisively defeated the Britons. Boudica died, by suicide or illness, shortly afterwards. The crisis of 60/61 caused Nero to consider withdrawing all his imperial forces from Britain, but Suetonius's victory over Boudica confirmed Roman control of the province.
The fortifications form part of the Ring of Iron built by Edward I after his invasion of North Wales in 1282. Edward defeated the local Welsh princes in a major campaign and set about permanently colonising the area. He created new fortified towns, protected by castles, in which English immigrants could settle and administer the territories. The project was hugely expensive and stretched royal resources to the limit. Fresh Welsh revolts followed in 1294 under the leadership of Madog ap Llywelyn. Conwy and Harlech were kept supplied by sea and held out against the attack, but Caernarfon, still only partially completed, was stormed. In the aftermath, Edward reinvigorated the building programme and ordered the commencement of work at Beaumaris. Edward's wars in Scotland began to consume royal funding, however, and work soon slowed once again. Building work on all the fortifications had ceased by 1330, without Caernarfon and Beaumaris having been fully completed.
The fortifications played an important part in the conflicts in North Wales over the coming centuries. They were involved in the Welsh Revolt of the early 15th century and the Wars of the Roses in the late 15th century. Despite declining in military significance following the succession of the Tudor dynasty to the throne in 1485, they were pressed back into service during the English Civil War in the 17th century. In the aftermath of the conflict, Parliament ordered the slighting, or deliberate destruction, of parts of Conwy and Harlech, but the threat of a pro-Royalist invasion from Scotland ensured that Caernarfon and Beaumaris remained intact. By the end of the 17th century, however, the castles were ruinous. They became popular with visiting artists during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and visitor numbers increased as access to the region improved during the Victorian era. The British state invested heavily in the castles and town walls during the 20th century, restoring many of their medieval features. In 1986, the sites were collectively declared to be a World Heritage Site, as outstanding examples of fortifications and military architecture built in the 13th century, and are now operated as tourist attractions by the Welsh heritage agency Cadw.
For much of the 20th century, the castles and walls were considered primarily from a military perspective. Their use of concentric defences, barbicans, and substantial gatehouses led D. J. Cathcart King to describe them as the "zenith of English castle-building", and Sidney Toy to assess them as "some of the most powerful castles of any age or country". In the late 20th and 21st centuries, historians such as Michael Prestwich and Abigail Wheatley also highlighted the sites' roles as palaces and symbols of royal power. The location of castles such as Caernarfon and Conwy were chosen for their political significance as well as military functions, being built on top of sites belonging to the Welsh princes. The castles incorporated luxury apartments and gardens, with the intention of supporting large royal courts in splendour. Caernarfon's castle and town walls incorporated expensive stonework, probably intended to evoke images of Arthurian or Roman imperial power in order to bolster Edward's personal prestige. The precise role of the royal architect James of Saint George in the construction projects, and the influence of his native County of Savoy on the designs, also continues to be debated by academics. However, the primary sources do indicate he played a key role, describing him as "Magistro Jacobo de sancto Georgio, Magistro operacionum Regis in Wallia" or "Master James of Saint George, Master of the King’s Works in Wales." (Full article...)
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The Crosby Garrett Helmet is a copper alloyRoman cavalry helmet dating from the late 2nd or early 3rd century AD. It was found by an unnamed metal detectorist near Crosby Garrett in Cumbria, England, in May 2010. Later investigations found that a Romano-British farming settlement had occupied the site where the helmet was discovered, which was located a few miles away from a Roman road and a Roman army fort. It is possible that the owner of the helmet was a local inhabitant who had served with the Roman cavalry.
The helmet appears to have been deliberately folded up and deposited in an artificial stone structure. It is thought to have been used for ceremonial occasions rather than for combat, and may already have been an antique by the time it was buried. It is of the same type as the Newstead Helmet (found near Melrose in Scotland in 1905). Its facial features are more akin to those of helmets found in southern Europe although its design also has similarities with the Ribchester Helmet (found in 1796) and the Hallaton Helmet (found in North Yorkshire in 2000). Its design may allude to the Trojans, whose exploits the Romans re-enacted in cavalry tournaments.
Ralph Jackson, Senior Curator of Romano-British Collections at the British Museum, has described the helmet as "... an immensely interesting and outstandingly important find ... Its face mask is both extremely finely wrought and chillingly striking, but it is as an ensemble that the helmet is so exceptional and, in its specifics, unparalleled. It is a find of the greatest national (and, indeed, international) significance."
On 7 October 2010, the helmet was sold at Christie's for £2.3 million (US$3.6 million) to an undisclosed private buyer. Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery in Carlisle sought to purchase the helmet with the support of the British Museum, but was outbid. The helmet has so far been publicly displayed four times, once in a 2012 exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, at Tullie House in 2013–14, followed by display at the British Museum in 2014. The helmet returned to Tullie House to be displayed in the Hadrian's Cavalry exhibition in the summer of 2017. (Full article...)
During the early modern period, spanning from approximately 1500 to 1800 CE, European powers explored and colonized regions worldwide, intensifying cultural and economic exchange. This era saw substantial intellectual, cultural, and technological advances in Europe driven by the Renaissance, the Reformation in Germany giving rise to Protestantism, the Scientific Revolution, and the Enlightenment. By the 18th century, the accumulation of knowledge and technology had reached a critical mass that brought about the Industrial Revolution, substantial to the Great Divergence, and began the modern period starting around 1800 CE. The rapid growth in productive power further increased international trade and colonization, linking the different civilizations in the process of globalization, and cemented European dominance throughout the 19th century. Over the last quarter-millennium, which included two devastating world wars, there has been a great acceleration in many spheres, including human population, agriculture, industry, commerce, scientific knowledge, technology, communications, military capabilities, and environmental degradation.
The study of human history relies on insights from academic disciplines including history, archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, and genetics. To provide an accessible overview, researchers divide human history by a variety of periodizations. (Full article...)
Pedra da Gávea is a mountain in Tijuca Forest, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Differential weathering on one side of the rock has created what is described as a stylized human face, and weathered markings on another face of the rock have been described as an inscription. Some individuals, such as Bernardo de Azevedo da Silva Ramos, have advanced the position that the inscription is of Phoenician origin and possibly proof of pre-Columbian contact from Old World cultures. Alternative theories proposed include that the rock was the site of a Norse colony or that it is connected with suspected UFO activity.
Mainstream geologists and scientists are in agreement that the "inscription" is the result of erosion and that the "face" is a product of pareidolia. No credible evidence has ever been collected that backs up the idea that Pedra da Gávea was discovered by Phoenicians or any other civilization. Furthermore, the consensus of archaeologists and scholars in Brazil is that the mountain should not be viewed as an archaeological site, and hypotheses that regard it as such are fringe theories. (Full article...)
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Kyriakos S. Pittakis (also Pittakys; Greek: Κυριακός Σ. Πιττάκης; 1798 – 4 November [O.S. 23 October] 1863) was a Greek archaeologist. He was the first Greek to serve as Ephor General of Antiquities, the head of the Greek Archaeological Service, in which capacity he carried out the conservation and restoration of several monuments on the Acropolis of Athens. He has been described as a "dominant figure in Greek archaeology for 27 years", and as "one of the most important epigraphers of the nineteenth century".
Pittakis was largely self-taught as an archaeologist, and one of the few native Greeks active in the field during the late Ottoman period and the early years of the Kingdom of Greece. He played an influential role in the early years of the Greek Archaeological Service and was a founding member of the Archaeological Society of Athens, a private body which undertook the excavation, conservation and publication of archaeological finds. He was responsible for much of the early excavation and restoration of the Acropolis, including efforts to restore the Erechtheion, the Parthenon, the Temple of Athena Nike and the Propylaia. As ephor of the Central Public Museum for Antiquities from 1836, and later as Ephor General, he was largely responsible for the conservation and protection of many of the monuments and artefacts then known from Ancient Greece.
Pittakis has been described as the last representative of the "heroic period" of Greek archaeologists. He was prolific both as an excavator and as an archaeological writer, publishing by his own estimation more than 4,000 inscriptions. He has been praised for his extensive efforts to uncover and protect Greece's classical heritage, particularly in Athens and the adjacent islands, but criticised for his unsystematic and incautious approach. His reconstructions of ancient monuments often prioritised aesthetics over fidelity to the original, and were largely reverted after his death. He has also been accused of allowing his strong nationalist beliefs to influence his reconstruction of ancient monuments, and of distorting the archaeological record to suit his own beliefs. (Full article...)
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Suoyang City (Chinese: 锁阳城; pinyin: Suǒyáng Chéng), also called Kuyu (苦峪), is a ruined Silk Road city in Guazhou County of Gansu Province in northwestern China. First established as Ming'an County in 111 BC by Emperor Wu of Han, the city was relocated and rebuilt at the current site in 295 AD by Emperor Hui of the Western Jin dynasty. As the capital of Jinchang Commandery (later Guazhou Prefecture), the city prospered during the Tang and Western Xia dynasties. It was an important administrative, economic, and cultural center of the Hexi Corridor for over a millennium, with an estimated peak population of 50,000. It was destroyed and abandoned in the 16th century, after the Ming dynasty came under attack by Mansur Khan of Moghulistan.
The city ruins comprise the inner city, the outer city, and several yangmacheng (fortified animal enclosures used as fortresses in wartime). Outside the city walls, the broader archaeological park includes the original site of Ming'an County, more than 2,000 tombs, and the remains of an extensive irrigation system with over 90 kilometres (56 mi) of canals. The archaeological park also encompasses a number of Buddhist sites, including the Ta'er Temple, the Eastern Thousand Buddha Caves, Jianquanzi Caves (碱泉子石窟), and Hanxia Caves (旱峡石窟).
The priory was established as an Augustinian foundation in the 12th century, and was raised to the status of an abbey in 1391. The abbey was closed in 1536, as part of the dissolution of the monasteries. Nine years later the surviving structures, together with the manor of Norton, were purchased by Sir Richard Brooke, who built a Tudor house on the site, incorporating part of the abbey. This was replaced in the 18th century by a Georgian house. The Brooke family left the house in 1921, and it was partially demolished in 1928. In 1966 the site was given in trust for the use of the general public.
Excavation of the site began in 1971, and became the largest to be carried out by modern methods on any European monastic site. It revealed the foundations and lower parts of the walls of the monastery buildings and the abbey church. Important finds included: a Norman doorway; a finely carved arcade; a floor of mosaic tiles, the largest floor area of this type to be found in any modern excavation; the remains of the kiln where the tiles were fired; a bell casting pit used for casting the bell; and a large medieval statue of Saint Christopher.
The priory was opened to the public as a visitor attraction in the 1970s. The 42-acre site, run by an independent charitable trust, includes a museum, the excavated ruins, and the surrounding garden and woodland. In 1984 the separate walled garden was redesigned and opened to the public. Norton Priory offers a programme of events, exhibitions, educational courses, and outreach projects. In August 2016, a larger and much extended museum opened. (Full article...)
Archaeologists have established that the monument was built by pastoralist communities shortly after the introduction of agriculture to Britain from continental Europe. Although representing part of an architectural tradition of long barrow building widespread across Neolithic Europe, Smythe's Megalith belonged to a localised regional variant produced in the vicinity of the River Medway, now known as the Medway Megaliths. Several of these still survive: Coldrum Long Barrow, Addington Long Barrow, and Chestnuts Long Barrow are on the river's western side, while Kit's Coty House, the Little Kit's Coty House, and the Coffin Stone are on the eastern side nearer to Smythe's Megalith. Close to the site of the lost monument is the White Horse Stone, a standing stone that may have once been part of another chambered long barrow.
The site may have been ransacked during the Middle Ages, as other Medway Megaliths were. By the early 19th century it was buried beneath soil, largely due to millennia of hillwash coming down from the adjacent Blue Bell Hill. In 1822, it was discovered by farm labourers ploughing the land; the local antiquarians Clement Smythe and Thomas Charles were called in to examine it. Shortly after, the labourers pulled away the stones and dispersed most of the human remains, destroying the monument. Smythe and Charles produced, but did not publish, reports on their findings, and these have been discussed by archaeologists since the mid-20th century. (Full article...)
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Vasa (previously Wasa) (Swedish pronunciation:[²vɑːsa]ⓘ) is a Swedish warship built between 1626 and 1628. The ship sank after sailing roughly 1,300 m (1,400 yd) into her maiden voyage on 10 August 1628. She fell into obscurity after most of her valuable bronzecannons were salvaged in the 17th century, until she was located again in the late 1950s in a busy shipping area in Stockholm harbor. The ship was salvaged with a largely intact hull in 1961. She was housed in a temporary museum called Wasavarvet ("The Vasa Shipyard") until 1988 and then moved permanently to the Vasa Museum in the Royal National City Park in Stockholm. Between her recovery in 1961 and the beginning of 2025, Vasa has been seen by over 45 million visitors.
The ship was built on the orders of the King of Sweden Gustavus Adolphus as part of the military expansion he initiated in a war with Poland-Lithuania (1621–1629). She was constructed at the navy yard in Stockholm under a contract with private entrepreneurs in 1626–1627 and armed primarily with bronze cannons cast in Stockholm specifically for the ship. Richly decorated as a symbol of the king's ambitions for Sweden and himself, upon completion she was one of the most powerfully armed vessels in the world. However, Vasa was dangerously unstable, with too much weight in the upper structure of the hull. Despite this lack of stability, she was ordered to sea and sank only a few minutes after encountering a wind stronger than a breeze.
The order to sail was the result of a combination of factors. The king, who was leading the army in Poland at the time of her maiden voyage, was impatient to see her take up her station as flagship of the reserve squadron at Älvsnabben in the Stockholm Archipelago. At the same time the king's subordinates lacked the political courage to openly discuss the ship's problems or to have the maiden voyage postponed. An inquiry was organized by the Swedish Privy Council to find those responsible for the disaster, but in the end no one was punished.
During the 1961 recovery, thousands of artifacts and the remains of at least 15 people were found in and around Vasa's hull by marine archaeologists. Among the many items found were clothing, weapons, cannons, tools, coins, cutlery, food, drink and six of the ten sails. The artifacts and the ship herself have provided scholars with invaluable insights into details of naval warfare, shipbuilding techniques, the evolution of sailing rigs, and everyday life in early 17th-century Sweden. Today Vasa is the world's best-preserved 17th-century ship, answering many questions about the design and operation of ships of this period. The wreck of Vasa continually undergoes monitoring and further research on how to preserve her. (Full article...)
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There are nine castles in Greater Manchester, a metropolitan county in North West England. They consist of four motte-and-bailey castles, three fortified manor houses, an enclosure castle, and a possible shell keep. A motte-and-bailey castle is characterised by two elements: the motte is an artificial mound with a wooden stockade and stronghold on top, usually a stone keep or tower, while the bailey is a defended enclosure adjacent to the motte, typically enclosed by a ditch and a bank topped by a timber palisade or stone wall. Motte-and-bailey castles were the most common type of castle in England following the Norman Conquest. A shell keep was a motte with a stone wall rather than a wooden stockade on top; there would have been no tower within the walls. Four of Greater Manchester's castles are scheduled monuments: Buckton, Bury, Radcliffe Tower, and Watch Hill. A scheduled monument is a "nationally important" archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change.
The purpose of a castle was not simply militaristic, but was also considered to be a stamp of authority over the population of an area and a status symbol. Some would have acted as centres of trade and administration for a manor. The earliest castles in Greater Manchester are Dunham Castle and Watch Hill Castle in Trafford, Ullerwood Castle in Manchester, and Stockport Castle in Stockport. Dunham, Ullerwood, and Stockport castles were first recorded in 1173 as belonging to barons who had rebelled against Henry II, and Watch Hill likely dates from this period; and at least three were motte-and-bailey castles, probably because of the speed and ease with which they could be erected. Hamon de Massey, who owned the Trafford castles and Ullerwood, and Geoffrey de Constentyn, who owned Stockport Castle, were two of the three rebels from Cheshire; the other was the Earl of Chester, the owner of Chester Castle.
Castles continued to be built in the area, although the last to be built in Greater Manchester were two fortified manor houses near Bury, built more for comfort than as utilitarian military structures. Bury Castle and Radcliffe Tower followed the national trend in the 13th century; they would most likely have acted as the centre of the manor they served. (Full article...)
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Jebel Irhoud or Adrar n Ighoud (Standard Moroccan Tamazight: ⴰⴷⵔⴰⵔ ⵏ ⵉⵖⵓⴷ, romanized: Adrar n Iɣud; Arabic: جبل إيغود, Moroccan Arabic: žbəl iġud), is an archaeological site located just north of the town of Tlet Ighoud in Youssoufia Province, approximately 50 km (30 mi) south-east of the city of Safi in Morocco. It is noted for the homininfossils that have been found there since the discovery of the site in 1961. Originally thought to be Neanderthals, the specimens have since been assigned to Homo sapiens and, as reported in 2017, have been dated to roughly 300,000 years ago (286±32 ka for the Irhoud 3 mandible, 315±34 ka based on other fossils and the flint artefacts found nearby). (Full article...)
The trend of military sites continues from the Iron Age into the Roman period; two Roman forts in Greater Manchester are scheduled monuments and were the two main areas of Roman activity in the county. Of the nine castles in Greater Manchester, four are scheduled monuments: Buckton Castle, Watch Hill Castle, Bury Castle, and Radcliffe Tower. The last two are fortified manor houses, and although defined as castles were not exclusively military in nature; they probably acted as the administrative centre of the manors they were in. There are several other manor houses and country houses – some with moats – in the county that are protected as scheduled monuments. The Astley Green Colliery, the Marple Aqueduct, Oldknows Limekilns, and the Worsley Delph are scheduled relics of Greater Manchester's industrial history. (Full article...)
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King of the Four Corners of the World (Sumerian: lugal-an-ub-da-limmu-ba, Akkadian: šarru kibrat arbaim, šar kibrāti arbaʾi, or šar kibrāt erbetti), alternatively translated as King of the Four Quarters of the World, King of the Heaven's Four Corners or King of the Four Corners of the Universe and often shortened to simply King of the Four Corners, was a title of great prestige claimed by powerful monarchs in ancient Mesopotamia. Though the term "four corners of the world" does refer to specific geographical places within and near Mesopotamia itself, these places were (at the time the title was first used) thought to represent locations near the actual edges of the world and as such, the title should be interpreted as something equivalent to "King of all the known world", a claim to universal rule over the entire world and everything within it.
The title was first used by Naram-Sin of the Akkadian Empire in the 23rd century BC and was later used by the rulers of the Neo-Sumerian Empire, after which it fell into disuse. It was revived as a title by a number of Assyrian rulers, becoming especially prominent during the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The final ruler to claim the title was the first Persian Achaemenid king, Cyrus the Great, after his conquest of Babylon in 539 BC.
It is possible, at least among Assyrian rulers, that the title of King of the Four Corners was not inherited through normal means. As the title is not attested for all Neo-Assyrian kings and for some only attested several years into their reign it is possible that it might have had to be earned by each king individually, possibly through completing successful military campaigns in all four points of the compass. The similar title of šar kiššatim ("King of Everything" or "King of the Universe"), also with Akkadian origins and attested for some of the Neo-Assyrian kings, may have required seven successful military campaigns. The difference between the exact meaning of the two titles may have been that "King of the Universe" laid claim to the cosmological realm whereas "King of the Four Corners of the World" laid claim to the terrestrial. (Full article...)
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Tutankhamun or Tutankhamen, (Ancient Egyptian: twt-ꜥnḫ-jmn; c. 1341 BC – c. 1323 BC), was an Egyptian pharaoh who ruled c. 1332 – 1323 BC during the late Eighteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt. Born Tutankhaten, he is best known for the restoration of the traditional polytheistic form of ancient Egyptian religion, undoing a previous shift to the religion known as Atenism. Tutankhamun's reign is considered one of the greatest restoration periods in ancient Egyptian history.
His endowments and restorations of cults were recorded on what is today known as the Restoration Stela. The cult of the god Amun at Thebes was restored to prominence, and the royal couple changed their names to "Tutankhamun" and "Ankhesenamun", replacing the -aten suffix. He also moved the royal court from Akhenaten's capital, Amarna, back to Memphis almost immediately on his accession to the kingship. He reestablished diplomatic relations with the Mitanni and carried out military campaigns in Nubia and the Near East. Tutankhamun was one of only a few kings who was worshipped as a deity during his lifetime. The young king likely began construction of a royal tomb in the Valley of the Kings and an accompanying mortuary temple, but both were unfinished at the time of his death.
Tutankhamun died unexpectedly aged about 18; his health and the cause of his death have been the subject of much debate. In 2012 it was suggested he died from a combination of malaria and a leg fracture. Since his royal tomb was incomplete, he was instead buried in a small non-royal tomb adapted for the purpose. He was succeeded by his vizier Ay, who was probably an old man when he became king, and had a short reign. Ay was succeeded by Horemheb, who had been the commander-in-chief of Tutankhamun's armed forces. Under Horemheb, the restoration of the traditional ancient Egyptian religion was completed; Ay and Tutankhamun's constructions were usurped and earlier Amarna Period rulers were erased.
In modern times, Tutankhamun became famous as a result of the 1922 discovery of his tomb (KV62) by a team led by the British Egyptologist Howard Carter and sponsored by the British aristocrat George Herbert. Although it had clearly been raided and robbed in ancient times, it retained much of its original contents, including the king's undisturbed mummy. The discovery received worldwide press coverage; with over 5,000 artifacts, it gave rise to renewed public interest in ancient Egypt, for which Tutankhamun's mask, now preserved at the Egyptian Museum, remains a popular symbol. Some of his treasure has traveled worldwide, with unprecedented response; the Egyptian government allowed tours of the tomb beginning in 1961. The deaths of some individuals who were involved in the excavation have been popularly attributed to the "curse of the pharaohs" due to the similarity of their circumstances. Since the discovery of his tomb, he has been referred to colloquially as "King Tut". (Full article...)
The remains of an individual who would have stood about 1.1 m (3 ft 7 in) in height were discovered in 2003 at Liang Bua cave. As of 2015, partial skeletons of 15 individuals have been recovered; this includes one complete skull, referred to as "LB1".
Homo floresiensis is thought to have arrived on Flores around 1.27–1 million years ago. There is debate as to whether H. floresiensis represents a descendant of Javanese Homo erectus that reduced its body size as a result of insular dwarfism, or whether it represents an otherwise undetected migration of small, Australopithecus or Homo habilis-grade archaic humans outside of Africa.
This hominin was at first considered remarkable for its survival until relatively recent times, initially thought to be only 12,000 years ago. However, more extensive stratigraphic and chronological work has pushed the dating of the most recent evidence of its existence back to 50,000 years ago. The Homo floresiensis skeletal material at Liang Bua is now dated from 60,000 to 100,000 years ago; stone tools recovered alongside the skeletal remains were from archaeological horizons ranging from 50,000 to 190,000 years ago. Other earlier remains from Mata Menge date to around 700,000 years ago. (Full article...)
The first traces of human activity at the site date to approximately 800 BCE, with the first structures being built about 350 BCE. Around 250 CE the complex underwent a major redevelopment with the construction of a massive basal platform that supported a cluster of temples; this was followed around 450 CE by the addition of a row of four pyramids on a terrace to the south of the main platform.
A number of royal tombs have been excavated that have been identified with named kings, including the tombs of Yax Nuun Ayiin I (ruled 379 CE – c. 404), Siyaj Chan K'awiil II (ruled 411–456), Wak Chan K'awiil (ruled 537–562) and "Animal Skull" (ruled c. 593–638). An early tomb in the North Acropolis has been tentatively identified as that of the dynastic founder Yax Ehb' Xook (ruled c. 90).
A large number of stone monuments were placed in the North Acropolis. By the 9th century CE these included 43 stelae and 30 altars; 18 of these monuments were sculpted with hieroglyphic texts and royal portraits. A number of these monuments show the influence of the great city of Teotihuacan in the Valley of Mexico. (Full article...)
The Hoxne Hoard (/ˈhɒksən/HOK-sən) is the largest hoard of late Roman silver and gold discovered in Britain, and the largest collection of gold and silver coins of the fourth and fifth centuries found anywhere within the former Roman Empire. It was found by Eric Lawes, a metal detectorist in the village of Hoxne in Suffolk, England in 1992. The hoard consists of 14,865 Roman gold, silver, and bronze coins and approximately 200 items of silver tableware and gold jewellery. The objects are now in the British Museum in London, where the most important pieces and a selection of the rest are on permanent display. In 1993, the Treasure Valuation Committee valued the hoard at £1.75 million (about £4.5 million in 2023).
The hoard was buried in an oak box or small chest filled with items in precious metal, sorted mostly by type, with some in smaller wooden boxes and others in bags or wrapped in fabric. Remnants of the chest and fittings, such as hinges and locks, were recovered in the excavation. The coins of the hoard date it after AD 407, which coincides with the end of Britain as a Roman province. The owners and reasons for burial of the hoard are unknown, but it was carefully packed and the contents appear consistent with what a single very wealthy family might have owned. It is likely that the hoard represents only a part of the wealth of its owner, given the lack of large silver serving vessels and of some of the most common types of jewellery.
The Hoxne Hoard contains several rare and important objects, such as a gold body-chain and silver-gilt pepper-pots (piperatoria), including the Empress pepper pot. The hoard is also of particular archaeological significance because it was excavated by professional archaeologists with the items largely undisturbed and intact. The find helped to improve the relationship between metal detectorists and archaeologists, and influenced a change in English law regarding finds of treasure. (Full article...)
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The sarcophagus ofEshmunazar II is a 6th-century BC sarcophagus unearthed in 1855 in the grounds of an ancient necropolis southeast of the city of Sidon, in modern-day Lebanon, that contained the body of Eshmunazar II (Phoenician: 𐤀𐤔𐤌𐤍𐤏𐤆𐤓ʾšmnʿzr, r. c. 539 – c. 525 BC), PhoenicianKing of Sidon. One of only three Ancient Egyptian sarcophagi found outside Egypt, with the other two belonging to Eshmunazar's father King Tabnit and to a woman, possibly Eshmunazar's mother Queen Amoashtart, it was likely carved in Egypt from local amphibolite, and captured as booty by the Sidonians during their participation in Cambyses II's conquest of Egypt in 525 BC. The sarcophagus has two sets of Phoenician inscriptions, one on its lid and a partial copy of it on the sarcophagus trough, around the curvature of the head. The lid inscription was of great significance upon its discovery as it was the first Phoenician language inscription to be discovered in Phoenicia proper and the most detailed Phoenician text ever found anywhere up to that point, and is today the second longest extant Phoenician inscription, after the Karatepe bilingual.
The sarcophagus was discovered by Alphonse Durighello, a diplomatic agent in Sidon engaged by Aimé Péretié, the chancellor of the French consulate in Beirut. The sarcophagus was sold to Honoré de Luynes, a wealthy French nobleman and scholar, and was subsequently removed to the Louvre after the resolution of a legal dispute over its ownership.
More than a dozen scholars across Europe and the United States rushed to translate the sarcophagus inscriptions after its discovery, many noting the similarities between the Phoenician language and Hebrew. The translation allowed scholars to identify the king buried inside, his lineage, and his construction feats. The inscriptions warn against disturbing Eshmunazar II's place of repose; it also recounts that the "Lord of Kings", the Achaemenid king, granted Eshmunazar II the territories of Dor, Joppa, and Dagon in recognition for his services.
The discovery led to great enthusiasm for archaeological research in the region and was the primary reason for Renan's 1860–1861 Mission de Phénicie, the first major archaeological mission to Lebanon and Syria. Today, it remains one of the highlights of the Louvre's Phoenician collection. (Full article...)
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Combe Hill is a causewayed enclosure, near Eastbourne in East Sussex, on the northern edge of the South Downs. It consists of an inner circuit of ditches and banks, incomplete where it meets a steep slope on its north side, and the remains of an outer circuit. Causewayed enclosures were built in England from shortly before 3700 BC until at least 3500 BC; they are characterized by the full or partial enclosure of an area with ditches that are interrupted by gaps, or causeways. Their purpose is not known; they may have been settlements, meeting places, or ritual sites. The historian Hadrian Allcroft included the site in his 1908 book Earthwork of England, and in 1930 E. Cecil Curwen listed it as a possible Neolithic site in a paper which attempted to provide the first list of all the causewayed enclosures in England.
The enclosure has been excavated twice: in 1949, by Reginald Musson, and in 1962, by Veronica Seton-Williams, who used it as a training opportunity for volunteers. Charcoal fragments from Musson's dig were later dated to between 3500 and 3300 BC. Musson also found a large quantity of Ebbsfleet ware pottery in one of the ditches. Seton-Williams found three polished stone axes deposited in another ditch, perhaps not long after it had been dug. The site is only 800 m (870 yd) from Butts Brow, another Neolithic enclosure, and the two locations are visible from each other; both sites may have seen Neolithic activity at the same time. (Full article...)
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Panagiotis Kavvadias or Cawadias (Greek: Παναγιώτης Καββαδίας; 14 May [O.S. 2 May] 1850 – 20 July 1928) was a Greek archaeologist. He was responsible for the excavation of ancient sites in Greece, including Epidaurus in Argolis and the Acropolis of Athens, as well as archaeological discoveries on his native island of Kephallonia. As Ephor General (the head of the Greek Archaeological Service) from 1885 until 1909, Kavvadias oversaw the expansion of the Archaeological Service and the introduction of Law 2646 of 1899, which increased the state's powers to address the illegal excavation and smuggling of antiquities.
Kavvadias's work had a particular impact on the Acropolis of Athens, and has been credited with completing its "transformation[...] from castle to monument". Between 1885 and 1890, he removed almost all of the Acropolis's remaining medieval and modern structures, uncovering many ancient monuments in the process. He also played a role in the extensive reconstruction of the site by the architect and engineer Nikolaos Balanos. Though praised initially, the work caused considerable damage to several monuments and was almost completely deconstructed and rebuilt during the later 20th and early 21st centuries. Kavvadias oversaw the opening of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, organised its first collections, and wrote some of its first catalogues.
As an administrator, Kavvadias was regarded as energetic, centralising and autocratic. His career saw significant modernisation in the practice of archaeology in Greece, and he reformed and professionalised the Archaeological Service. His patronage of Athens's foreign archaeological schools was credited with promoting the development of Greek archaeology, but was also criticised by native Greek archaeologists. He created further discontent among the Archaeological Society of Athens by reducing its role in favour of the governmental Archaeological Service. After the Goudi coup of 1909, dissatisfaction in the Greek press and among his subordinates in the Archaeological Service led to his removal from office, from the Archaeological Society and from his professorship at the University of Athens, though he was able to return to public and academic life from 1912, and remained active in Greek archaeology until his death in 1928. (Full article...)
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Bodiam Castle (/ˈboʊdiəm/) is a 14th-century moatedcastle near Robertsbridge in East Sussex, England. It was built in 1385 by Sir Edward Dalyngrigge, a former knight of Edward III, with the permission of Richard II, ostensibly to defend the area against French invasion during the Hundred Years' War. Of quadrangular plan, Bodiam Castle has no keep, having its various chambers built around the outer defensive walls and inner courts. Its corners and entrance are marked by towers, and topped by crenellations. Its structure, details and situation in an artificial watery landscape indicate that display was an important aspect of the castle's design as well as defence. It was the home of the Dalyngrigge family and the centre of the manor of Bodiam.
Possession of Bodiam Castle passed through several generations of Dalyngrigges, until their line became extinct when the castle passed by marriage to the Lewknor family. During the Wars of the Roses, Sir Thomas Lewknor supported the House of Lancaster, and when Richard III of the House of York became king in 1483, a force was despatched to besiege Bodiam Castle. It is unrecorded whether the siege went ahead, but it is thought that Bodiam surrendered without much resistance. The castle was confiscated, but returned to the Lewknors when Henry VII of the House of Tudor became king in 1485. Descendants of the Lewknors owned the castle until at least the 16th century.
By the start of the English Civil War in 1641, Bodiam Castle was in the possession of John Tufton, 2nd Earl of Thanet. He supported the Royalist cause, and sold the castle to help pay fines levied against him by Parliament. The castle was subsequently dismantled, and was left as a picturesque ruin until its purchase by John Fuller in 1829. Under his auspices, the castle was partially restored before being sold to George Cubitt, 1st Baron Ashcombe, and later to Lord Curzon, both of whom undertook further restoration work. The castle is protected as a Grade I listed building and Scheduled Monument. It has been owned by the National Trust since 1925, donated by Lord Curzon on his death, and is open to the public. (Full article...)
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The Temple of Eshmun (Arabic: معبد أشمون) is an ancient place of worship dedicated to Eshmun, the Phoenician god of healing. It is located near the Awali river, 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) northeast of Sidon in southwestern Lebanon. The site was occupied from the 7th century BC to the 8th century AD, suggesting an integrated relationship with the nearby city of Sidon. Although originally constructed by Sidonian king Eshmunazar II in the Achaemenid era (c. 529–333 BC) to celebrate the city's recovered wealth and stature, the temple complex was greatly expanded by Bodashtart, Yatonmilk and later monarchs. Because the continued expansion spanned many centuries of alternating independence and foreign hegemony, the sanctuary features a wealth of different architectural and decorative styles and influences.
The sanctuary consists of an esplanade and a grand court limited by a huge limestone terrace wall that supports a monumental podium which was once topped by Eshmun's Greco-Persian style marble temple. The sanctuary features a series of ritual ablution basins fed by canals channeling water from the Asclepius river (modern Awali) and from the sacred "YDLL" spring; these installations were used for therapeutic and purificatory purposes that characterize the cult of Eshmun. The sanctuary site has yielded many artifacts of value, especially those inscribed with Phoenician texts, such as the Bodashtart inscriptions and the Eshmun inscription, providing valuable insight into the site's history and that of ancient Sidon.
The Eshmun Temple was improved during the early Roman Empire with a colonnade street, but declined after earthquakes and fell into oblivion as Christianity replaced polytheism and its large limestone blocks were used to build later structures. The temple site was rediscovered in 1900 by local treasure hunters who stirred the curiosity of international scholars. Maurice Dunand, a French archaeologist, thoroughly excavated the site from 1963 until the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975. After the end of the hostilities and the retreat of Israel from Southern Lebanon, the site was rehabilitated and inscribed to the World Heritage Site tentative list. (Full article...)
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The Corp Naomh (Irish pronunciation:[kɔɾˠpˠn̪ˠiːvˠ], lit.'Holy or Sacred Body') is an Irish bell shrine made in the 9th or 10th century to enclose a now-lost hand-bell, which probably dated to c. 600 to 900 AD and belonged to an early Irish saint. The shrine was rediscovered sometime before 1682 at Tristernagh Abbey, near Templecross, County Westmeath. The shrine is 23 cm (9.1 in) high and 12 cm (4.7 in) wide. It was heavily refurbished and added to during a second phase of embellishment in the 15th century, and now consists of cast and sheetbronze plates mounted on a wooden core decorated with silver, niello and rock crystal. It is severely damaged with extensive losses and wear across almost all of its parts, and when discovered a block of wood had been substituted for the bell itself. The remaining elements are considered of high historical and artistic value by archaeologists and art historians.
Sections from its original, early Medieval phase include the cross on the reverse and the ornate semi-circular cap, which shows a bearded cleric holding a book. He is surrounded by horsemen above whom are large birds seemingly about to take flight. It was extensively refurbished in the 15th (and possibly 16th) centuries when the central bronze crucifix, the griffin and lion panel, the stamped border panels and the backing plate were added. The badly damaged crucifix and large enamel stud on the front date from at least the 15th century.
The shrine's medieval provenance is incomplete. It was probably held by hereditary keepers after the dissolution of Tristernagh Abbey in 1536 until it passed into the possession of the Anglo-Irish owners of the site. The Corp Naomh was first exhibited in 1853 by the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) and was transferred to the National Museum of Ireland in 1887. (Full article...)
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The Guilden Morden boar is a sixth- or seventh-century Anglo-Saxon copper alloy figure of a boar that may have once served as the crest of a helmet. It was found around 1864 or 1865 in a grave in Guilden Morden, a village in the eastern English county of Cambridgeshire. There the boar attended a skeleton with other objects, including a small earthenware bead with an incised pattern, although the boar is all that now remains. Herbert George Fordham, whose father originally discovered the boar, donated it to the British Museum in 1904; as of 2018 it was on view in room 41. The boar is simply designed, distinguished primarily by a prominent mane; eyes, eyebrows, nostrils and tusks are only faintly present. A pin and socket design formed by the front and hind legs suggests that the boar was mounted on another object, such as a helmet. Such is the case on one of the contemporary Torslunda plates found in Sweden, where boar-crested helmets are depicted similarly.
Boar-crested helmets are a staple of Anglo-Saxon imagery, evidence of a Germanic tradition in which the boar invoked the protection of deities. The Guilden Morden boar is one of three—together with the helmets from Benty Grange and Wollaston—known to have survived to the present, and it has been exhibited both domestically and internationally. The Guilden Morden boar recalls a time when such decoration may have been common; in the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, where boar-adorned helmets are mentioned five times, Hrothgar speaks of when "our boar-crests had to take a battering in the line of action." (Full article...)
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The Pioneer Helmet (also known as the Wollaston Helmet or Northamptonshire Helmet), is an Anglo-Saxonboar-crested helmet from the late seventh century found in Wollaston, Northamptonshire, United Kingdom. It was discovered during a March 1997 excavation before the land was to be mined for gravel and was part of the grave of a young man. Other objects in the grave, such as a hanging bowl and a pattern welded sword, suggest that it was the burial mound of a high-status warrior.
The sparsely decorated nature of the helmet, a utilitarian iron fighting piece, belies its rarity. It is one of just six Anglo-Saxon helmets yet discovered, joined by finds from Benty Grange (1848), Sutton Hoo (1939), Coppergate (1982), Shorwell (2004) and Staffordshire (2009); its basic form is nearly identical to that of the richer Coppergate helmet found in York. Like these, the Pioneer Helmet is an example of the "crested helmets" that flourished in England and Scandinavia from the sixth through eleventh centuries.
The distinctive feature of the helmet is the boar mounted atop its crest. Boar-crested helmets are a staple of Anglo-Saxon imagery, evidence of a Germanic tradition in which the boar invoked the protection of the gods. The Pioneer Helmet is one of three—together with the Benty Grange helmet and the detached Guilden Morden boar—known to have survived. These boar crests recall a time when such decoration may have been common; the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, in which boar-adorned helmets are mentioned five times, speaks of a funeral pyre "heaped with boar-shaped helmets forged in gold," forging a link between the warrior hero of legend and the Pioneer Helmet of reality.
The tomb of Kha and Merit, also known by its tomb numberTheban Tomb 8 or TT8, is the funerary chapel and burial place of the ancient Egyptian foreman Kha and his wife Merit, in the northern cemetery of the workmen's village of Deir el-Medina. Kha supervised the workforce who constructed royal tombs during the reigns of the pharaohs Amenhotep II, Thutmose IV and Amenhotep III (r. 1425 – 1353 BC) in the mid-Eighteenth Dynasty of the early New Kingdom of Egypt. Of unknown background, he probably rose to his position through skill and was rewarded by at least one king. He and his wife Merit had three known children. Kha died in his 60s, while Merit died before him, seemingly unexpectedly, in her 20s or 30s.
The couple's pyramid-shaped chapel has been known since at least 1818 when one of their funerary stele was purchased by the antiquarian Bernardino Drovetti. Scenes from the chapel were first copied in the 19th century by early Egyptologists including John Gardiner Wilkinson and Karl Lepsius. The paintings show Kha and Merit receiving offerings from their children and appearing before Osiris, god of the dead. The decoration has been damaged over the millennia, deteriorating due to structural decay and human actions.
Kha and Merit's tomb was cut into the base of the cliffs opposite their chapel. This position allowed the entrance to be quickly buried by debris deposited by landslides and later tomb construction, hiding its location from ancient robbers. The undisturbed tomb was discovered in February 1906 in excavations led by the Egyptologist Ernesto Schiaparelli on behalf of the Italian Archaeological Mission. The burial chamber contained over 400 items including carefully arranged stools and beds, neatly stacked storage chests of personal belongings, clothing and tools, tables piled with foods such as bread, meats and fruit, and the couple's two large wooden sarcophagi housing their coffined mummies. Merit's body was fitted with a funerary mask; Kha was provided with one of the earliest known copies of the Book of the Dead. Their mummies have never been unwrapped. X-rays, CT scanning and chemical analyses have revealed neither were embalmed in the typical fashion but that both bodies are well preserved. Both wear metal jewellery beneath their bandages, although only Kha has funerary amulets.
Almost all of the contents of the tomb were awarded to the excavators and were shipped to Italy soon after the discovery. They have been displayed in the Museo Egizio in Turin since their arrival, and an entire gallery is devoted to them. This has been redesigned several times. (Full article...)
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Freston is a Neolithiccausewayed enclosure, an archaeological site near the village of Freston in Suffolk, England. Causewayed enclosures were built in England from shortly before 3700 until at least 3500 BC; they are characterised by the full or partial enclosure of an area with ditches that are interrupted by gaps, or causeways. Their purpose is unknown; they may have been settlements, meeting places, or ritual sites.
The Freston enclosure was first identified in 1969 from cropmarks in aerial photographs. At 8.55 ha (21.1 acres) it is one of the largest causewayed enclosures in Britain, and would have required thousands of person-days to construct. The cropmarks show an enclosure with two circuits of ditches, and a palisade that ran between the two circuits. There is also evidence of a rectangular structure in the northeastern part of the site, which may be a Neolithic longhouse or an Anglo-Saxon hall. In 2018, a group from McMaster University organized a research project focused on the site, beginning with a geophysical survey and a pedestrian survey to collect any items of archaeological interest from the surface of the site. This was followed by an excavation in 2019 which recovered some Neolithic material and obtained radiocarbon dates indicating that the site was constructed in the mid-4th millennium BC. Other finds included oak charcoal fragments believed to come from the palisade, and evidence of a long ditch to the southeast that probably predated the enclosure, and which may have accompanied a long barrow, a form of Neolithic burial mound. The site has been protected as a scheduled monument since 1976. (Full article...)
The dynasty's history is divided into two periods: during the Northern Song (北宋; 960–1127), the capital was in the northern city of Bianjing (now Kaifeng) and the dynasty controlled most of what is now East China. The Southern Song (南宋; 1127–1279) comprise the period following the loss of control over the northern half of Song territory to the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty in the Jin–Song wars. At that time, the Song court retreated south of the Yangtze and established its capital at Lin'an (now Hangzhou). Although the Song dynasty had lost control of the traditional Chinese heartlands around the Yellow River, the Southern Song Empire contained a large population and productive agricultural land, sustaining a robust economy. In 1234, the Jin dynasty was conquered by the Mongols, who took control of northern China, maintaining uneasy relations with the Southern Song. Möngke Khan, the fourth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, died in 1259 while besieging the mountain castle Diaoyucheng in Chongqing. His younger brother Kublai Khan was proclaimed the new Great Khan and in 1271 founded the Yuan dynasty. After two decades of sporadic warfare, Kublai Khan's armies conquered the Song dynasty in 1279 after defeating the Southern Song in the Battle of Yamen, and reunited China under the Yuan dynasty.
Technology, science, philosophy, mathematics, and engineering flourished during the Song era. The Song dynasty was the first in world history to issue banknotes or true paper money and the first Chinese government to establish a permanent standing navy. This dynasty saw the first surviving records of the chemical formula for gunpowder, the invention of gunpowder weapons such as fire arrows, bombs, and the fire lance. It also saw the first discernment of true north using a compass, first recorded description of the pound lock, and improved designs of astronomical clocks. Economically, the Song dynasty was unparalleled with a gross domestic product three times larger than that of Europe during the 12th century. China's population doubled in size between the 10th and 11th centuries. This growth was made possible by expanded rice cultivation, use of early-ripening rice from Southeast and South Asia, and production of widespread food surpluses. The Northern Song census recorded 20 million households, double that of the Han and Tang dynasties. It is estimated that the Northern Song had a population of 90 million people, and 200 million by the time of the Ming dynasty. This dramatic increase of population fomented an economic revolution in pre-modern China.
The expansion of the population, growth of cities, and emergence of a national economy led to the gradual withdrawal of the central government from direct intervention in the economy. The lower gentry assumed a larger role in local administration and affairs. Song society was vibrant, and cities had lively entertainment quarters. Citizens gathered to view and trade artwork, and intermingled at festivals and in private clubs. The spread of literature and knowledge was enhanced by the rapid expansion of woodblock printing and the 11th-century invention of movable type printing. Philosophers such as Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi reinvigorated Confucianism with new commentary, infused with Buddhist ideals, and emphasized a new organization of classic texts that established the doctrine of Neo-Confucianism. Although civil service examinations had existed since the Sui dynasty, they became much more prominent in the Song period. Officials gaining power through imperial examination led to a shift from a military-aristocratic elite to a scholar-bureaucratic elite. (Full article...)
The fragment is 40 mm (1.6 in) long and made of silver. Its elongated head is semi-naturalistic, depicting a crouching quadruped on either side of the skull, divided by a mane along the centre. The boar's eyes are formed from garnet, and its eyebrows, skull, mouth, tusks, and snout are gilded. Its head is hollow; in the space underneath, which was filled with soil and plant matter when found, are three rivets that would have attached it to a larger object, probably a helmet. The fragment would probably have formed the crest terminal of one of the "crested helmets" used in Northern Europe during the sixth through eleventh centuries.
The boar's head terminal is one of several representations of the animal on contemporaneous helmets. Boars surmount the Benty Grange and Wollaston helmets, and form the ends of the eyebrows of the Sutton Hoo and perhaps York helmets. These evidence a thousand-years-long tradition in Germanic paganism associating boars with both deities and protection. The Roman historian Tacitus suggested that the BalticAesti wore boar symbols in battle to invoke the protection of a mother goddess, and in the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf, the poet writes that boar symbols on helmets kept watch over the warriors wearing them. (Full article...)
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The Bonn–Oberkassel dog (German: Hund von Bonn–Oberkassel) was a Late Paleolithic (c. 14,000 years BP / c. 12,000 BCE) dog whose skeletal remains were found buried alongside two humans. Discovered in early 1914 by quarry workers in Oberkassel, Bonn, Germany, the double burial site was analyzed by a team of archaeologists from the University of Bonn. It was around 7.5 months old at death, 40–50 cm (16–20 in) tall at the shoulder, and weighed 13–18 kg (29–40 lb), suggesting a slender build similar to West Asian wolves (such as the Indian wolf) or some modern sighthounds.
The dog's lower jaw was first thought to be from a wolf and placed into museum storage with the human remains, while the dog's other bones were put into the university's geological collections. The bones of the Bonn–Oberkassel dog were reunited in the late 1970s and reidentified as a domestic dog attributed to the Magdalenian culture, dating to the beginning of the Late Glacial Interstadial, c. 14,000 BP. A total of 32 identifiable bone fragments have been attributed to the dog. These have been used to estimate a number of the animal's characteristics.
Osteoarthritis, alongside signs of enamel defects, missing teeth, and gum disease, indicate that the Bonn–Oberkassel dog survived a canine distemper infection as a puppy. Due to the high likelihood of death without assistance, the puppy's survival was probably due to human care. Such care would have involved providing food and water, as well as frequent cleaning. Extensive human care suggests significant compassion towards the dog, possibly indicating that the dog was seen as a pet. It is unknown how the dog died; it may have been due to the effects of its illness or other natural causes. An alternate possibility is that it was killed or sacrificed to be buried alongside the humans, an archaeologically attested practice linked to spiritual and religious motives. A molar belonging to a second, older dog was found at the site, likely used as a grave good. (Full article...)
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The Old Exe Bridge is a ruined medieval arch bridge in Exeter in south-western England. Construction of the bridge began in 1190, and was completed by 1214. The bridge is the oldest surviving bridge of its size in England and the oldest bridge in Britain with a chapel still on it. It replaced several rudimentary crossings which had been in use sporadically since Roman times. The project was the idea of Nicholas and Walter Gervase, father and son and influential local merchants, who travelled the country to raise funds. No known records survive of the bridge's builders. The result was a bridge at least 590 feet (180 metres) long, which probably had 17 or 18 arches, carrying the road diagonally from the west gate of the city wall across the River Exe and its wide, marshy flood plain.
St Edmund's Church, the bridge chapel, was built into the bridge at the time of its construction, and St Thomas's Church was built on the riverbank at about the same time. The Exe Bridge is unusual among British medieval bridges for having had secular buildings on it as well as the chapel. Timber-framed shops, with houses above, were in place from at least the early 14th century, and later in the bridge's life, all but the most central section carried buildings. As the river silted up, land was reclaimed, allowing a wall to be built from the side of St Edmund's which protected a row of houses and shops which became known as Frog Street. Walter Gervase also commissioned a chantry chapel, built opposite the church, which came into use after 1257 and continued until the Reformation in the mid-16th century.
The medieval bridge collapsed and had to be partially rebuilt several times throughout its life; the first recorded rebuilding was in 1286. By 1447 the bridge was severely dilapidated, and the mayor of Exeter appealed for funds to repair it. By the 16th century, it was again in need of repairs. Nonetheless, the bridge was in use for almost 600 years, until a replacement was built in 1778 and the arches across the river were demolished. That bridge was itself replaced in 1905, and again in 1969 by a pair of bridges. During construction of the twin bridges, eight and a half arches of the medieval bridge were uncovered and restored, some of which had been buried for nearly 200 years, and the surrounds were landscaped into a public park. Several more arches are buried under modern buildings. The bridge's remains are a scheduled monument and grade II listed building. (Full article...)
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Egyptian temples were built for the official worship of the gods and in commemoration of the pharaohs in ancient Egypt and regions under Egyptian control. Temples were seen as houses for the gods or kings to whom they were dedicated. Within them, the Egyptians performed the central rituals of Egyptian religion: giving offerings to the gods, reenacting their mythology through festivals, and warding off the forces of chaos. These rituals were seen as necessary for the gods to continue to uphold maat, the divine order of the universe. Caring for the gods was the obligations of pharaohs, who dedicated prodigious resources to temple construction and maintenance. Pharaohs delegated most of their ritual duties to priests, but most of the populace was excluded from direct participation in ceremonies and forbidden to enter a temple's most sacred areas. Nevertheless, a temple was an important religious site for all classes of Egyptians, who went there to pray, give offerings, and seek oracular guidance.
The most important part of the temple was the sanctuary, which typically contained a cult image of its god. The rooms outside the sanctuary grew larger and more elaborate over time, so that temples evolved from small shrines in late Prehistoric Egypt (late fourth millennium BC) to large stone edifices in the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 BC) and later. These edifices are among the largest and most enduring examples of ancient Egyptian architecture, with their elements arranged and decorated according to complex religious symbolism. Their typical layout comprised a series of enclosed halls, open courts, and entrance pylons aligned along the path used for festival processions. Beyond the temple proper was an outer wall enclosing secondary buildings.
A large temple owned sizable tracts of land and employed thousands of laymen to supply its needs. Temples were therefore key economic as well as religious centers. The priests who managed these powerful institutions wielded considerable influence, and despite their ostensible subordination to the king, they may have posed significant challenges to his authority.
Temple-building in Egypt continued despite the nation's decline and ultimate loss of independence to the Roman Empire in 30 BC. With the coming of Christianity, traditional Egyptian religion faced increasing persecution, and temple cults died out during the fourth through sixth centuries AD. The buildings suffered centuries of destruction and neglect. At the start of the nineteenth century, a wave of interest in ancient Egypt swept Europe, giving rise to the discipline of Egyptology and drawing increasing numbers of visitors to the civilization's remains. Dozens of temples survive, and some have become world-famous tourist attractions that contribute significantly to the modern Egyptian economy. Egyptologists continue to study the surviving temples and the remains of destroyed ones for information about ancient Egyptian society. (Full article...)
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Alan John Bayard WaceFBAFSA (13 July 1879 – 9 November 1957) was an English archaeologist who served as director of the British School at Athens (BSA) between 1914 and 1923. He excavated widely in Thessaly, Laconia, and Egypt and at the Bronze Age site of Mycenae in Greece. He was also an authority on Greek textiles and a prolific collector of Greek embroidery.
In 1914, Wace returned to the BSA as its director, though his archaeological work was soon interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War. During the war, he worked for the British intelligence services and excavated with his long-term collaborator Carl Blegen at the prehistoric site of Korakou. This project generated Wace and Blegen's theory of the long-term continuity of mainland Greek ("Helladic") culture, which contradicted the established scholarly view that Minoan Crete had been the dominant culture of the Aegean Bronze Age, and became known as the "Helladic Heresy". Wace excavated at Mycenae in the early 1920s, and established a chronological schema for the site's tholos tombs which largely proved the "Helladic Heresy" correct.
Wace lost his position at the BSA in 1923, and spent ten years as a curator of textiles at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. In 1934, he returned to Cambridge as the Laurence Professor of Classical Archaeology, and resumed his covert work during the Second World War, serving as a section head for the British intelligence agency MI6 in Athens, Alexandria, and Cairo. He retired from Cambridge in 1944 and was appointed to a post at Alexandria's Farouk I University. During his tenure there, he continued to excavate at Mycenae and unsuccessfully attempted to locate the tomb of Alexander the Great. He was sacked after the 1952 Egyptian revolution, but continued to excavate, publish and study until his death in 1957. His daughter, Lisa French, accompanied him on several campaigns at Mycenae and later directed excavations there. (Full article...)
Archaeologists have established that the monument was built by pastoralist communities shortly after the introduction of agriculture to Britain from continental Europe. Although representing part of an architectural tradition of long barrow building widespread across Neolithic Europe, Smythe's Megalith belonged to a localised regional variant produced in the vicinity of the River Medway, now known as the Medway Megaliths. Several of these still survive: Coldrum Long Barrow, Addington Long Barrow, and Chestnuts Long Barrow are on the river's western side, while Kit's Coty House, the Little Kit's Coty House, and the Coffin Stone are on the eastern side nearer to Smythe's Megalith. Close to the site of the lost monument is the White Horse Stone, a standing stone that may have once been part of another chambered long barrow.
The site may have been ransacked during the Middle Ages, as other Medway Megaliths were. By the early 19th century it was buried beneath soil, largely due to millennia of hillwash coming down from the adjacent Blue Bell Hill. In 1822, it was discovered by farm labourers ploughing the land; the local antiquarians Clement Smythe and Thomas Charles were called in to examine it. Shortly after, the labourers pulled away the stones and dispersed most of the human remains, destroying the monument. Smythe and Charles produced, but did not publish, reports on their findings, and these have been discussed by archaeologists since the mid-20th century. (Full article...)
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Spyridon Marinatos (Greek: Σπυρίδων Μαρινάτος; 17 November [O.S. 4 November] 1901 – 1 October 1974) was a Greek archaeologist who specialised in the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations of the Aegean Bronze Age. He is best known for the excavation of the Minoan site of Akrotiri on Thera, which he conducted between 1967 and 1974. He received several honours in Greece and abroad, and was considered one of the most important Greek archaeologists of his day.
Marinatos served three times as head of the Greek Archaeological Service, first between 1937 and 1939, secondly between 1955 and 1958, and finally under the military junta which ruled Greece between 1967 and 1974. He was an enthusiastic supporter of the junta; in the late 1930s, he had been close to the quasi-fascist dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas, under whom he initiated legislation to restrict the roles of women in Greek archaeology. His leadership of the Archaeological Service has been criticised for its cronyism and for promoting the pursuit of grand discoveries at the expense of good scholarship. Marinatos died while excavating at Akrotiri in 1974, and is buried at the site. (Full article...)
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The Aineta aryballos is an ancient Greek aryballos (a small, spherical flask or vase), made between approximately 625 and 570BCE in the city of Corinth in southern Greece. Approximately 6.35 centimetres (2.50 in) in both height and diameter, it was intended to contain perfumed oil or unguent, and is likely to have been owned by a high-class courtesan (hetaira) by the name of Aineta, who may be portrayed in a drawing on its handle. The vase's illegal sale to the British Museum in 1865 led to the prosecution of its seller, the Athenian professor and art dealer Athanasios Rhousopoulos, and exposed his widespread involvement in antiquities crime.
The vase is inscribed with a portrait, generally agreed to be that of a woman and probably that of Aineta, who is named in the inscription on the vase. Below the portrait are the names of nine men, usually taken to be Aineta's admirers or lovers. The Aineta aryballos is likely to have been found in a grave, probably that of Aineta. According to Rhousopoulos, it was discovered in Corinth around 1852. In 1877, Panagiotis Efstratiadis, the Ephor General of Antiquities in charge of the Greek Archaeological Service, had Rhousopoulos fined for selling the vase in contravention of Greek law. Writing in 2012 for the Center for Hellenic Studies, Yannis Galanakis called the case "a milestone in the trafficking of Greek antiquities", in that it represented a relatively rare successful use of state power against the illegal trade in ancient Greek artefacts. (Full article...)
Born in Sydney to a middle-class English migrant family, Childe studied classics at the University of Sydney before moving to England to study classical archaeology at the University of Oxford. There, he embraced the socialist movement and campaigned against the First World War, viewing it as a conflict waged by competing imperialists to the detriment of Europe's working class. Returning to Australia in 1917, he was prevented from working in academia because of his socialist activism. Instead, he worked for the Labor Party as the private secretary of the politician John Storey. Growing critical of Labor, he wrote an analysis of their policies and joined the radical labour organisation Industrial Workers of the World. Emigrating to London in 1921, he became librarian of the Royal Anthropological Institute and journeyed across Europe to pursue his research into the continent's prehistory, publishing his findings in academic papers and books. In doing so, he introduced the continental European concept of an archaeological culture—the idea that a recurring assemblage of artefacts demarcates a distinct cultural group—to the British archaeological community.
From 1927 to 1946, he worked as the Abercromby Professor of Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh, and then from 1947 to 1957 as the director of the Institute of Archaeology, London. During this period he oversaw the excavation of archaeological sites in Scotland and Northern Ireland, focusing on the society of NeolithicOrkney by excavating the settlement of Skara Brae and the chambered tombs of Maeshowe and Quoyness. In these decades he published prolifically, producing excavation reports, journal articles, and books. With Stuart Piggott and Grahame Clark he co-founded The Prehistoric Society in 1934, becoming its first president. Remaining a committed socialist, he embraced Marxism, and—rejecting culture-historical approaches—used Marxist ideas such as historical materialism as an interpretative framework for archaeological data. He became a sympathiser with the Soviet Union and visited the country on several occasions, although he grew sceptical of Soviet foreign policy following the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. His beliefs resulted in him being legally barred from entering the United States, despite receiving repeated invitations to lecture there. Upon retirement, he returned to Australia's Blue Mountains, where he committed suicide.
One of the best-known and most widely cited archaeologists of the twentieth century, Childe became known as the "great synthesizer" for his work integrating regional research with a broader picture of Near Eastern and European prehistory. He was also renowned for his emphasis on the role of revolutionary technological and economic developments in human society, such as the Neolithic Revolution and the Urban Revolution, reflecting the influence of Marxist ideas concerning societal development. Although many of his interpretations have since been discredited, he remains widely respected among archaeologists. (Full article...)
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The Benty Grange hanging bowl is a fragmentary Anglo-Saxonartefact from the seventh century AD. All that remains are parts of two escutcheons: bronze frames that are usually circular and elaborately decorated, and that sit along the outside of the rim or at the interior base of a hanging bowl. A third one disintegrated soon after excavation, and it no longer survives. The escutcheons were found in 1848 by the antiquaryThomas Bateman, while excavating a tumulus at the Benty Grange farm in western Derbyshire. They were presumably buried as part of an entire hanging bowl. The grave had probably been looted by the time of Bateman's excavation, but still contained high-status objects suggestive of a richly furnished burial, including the hanging bowl and the boar-crestedBenty Grange helmet.
The surviving escutcheons are made of enamelled bronze and are 40 mm (1.6 in) in diameter. They show three dolphin-like creatures arranged in a circle, each biting the tail of the one ahead of it. Their bodies and the background are made of enamel, likely all yellow; the creatures' outlines and eyes are tinned or silvered, as are the borders of the escutcheons. Although three escutcheons from a hanging bowl at Faversham also contain dolphin-like creatures, the Benty Grange design is most closely paralleled by Insular manuscripts, particularly figures in the Durham Gospel Fragment and the Book of Durrow. Surviving illustrations of the third escutcheon show that it was of a different size and style, exhibiting a scroll-like pattern. It parallels the basal disc of a hanging bowl from Winchester and may have been originally placed at the bottom of the Benty Grange bowl.
Vasa (previously Wasa) (Swedish pronunciation:[²vɑːsa]ⓘ) is a Swedish warship built between 1626 and 1628. The ship sank after sailing roughly 1,300 m (1,400 yd) into her maiden voyage on 10 August 1628. She fell into obscurity after most of her valuable bronzecannons were salvaged in the 17th century, until she was located again in the late 1950s in a busy shipping area in Stockholm harbor. The ship was salvaged with a largely intact hull in 1961. She was housed in a temporary museum called Wasavarvet ("The Vasa Shipyard") until 1988 and then moved permanently to the Vasa Museum in the Royal National City Park in Stockholm. Between her recovery in 1961 and the beginning of 2025, Vasa has been seen by over 45 million visitors.
The ship was built on the orders of the King of Sweden Gustavus Adolphus as part of the military expansion he initiated in a war with Poland-Lithuania (1621–1629). She was constructed at the navy yard in Stockholm under a contract with private entrepreneurs in 1626–1627 and armed primarily with bronze cannons cast in Stockholm specifically for the ship. Richly decorated as a symbol of the king's ambitions for Sweden and himself, upon completion she was one of the most powerfully armed vessels in the world. However, Vasa was dangerously unstable, with too much weight in the upper structure of the hull. Despite this lack of stability, she was ordered to sea and sank only a few minutes after encountering a wind stronger than a breeze.
The order to sail was the result of a combination of factors. The king, who was leading the army in Poland at the time of her maiden voyage, was impatient to see her take up her station as flagship of the reserve squadron at Älvsnabben in the Stockholm Archipelago. At the same time the king's subordinates lacked the political courage to openly discuss the ship's problems or to have the maiden voyage postponed. An inquiry was organized by the Swedish Privy Council to find those responsible for the disaster, but in the end no one was punished.
During the 1961 recovery, thousands of artifacts and the remains of at least 15 people were found in and around Vasa's hull by marine archaeologists. Among the many items found were clothing, weapons, cannons, tools, coins, cutlery, food, drink and six of the ten sails. The artifacts and the ship herself have provided scholars with invaluable insights into details of naval warfare, shipbuilding techniques, the evolution of sailing rigs, and everyday life in early 17th-century Sweden. Today Vasa is the world's best-preserved 17th-century ship, answering many questions about the design and operation of ships of this period. The wreck of Vasa continually undergoes monitoring and further research on how to preserve her. (Full article...)
A double concentric circle consisting of sarsenmegaliths, the Fir Clump stone circle was oval-shaped. The outer ring measured 107 metres (351 ft) by 86.5 metres (284 ft) in diameter, and the inner ring 86.5 metres (284 ft) by 73.7 metres (242 ft). It was one of at least seven stone circles that are known to have been erected in the area south of Swindon in northern Wiltshire. Around the 1860s, the megaliths of Fir Clump stone circle were levelled. In the 1890s, the antiquarian A. D. Passmore observed that the circle was no longer visible. Some of the fallen megaliths were rediscovered in 1965 by the archaeologist Richard Reiss, who described and measured the monument. In 1969, these stones were removed during construction of the M4 motorway. (Full article...)
The tetrastyleprostyle building has two doors that connect the pronaos to a square cella. To the back of the temple lie the remains of the adyton where images of the deity once stood. The ancient temple functioned as an aedes, the dwelling place of the deity. The temple of Bziza was converted into a church and underwent architectural modification during two phases of Christianization; in the Early Byzantine period and later in the Middle Ages. The church, colloquially known until modern times as the Lady of the Pillars, fell into disrepair. Despite the church's condition, Christian devotion was still maintained in the nineteenth century in one of the temple's niches. The temple of Bziza is featured on multiple stamps issued by the Lebanese state. (Full article...)
The city was probably founded between 300 and 285 BC by an official acting on the orders of Seleucus I Nicator or his son Antiochus I Soter, the first two rulers of the Seleucid dynasty. There is a possibility that the site was known to the earlier Achaemenid Empire, who established a small fort nearby. Ai-Khanoum was originally thought to have been a foundation of Alexander the Great, perhaps as Alexandria Oxiana, but this theory is now considered unlikely. Located at the confluence of the Amu Darya (a.k.a. Oxus) and Kokcha rivers, surrounded by well-irrigated farmland, the city itself was divided between a lower town and a 60-metre-high (200 ft) acropolis. Although not situated on a major trade route, Ai-Khanoum controlled access to both mining in the Hindu Kush and strategically important choke points. Extensive fortifications, which were continually maintained and improved, surrounded the city.
Ai-Khanoum, which may have initially grown in population because of royal patronage and the presence of a mint in the city, lost some importance through the secession of the Greco-Bactrians under Diodotus I (c. 250 BC). Seleucid construction programmes were halted and the city probably became primarily military in function; it may have been a conflict zone during the invasion of Antiochus III (c. 209 – c. 205 BC). Ai-Khanoum began to grow once more under Euthydemus I and his successor Demetrius I, who began to assert control over the northwest Indian subcontinent. Many of the present ruins date from the time of Eucratides I, who substantially redeveloped the city and who may have renamed it Eucratideia, after himself. Soon after his death c. 145 BC, the Greco-Bactrian kingdom collapsed—Ai-Khanoum was captured by Saka invaders and was generally abandoned, although parts of the city were sporadically occupied until the 2nd century AD. Hellenistic culture in the region would persist longer only in the Indo-Greek kingdoms.
The Nine Stones is part of a tradition of stone circle construction that spread through much of Great Britain, Ireland, and Brittany between 3,300 and 900 BCE, during the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. The stone circle tradition was accompanied by the construction of timber circles and earthen henges, reflecting a growing emphasis on circular monuments. The purpose of such rings is unknown, although archaeologists speculate that the stones represented supernatural entities for the circle's builders. At least nine of these stone circles are known to have been constructed near modern Dorset. They are smaller than those found elsewhere in Great Britain and are typically built from sarsen stone.
Located in the bottom of a narrow valley, the Nine Stones circle has a diameter of 9.1 by 7.8 metres (29 feet 10 inches by 25 feet 7 inches). It consists of nine irregularly spaced sarsen megaliths, with a small opening on its northern side. Two of the stones on the northwestern side of the monument are considerably larger than the other seven. This architectural feature has parallels with various stone circles in southwestern Scotland, and was potentially a deliberate choice of the circle's builders, to whom it may have had symbolic meaning.
Antiquarians like John Aubrey and William Stukeley first took an interest in the site during the eighteenth century. It later received archaeological attention, although it has not been excavated. Local folklore has grown up around the circle, associating it with the Devil and with children petrified into rock. The Nine Stones are regarded as a sacred site by local Druids, who perform religious ceremonies there. The circle is adjacent to the A35 road and encircled by trees. The site is owned by English Heritage and is open without charge to visitors. (Full article...)
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Kyriakos S. Pittakis (also Pittakys; Greek: Κυριακός Σ. Πιττάκης; 1798 – 4 November [O.S. 23 October] 1863) was a Greek archaeologist. He was the first Greek to serve as Ephor General of Antiquities, the head of the Greek Archaeological Service, in which capacity he carried out the conservation and restoration of several monuments on the Acropolis of Athens. He has been described as a "dominant figure in Greek archaeology for 27 years", and as "one of the most important epigraphers of the nineteenth century".
Pittakis was largely self-taught as an archaeologist, and one of the few native Greeks active in the field during the late Ottoman period and the early years of the Kingdom of Greece. He played an influential role in the early years of the Greek Archaeological Service and was a founding member of the Archaeological Society of Athens, a private body which undertook the excavation, conservation and publication of archaeological finds. He was responsible for much of the early excavation and restoration of the Acropolis, including efforts to restore the Erechtheion, the Parthenon, the Temple of Athena Nike and the Propylaia. As ephor of the Central Public Museum for Antiquities from 1836, and later as Ephor General, he was largely responsible for the conservation and protection of many of the monuments and artefacts then known from Ancient Greece.
Pittakis has been described as the last representative of the "heroic period" of Greek archaeologists. He was prolific both as an excavator and as an archaeological writer, publishing by his own estimation more than 4,000 inscriptions. He has been praised for his extensive efforts to uncover and protect Greece's classical heritage, particularly in Athens and the adjacent islands, but criticised for his unsystematic and incautious approach. His reconstructions of ancient monuments often prioritised aesthetics over fidelity to the original, and were largely reverted after his death. He has also been accused of allowing his strong nationalist beliefs to influence his reconstruction of ancient monuments, and of distorting the archaeological record to suit his own beliefs. (Full article...)
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Kronan, also called Stora Kronan, was a Swedish warship that served as the flagship of the Swedish Navy in the Baltic Sea in the 1670s. When built, she was one of the largest seagoing vessels in the world. The construction of Kronan lasted from 1668 to 1672 and was delayed by difficulties with financing and conflicts between the shipwright Francis Sheldon and the Swedish admiralty. After four years of service, the ship sank in rough weather at the Battle of Öland on 1 June 1676: while making a sharp turn under too much sail she capsized, and the gunpowdermagazine ignited and blew off most of the bow. Kronan sank quickly, taking about 800 men and more than 100 guns with her, along with valuable military equipment, weapons, personal items, and large quantities of silver and gold coins.
The loss of Kronan was a hard blow for Sweden during the Scanian War. Besides being the largest and most heavily armed ship in the Swedish Navy, she had been an important status symbol for the monarchy of the young Charles XI. Along with Kronan, the navy lost a sizeable proportion of its best manpower, acting supreme commander Lorentz Creutz, numerous high-ranking fleet officers, and the chief of the navy medical staff. A commission was set up to investigate whether any individuals could be held responsible for the defeat at the Battle of Öland and other major defeats during the war.
Most of the guns that sank with Kronan were salvaged in the 1680s, but eventually the wreck fell into obscurity. Its exact position was rediscovered in 1980 by the amateur researcher Anders Franzén, who had also located the 17th-century warship Vasa in the 1950s. Yearly diving operations have since surveyed and excavated the wreck site and salvaged artifacts, and Kronan has become the most widely publicized shipwreck in the Baltic after Vasa. More than 30,000 artifacts have been recovered, and many have been conserved and put on permanent public display at the Kalmar County Museum in Kalmar. The museum is responsible for the maritime archaeological operations and the permanent exhibitions on Kronan. (Full article...)
The helmet was constructed by covering the outside of an iron framework with plates of horn and the inside with cloth or leather; the organic material has since decayed. The helmet would have provided some protection against weapons, but was also ornate and may have been intended for ceremonial use. It was the first Anglo-Saxon helmet to be discovered, with five others found since: Sutton Hoo (1939), Coppergate (1982), Wollaston (1997), Shorwell (2004) and Staffordshire (2009). The helmet features a unique combination of structural and technical attributes, but contemporaneous parallels exist for its individual characteristics. It is classified as one of the "crested helmets" used in Northern Europe from the 6th to 11th centuries AD.
The most striking feature of the helmet is the boar at its apex; this pagan symbol faces towards a Christian cross on the nasal in a display of syncretism. This is representative of 7th-century England when Christian missionaries were slowly converting Anglo-Saxons away from traditional Germanic paganism. The helmet seems to exhibit a stronger preference toward paganism, with a large boar and a small cross. The cross may have been added for talismanic effect, the help of any god being welcome on the battlefield. The boar atop the crest was likewise associated with protection and suggests a time when boar-crested helmets may have been common, as do the helmet from Wollaston and the Guilden Morden boar. The contemporary epic Beowulf mentions such helmets five times and speaks of the strength of men "when the hefted sword, its hammered edge and gleaming blade slathered in blood, razes the sturdy boar-ridge off a helmet". (Full article...)
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The Bonn–Oberkassel dog (German: Hund von Bonn–Oberkassel) was a Late Paleolithic (c. 14,000 years BP / c. 12,000 BCE) dog whose skeletal remains were found buried alongside two humans. Discovered in early 1914 by quarry workers in Oberkassel, Bonn, Germany, the double burial site was analyzed by a team of archaeologists from the University of Bonn. It was around 7.5 months old at death, 40–50 cm (16–20 in) tall at the shoulder, and weighed 13–18 kg (29–40 lb), suggesting a slender build similar to West Asian wolves (such as the Indian wolf) or some modern sighthounds.
The dog's lower jaw was first thought to be from a wolf and placed into museum storage with the human remains, while the dog's other bones were put into the university's geological collections. The bones of the Bonn–Oberkassel dog were reunited in the late 1970s and reidentified as a domestic dog attributed to the Magdalenian culture, dating to the beginning of the Late Glacial Interstadial, c. 14,000 BP. A total of 32 identifiable bone fragments have been attributed to the dog. These have been used to estimate a number of the animal's characteristics.
Osteoarthritis, alongside signs of enamel defects, missing teeth, and gum disease, indicate that the Bonn–Oberkassel dog survived a canine distemper infection as a puppy. Due to the high likelihood of death without assistance, the puppy's survival was probably due to human care. Such care would have involved providing food and water, as well as frequent cleaning. Extensive human care suggests significant compassion towards the dog, possibly indicating that the dog was seen as a pet. It is unknown how the dog died; it may have been due to the effects of its illness or other natural causes. An alternate possibility is that it was killed or sacrificed to be buried alongside the humans, an archaeologically attested practice linked to spiritual and religious motives. A molar belonging to a second, older dog was found at the site, likely used as a grave good. (Full article...)
Archaeologists have established that the monument was built by pastoralist communities shortly after the introduction of agriculture to Britain from continental Europe. Part of an architectural tradition of long barrow building that was widespread across Neolithic Europe, the Coldrum Stones belong to a localised regional variant of barrows produced in the vicinity of the River Medway, now known as the Medway Megaliths. Of these, it is in the best surviving condition. It lies near to both Addington Long Barrow and Chestnuts Long Barrow on the western side of the river. Two further surviving long barrows, Kit's Coty House and Little Kit's Coty House, as well as possible survivals such as the Coffin Stone and White Horse Stone, are located on the Medway's eastern side.
Built out of earth and around fifty local sarsen-stone megaliths, the long barrow consisted of a sub-rectangular earthen tumulus enclosed by kerb-stones. Within the eastern end of the tumulus was a stone chamber, into which human remains were deposited on at least two separate occasions during the Early Neolithic. Osteoarchaeological analysis of these remains has shown them to be those of at least seventeen individuals, a mixture of men, women, and children. At least one of the bodies had been dismembered before burial, potentially reflecting a funerary tradition of excarnation and secondary burial. As with other barrows, Coldrum has been interpreted as a tomb to house the remains of the dead, perhaps as part of a belief system involving ancestor veneration, although archaeologists have suggested that it may also have had further religious, ritual, and cultural connotations and uses.
After the Early Neolithic, the long barrow fell into a state of ruined dilapidation, perhaps experiencing deliberate destruction in the Late Medieval period, either by Christian iconoclasts or treasure hunters. In local folklore, the site became associated with the burial of a prince and the countless stones motif. The ruin attracted the interest of antiquarians in the 19th century, while archaeological excavation took place in the early 20th. In 1926, ownership was transferred to heritage charity the National Trust. Open without charge to visitors all year around, the stones are the site of a rag tree, a May Daymorris dance, and various modern Pagan rituals. (Full article...)
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The Gevninge helmet fragment is the dexter eyepiece of a helmet from the Viking Age or end of the Nordic Iron Age. It was found in 2000 during the excavation of a Viking farmstead in Gevninge, near Lejre, Denmark. The fragment is moulded from bronze and gilded, and consists of a stylised eyebrow with eyelashes above an oval opening. There are three holes at the top and bottom of the fragment to affix the eyepiece to a helmet. The fragment is significant as rare evidence of contemporaneous helmets, and also for its discovery in Gevninge, an outpost that is possibly connected to the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf. It has been in the collection of the Lejre Museum since its discovery, and has been exhibited internationally as part of a travelling exhibition on Vikings.
The fragment is an ornate piece, but nothing else remains of the helmet; it might be the single remnant of a disintegrated helmet, or it might have been lost or discarded. It is one of two Scandinavian eyepieces discovered alone, giving rise to the suggestion that it was intentionally deposited in an invocation of the one-eyed god Odin. It would have been part of a decorated "crested helmet", the type of headgear that was common to England and Scandinavia from the sixth through eleventh centuries AD. These are particularly known from the examples found at Vendel, Valsgärde, and Sutton Hoo; the Tjele helmet fragment is the only other Danish example known.
Gevninge is three kilometres (1.9 mi) upriver from Lejre, a one-time centre of power believed to be the setting for Heorot, the fabled mead hall to which the poetical hero Beowulf journeys in search of the eotenGrendel. The settlement's location suggests that it functioned as an outpost through which anyone would have to pass when sailing to the capital, and in which trusted and loyal guardians would serve. This mirrors Beowulf's experience on his way to Heorot, for upon disembarking he is met with a mounted lookout whose job it is "to watch the waves for raiders, and danger to the Danish shore." Upon answering his challenge, Beowulf is escorted down the road to Heorot, much as an Iron Age visitor to Lejre might have been led along the road from Gevninge. The Gevninge helmet fragment, a military piece from a riverside outpost, therefore sheds light on the relationship between historical fact and legend. (Full article...)
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Netley Abbey is a ruined late medievalmonastery in the village of Netley near Southampton in Hampshire, England. The abbey was founded in 1239 as a house for monks of the austere Cistercian order. Despite royal patronage, Netley was never rich, produced no influential scholars nor churchmen, and its nearly 300-year history was quiet. The monks were best known to their neighbours for the generous hospitality they offered to travellers on land and sea.
In 1536, Netley Abbey was seized by Henry VIII of England during the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the buildings granted to William Paulet, a wealthy Tudor politician, who converted them into a mansion. The abbey was used as a country house until the beginning of the eighteenth century, after which it was abandoned and partially demolished for building materials. Subsequently the ruins became a tourist attraction, and provided inspiration to poets and artists of the Romantic movement. In the early twentieth century the site was given to the nation, and it is now a Scheduled Ancient Monument, cared for by English Heritage. The extensive remains consist of the church, cloister buildings, abbot's house, and fragments of the post-Dissolution mansion. Netley Abbey is one of the best preserved medieval Cistercian monasteries in southern England. (Full article...)
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Peter Charles van GeersdaeleOBE (3 July 1933 – 20 July 2018) was an English conservator best known for his work on the Sutton Hooship-burial. Among other work he oversaw the creation of a plaster cast of the ship impression, from which a fibreglass replica of the ship was formed. He later helped mould an impression of the Graveney boat, in addition to other excavation and restoration work.
Van Geersdaele studied at Hammersmith Technical College from 1946 to 1949, after which he engaged in moulding and casting at the Victoria and Albert Museum until 1951. From 1954 to around 1976 he was a conservator at the British Museum, rising to the position of senior conservation officer in the British and Medieval department. Following that he became an assistant chief of archaeology in the conservation division of the National Historic Sites of Canada for Parks Canada, and then the deputy head of the conservation department at the National Maritime Museum in London. He retired in 1993, and during that year's Birthday Honours was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, in recognition of his services to museums. (Full article...)
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The Old Exe Bridge is a ruined medieval arch bridge in Exeter in south-western England. Construction of the bridge began in 1190, and was completed by 1214. The bridge is the oldest surviving bridge of its size in England and the oldest bridge in Britain with a chapel still on it. It replaced several rudimentary crossings which had been in use sporadically since Roman times. The project was the idea of Nicholas and Walter Gervase, father and son and influential local merchants, who travelled the country to raise funds. No known records survive of the bridge's builders. The result was a bridge at least 590 feet (180 metres) long, which probably had 17 or 18 arches, carrying the road diagonally from the west gate of the city wall across the River Exe and its wide, marshy flood plain.
St Edmund's Church, the bridge chapel, was built into the bridge at the time of its construction, and St Thomas's Church was built on the riverbank at about the same time. The Exe Bridge is unusual among British medieval bridges for having had secular buildings on it as well as the chapel. Timber-framed shops, with houses above, were in place from at least the early 14th century, and later in the bridge's life, all but the most central section carried buildings. As the river silted up, land was reclaimed, allowing a wall to be built from the side of St Edmund's which protected a row of houses and shops which became known as Frog Street. Walter Gervase also commissioned a chantry chapel, built opposite the church, which came into use after 1257 and continued until the Reformation in the mid-16th century.
The medieval bridge collapsed and had to be partially rebuilt several times throughout its life; the first recorded rebuilding was in 1286. By 1447 the bridge was severely dilapidated, and the mayor of Exeter appealed for funds to repair it. By the 16th century, it was again in need of repairs. Nonetheless, the bridge was in use for almost 600 years, until a replacement was built in 1778 and the arches across the river were demolished. That bridge was itself replaced in 1905, and again in 1969 by a pair of bridges. During construction of the twin bridges, eight and a half arches of the medieval bridge were uncovered and restored, some of which had been buried for nearly 200 years, and the surrounds were landscaped into a public park. Several more arches are buried under modern buildings. The bridge's remains are a scheduled monument and grade II listed building. (Full article...)
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Ursula Martius FranklinCCOOntFRSC (16 September 1921 – 22 July 2016) was a Canadian metallurgist, activist, research physicist, author, and educator who taught at the University of Toronto for more than 40 years. Franklin is best known for her writings on the political and social effects of technology. She was the author of The Real World of Technology, which is based on her 1989 Massey Lectures; The Ursula Franklin Reader: Pacifism as a Map, a collection of her papers, interviews, and talks; and Ursula Franklin Speaks: Thoughts and Afterthoughts, containing 22 of her speeches and five interviews between 1986 and 2012. Franklin was a practising Quaker and actively worked on behalf of pacifist and feminist causes. She wrote and spoke extensively about the futility of war and the connection between peace and social justice. Franklin received numerous honours and awards, including the Governor General's Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case for promoting the equality of girls and women in Canada and the Pearson Medal of Peace for her work in advancing human rights. In 2012, she was inducted into the Canadian Science and Engineering Hall of Fame. A Toronto high school, Ursula Franklin Academy, as well as Ursula Franklin Street on the University of Toronto campus, have been named in her honor.
For Franklin, technology was much more than machines, gadgets or electronic transmitters. It was a comprehensive system that includes methods, procedures, organization, "and most of all, a mindset". She distinguished between holistic technologies used by craft workers or artisans and prescriptive ones associated with a division of labour in large-scale production. Holistic technologies allow artisans to control their own work from start to finish. Prescriptive technologies organize work as a sequence of steps requiring supervision by bosses or managers. Franklin argued that the dominance of prescriptive technologies in modern society discourages critical thinking and promotes "a culture of compliance".
For some, Franklin belongs in the intellectual tradition of Harold Innis and Jacques Ellul who warn about technology's tendency to suppress freedom and endanger civilization. Franklin herself acknowledged her debt to Ellul as well as to several other thinkers including Lewis Mumford, C. B. Macpherson, E. F. Schumacher, and Vandana Shiva. She recognized that this list had few women. In addition to the philosophy of technology, she believed that science was "severely impoverished because women are discouraged from taking part in the exploration of knowledge". (Full article...)
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The Pioneer Helmet (also known as the Wollaston Helmet or Northamptonshire Helmet), is an Anglo-Saxonboar-crested helmet from the late seventh century found in Wollaston, Northamptonshire, United Kingdom. It was discovered during a March 1997 excavation before the land was to be mined for gravel and was part of the grave of a young man. Other objects in the grave, such as a hanging bowl and a pattern welded sword, suggest that it was the burial mound of a high-status warrior.
The sparsely decorated nature of the helmet, a utilitarian iron fighting piece, belies its rarity. It is one of just six Anglo-Saxon helmets yet discovered, joined by finds from Benty Grange (1848), Sutton Hoo (1939), Coppergate (1982), Shorwell (2004) and Staffordshire (2009); its basic form is nearly identical to that of the richer Coppergate helmet found in York. Like these, the Pioneer Helmet is an example of the "crested helmets" that flourished in England and Scandinavia from the sixth through eleventh centuries.
The distinctive feature of the helmet is the boar mounted atop its crest. Boar-crested helmets are a staple of Anglo-Saxon imagery, evidence of a Germanic tradition in which the boar invoked the protection of the gods. The Pioneer Helmet is one of three—together with the Benty Grange helmet and the detached Guilden Morden boar—known to have survived. These boar crests recall a time when such decoration may have been common; the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, in which boar-adorned helmets are mentioned five times, speaks of a funeral pyre "heaped with boar-shaped helmets forged in gold," forging a link between the warrior hero of legend and the Pioneer Helmet of reality.
Herbert James MaryonOBEFSAFIIC (9 March 1874 – 14 July 1965) was an English sculptor, conservator, goldsmith, archaeologist and authority on ancient metalwork. Maryon practiced and taught sculpture until retiring in 1939, then worked as a conservator with the British Museum from 1944 to 1961. He is best known for his work on the Sutton Hooship-burial, which led to his appointment as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.
By the time of his mid-twenties Maryon attended three art schools, apprenticed in silversmithing with C. R. Ashbee, and worked in Henry Wilson's workshop. From 1900 to 1904 he served as the director of the Keswick School of Industrial Art, where he designed numerous Arts and Crafts works. After moving to the University of Reading and then Durham University, he taught sculpture, metalwork, modelling, casting, and anatomy until 1939. He also designed the University of Reading War Memorial, among other commissions. Maryon published two books while teaching, including Metalwork and Enamelling, and many articles. He frequently led archaeological digs, and in 1935 discovered one of the oldest gold ornaments known in Britain while excavating the Kirkhaugh cairns.
In 1944 Maryon was brought out of retirement to work in the Sutton Hoo finds. His responsibilities included restoring the shield, the drinking horns, and the iconic Sutton Hoo helmet, which proved academically and culturally influential. Maryon's work, much of which was revised in the 1970s, created credible renderings upon which subsequent research relied; likewise, one of his papers coined the term pattern welding to describe a method employed on the Sutton Hoo sword to decorate and strengthen iron and steel. The initial work ended in 1950, and Maryon turned to other matters. He proposed a widely publicised theory in 1953 on the construction of the Colossus of Rhodes, influencing Salvador Dalí and others, and restored the Roman Emesa helmet in 1955. He left the museum in 1961, a year after his official retirement, and began an around-the-world trip lecturing and researching Chinese magic mirrors. (Full article...)
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The Temple of Eshmun (Arabic: معبد أشمون) is an ancient place of worship dedicated to Eshmun, the Phoenician god of healing. It is located near the Awali river, 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) northeast of Sidon in southwestern Lebanon. The site was occupied from the 7th century BC to the 8th century AD, suggesting an integrated relationship with the nearby city of Sidon. Although originally constructed by Sidonian king Eshmunazar II in the Achaemenid era (c. 529–333 BC) to celebrate the city's recovered wealth and stature, the temple complex was greatly expanded by Bodashtart, Yatonmilk and later monarchs. Because the continued expansion spanned many centuries of alternating independence and foreign hegemony, the sanctuary features a wealth of different architectural and decorative styles and influences.
The sanctuary consists of an esplanade and a grand court limited by a huge limestone terrace wall that supports a monumental podium which was once topped by Eshmun's Greco-Persian style marble temple. The sanctuary features a series of ritual ablution basins fed by canals channeling water from the Asclepius river (modern Awali) and from the sacred "YDLL" spring; these installations were used for therapeutic and purificatory purposes that characterize the cult of Eshmun. The sanctuary site has yielded many artifacts of value, especially those inscribed with Phoenician texts, such as the Bodashtart inscriptions and the Eshmun inscription, providing valuable insight into the site's history and that of ancient Sidon.
The Eshmun Temple was improved during the early Roman Empire with a colonnade street, but declined after earthquakes and fell into oblivion as Christianity replaced polytheism and its large limestone blocks were used to build later structures. The temple site was rediscovered in 1900 by local treasure hunters who stirred the curiosity of international scholars. Maurice Dunand, a French archaeologist, thoroughly excavated the site from 1963 until the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975. After the end of the hostilities and the retreat of Israel from Southern Lebanon, the site was rehabilitated and inscribed to the World Heritage Site tentative list. (Full article...)
The Coffin Stone is a rectangular slab lying flat that measures 4.42 metres (14 ft 6 in) in length, 2.59 metres (8 ft 6 in) in breadth, and about 0.61 metres (2 ft) in width. Two smaller stones lie nearby and another large slab is now located atop it. In the 1830s it was reported that local farmers found human bones near the stone. An archaeological excavation of the site led by Paul Garwood took place in 2008–09; it found that the megalith was placed in its present location only in the 15th or 16th centuries. The archaeologists found no evidence of a chambered long barrow at the location, and suggested that the Coffin Stone might once have stood upright in the vicinity. (Full article...)
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Nigel Reuben Rook Williams (15 July 1944 – 21 April 1992) was an English conservator and expert on the restoration of ceramics and glass. From 1961 until his death he worked at the British Museum, where he became the Chief Conservator of Ceramics and Glass in 1983. There his work included the successful restorations of the Sutton Hoo helmet and the Portland Vase.
Joining as an assistant at age 16, Williams spent his entire career, and most of his life, at the British Museum. He was one of the first people to study conservation, not yet recognised as a profession, and from an early age was given responsibility over high-profile objects. In the 1960s he assisted with the re-excavation of the Sutton Hooship-burial, and in his early- to mid-twenties he conserved many of the objects found therein: most notably the Sutton Hoo helmet, which occupied a year of his time. He likewise reconstructed other objects from the find, including the shield, drinking horns, and maplewood bottles.
The "abiding passion of his life" was ceramics, and the 1970s and 1980s gave Williams ample opportunities in that field. After nearly 31,000 fragments of shattered Greek vases were found in 1974 amidst the wreck of HMS Colossus, Williams set to work piecing them together. The process was televised, and turned him into a television personality. A decade later, in 1988 and 1989, Williams's crowning achievement came when he took to pieces the Portland Vase, one of the most famous glass objects in the world, and put it back together. The reconstruction was again televised for a BBC programme, and as with the Sutton Hoo helmet, took nearly a year to complete.
Williams died at age 47 of a heart attack while in Aqaba, Jordan, where he was working on a British Museum excavation. The Ceramics & Glass group of the Institute of Conservation awards a biennial prize in his honour, recognising his significant contributions in the field of conservation. (Full article...)
Mylonas was born in Smyrna, then part of the Ottoman Empire, and received an elite education. He enrolled in 1919 at the University of Athens to study classics, joined the Greek Army, and fought in the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922. He witnessed the destruction of Smyrna in September 1922, and was subsequently taken prisoner; he was recaptured after a brief escape, but was released in 1923 after bribing his captors with money sent by his American contacts.
Mylonas's excavation work included the sites of Pylos, Artemision, Mekyberna, Polystylos and Aspropotamos. Along with John Papadimitriou, he was given responsibility for the excavation of Mycenae's Grave Circle B in the early 1950s, and from 1957 until 1985 excavated on the citadel of the site. His excavations helped to establish the chronological relationships between Mycenae's structures, which had been excavated piecemeal over the preceding century, and to determine the religious function of the site's Cult Center, to which he gave its name. He was awarded the Order of George I, the Royal Order of the Phoenix and the Gold Medal of the Archaeological Institute of America, of which he was the first foreign-born president. His work at Mycenae has been credited with bringing coherence to the previously scattered and sporadically published record of excavation at the site. At the same time, his belief that ancient Greek mythical traditions, particularly concerning the Trojan War and the Eleusinian Mysteries, could be verified by archaeological excavation was controversial in his day and has generally been discredited since. (Full article...)
Frantz was born in Minnesota. Following her father's early death, she lived briefly in Scotland, where she first took an interest in photography. She studied classics at Smith College in Massachusetts, graduating in 1924. She first visited Greece in 1925 and held a fellowship at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA) in 1929–1930. She carried out her doctoral research under Charles Rufus Morey, receiving her PhD from Columbia University in 1937. Frantz began working at the ASCSA's Agora excavations in January 1934. From 1935, she took on an increasing share of the excavation's photography, and was made its official photographer in 1939. She also took the first photographs of the Linear B tablets from the Mycenaean site of Pylos, images used for the first transcription of the tablets and consequently for the decipherment of Linear B. As part of her work in the Agora excavations, she excavated and restored the Church of the Holy Apostles, the site's last surviving Byzantine structure.
Frantz left the Agora excavations in 1964. Her later work largely consisted of collaborations with archaeologists such as Gisela Richter, Martin Robertson and Bernard Ashmole. Her publications included some of the earliest archaeological research into Ottoman Greece, as well as photography of archaic kore sculptures, Byzantine architecture and artifacts from the Aegean Bronze Age. Her work on late antiquity and later periods is considered pioneering, and to have contributed to raising the scholarly standing of post-classical archaeology in Greece. She was considered among the foremost photographers of ancient Greek antiquities, and her work has been cited as a major influence on the scholarship and popular reception of classical Greece. (Full article...)
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The Corp Naomh (Irish pronunciation:[kɔɾˠpˠn̪ˠiːvˠ], lit.'Holy or Sacred Body') is an Irish bell shrine made in the 9th or 10th century to enclose a now-lost hand-bell, which probably dated to c. 600 to 900 AD and belonged to an early Irish saint. The shrine was rediscovered sometime before 1682 at Tristernagh Abbey, near Templecross, County Westmeath. The shrine is 23 cm (9.1 in) high and 12 cm (4.7 in) wide. It was heavily refurbished and added to during a second phase of embellishment in the 15th century, and now consists of cast and sheetbronze plates mounted on a wooden core decorated with silver, niello and rock crystal. It is severely damaged with extensive losses and wear across almost all of its parts, and when discovered a block of wood had been substituted for the bell itself. The remaining elements are considered of high historical and artistic value by archaeologists and art historians.
Sections from its original, early Medieval phase include the cross on the reverse and the ornate semi-circular cap, which shows a bearded cleric holding a book. He is surrounded by horsemen above whom are large birds seemingly about to take flight. It was extensively refurbished in the 15th (and possibly 16th) centuries when the central bronze crucifix, the griffin and lion panel, the stamped border panels and the backing plate were added. The badly damaged crucifix and large enamel stud on the front date from at least the 15th century.
The shrine's medieval provenance is incomplete. It was probably held by hereditary keepers after the dissolution of Tristernagh Abbey in 1536 until it passed into the possession of the Anglo-Irish owners of the site. The Corp Naomh was first exhibited in 1853 by the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) and was transferred to the National Museum of Ireland in 1887. (Full article...)
Archaeologists have established that long barrows were built by pastoralist communities shortly after the introduction of agriculture to Britain from continental Europe. Representing an architectural tradition of long barrow building that was widespread across Neolithic Europe, Chestnuts Long Barrow belongs to a localised regional style of barrows produced in the vicinity of the River Medway. The long barrows built in this area are now known as the Medway Megaliths. Chestnuts Long Barrow lies near to both Addington Long Barrow and Coldrum Long Barrow on the western side of the river. Two further surviving long barrows, Kit's Coty House and Little Kit's Coty House, as well as the destroyed Smythe's Megalith and possible survivals as the Coffin Stone and White Horse Stone, are on the eastern side of the Medway.
The long barrow was built on land previously inhabited in the Mesolithic period. It consisted of a sub-rectangular earthen tumulus, estimated to have been 15 metres (50 feet) in length, with a chamber built from sarsenmegaliths on its eastern end. Both inhumed and cremated human remains were placed within this chamber during the Neolithic period, representing at least nine or ten individuals. These remains were found alongside pottery sherds, stone arrow heads, and a clay pendant. In the 4th centuryAD, a Romano-British hut was erected next to the long barrow. In the 12th or 13th century, the chamber was dug into and heavily damaged, either by treasure hunters or iconoclastic Christians. The mound gradually eroded and was completely gone by the twentieth century, leaving only the ruined stone chamber. The ruin attracted the interest of antiquarians in the 18th and 19th centuries, while archaeological excavation took place in 1957, followed by limited reconstruction. The site is on privately owned land. (Full article...)
As it might be recognised today, Chat Moss is thought to be about 7,000 years old, but peat development seems to have begun there with the ending of the last ice age, about 10,000 years ago. The depth of peat ranges from 24 to 30 feet (7 to 9 m). A great deal of reclamation work has been carried out, particularly during the 19th century, but a large-scale network of drainage channels is still required to keep the land from reverting to bog. In 1958 workers extracting peat discovered the severed head of what is believed to be a Romano-BritishCelt, possibly a sacrificial victim, in the eastern part of the bog near Worsley.
The tomb of Kha and Merit, also known by its tomb numberTheban Tomb 8 or TT8, is the funerary chapel and burial place of the ancient Egyptian foreman Kha and his wife Merit, in the northern cemetery of the workmen's village of Deir el-Medina. Kha supervised the workforce who constructed royal tombs during the reigns of the pharaohs Amenhotep II, Thutmose IV and Amenhotep III (r. 1425 – 1353 BC) in the mid-Eighteenth Dynasty of the early New Kingdom of Egypt. Of unknown background, he probably rose to his position through skill and was rewarded by at least one king. He and his wife Merit had three known children. Kha died in his 60s, while Merit died before him, seemingly unexpectedly, in her 20s or 30s.
The couple's pyramid-shaped chapel has been known since at least 1818 when one of their funerary stele was purchased by the antiquarian Bernardino Drovetti. Scenes from the chapel were first copied in the 19th century by early Egyptologists including John Gardiner Wilkinson and Karl Lepsius. The paintings show Kha and Merit receiving offerings from their children and appearing before Osiris, god of the dead. The decoration has been damaged over the millennia, deteriorating due to structural decay and human actions.
Kha and Merit's tomb was cut into the base of the cliffs opposite their chapel. This position allowed the entrance to be quickly buried by debris deposited by landslides and later tomb construction, hiding its location from ancient robbers. The undisturbed tomb was discovered in February 1906 in excavations led by the Egyptologist Ernesto Schiaparelli on behalf of the Italian Archaeological Mission. The burial chamber contained over 400 items including carefully arranged stools and beds, neatly stacked storage chests of personal belongings, clothing and tools, tables piled with foods such as bread, meats and fruit, and the couple's two large wooden sarcophagi housing their coffined mummies. Merit's body was fitted with a funerary mask; Kha was provided with one of the earliest known copies of the Book of the Dead. Their mummies have never been unwrapped. X-rays, CT scanning and chemical analyses have revealed neither were embalmed in the typical fashion but that both bodies are well preserved. Both wear metal jewellery beneath their bandages, although only Kha has funerary amulets.
Almost all of the contents of the tomb were awarded to the excavators and were shipped to Italy soon after the discovery. They have been displayed in the Museo Egizio in Turin since their arrival, and an entire gallery is devoted to them. This has been redesigned several times. (Full article...)
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Great Wilbraham is a Neolithiccausewayed enclosure, an archaeological site near the village of Great Wilbraham in Cambridgeshire, England. The enclosure is about 170 metres (560 ft) across, and covers about 2 hectares (4.9 acres). Causewayed enclosures were built in England from shortly before 3700 BC until at least 3500 BC; they are characterized by the full or partial enclosure of an area with ditches that are interrupted by gaps, or causeways. Their purpose is not known; they may have been settlements, meeting places, or ritual sites.
The Great Wilbraham enclosure was first identified from aerial photographs in 1972. An excavation was begun in 1975 by David Clarke, with a planned five-year research programme, but Clarke died in 1976 and the results from the dig remained unpublished for years. The surviving part of the archive of finds and records from Clarke's dig was reanalysed in the 2000s, and published in 2006. The site was rich in finds, including Neolithic flint, pottery from periods stretching from the Neolithic to the present day, and animal bone—mostly cattle, but also some sheep and pig. Radiocarbon dating of two samples from the enclosure found dates inconsistent with their context, and were assumed to be the result of later material intruding into the Neolithic levels. The site has been protected as a scheduled monument since 1976. (Full article...)
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Lindow Man, also known as Lindow II and (in jest) as Pete Marsh, is the preserved bog body of a man discovered in a peat bog at Lindow Moss near Wilmslow in Cheshire, North West England. The remains were found on 1 August 1984 by commercial peat cutters. Lindow Man is not the only bog body to have been found in the moss; Lindow Woman was discovered the year before, and other body parts have also been recovered. The find was described as "one of the most significant archaeological discoveries of the 1980s" and caused a media sensation. It helped invigorate the study of British bog bodies, which had previously been neglected.
Dating the body has proven problematic, but it is thought that he was deposited into Lindow Moss, face down, sometime between 2 BC and 119 AD, in either the Iron Age or Romano-British period. At the time of death, Lindow Man was a healthy male in his mid-20s, and may have been of high social status as his body shows little evidence of having done heavy or rough physical labour during his lifetime. There has been debate over the reason for his death; his death was violent and perhaps ritualistic.
Being centrally located on the Australian mainland, Adelaide forms a strategic transport hub for east–west and north–south routes. The city itself has a metropolitan public transport system managed by and known as the Adelaide Metro. The Adelaide Metro consists of a contracted bus system including the O-Bahn Busway, 7 commuter rail lines (diesel and electric), and a small tram network operating between inner suburb Hindmarsh, the city centre, and seaside Glenelg. Tramways were largely dismantled in the 1950s, but saw a revival in the 2010s with upgrades and extensions.
Road transport in Adelaide has historically been easier than many of the other Australian cities, with a well-defined city layout and wide multiple-lane roads from the beginning of its development. Adelaide was known as a "twenty-minute city", with commuters having been able to travel from metropolitan outskirts to the city proper in roughly twenty minutes. However, such arterial roads often experience traffic congestion as the city grows.
The Adelaide metropolitan area has one freeway and four expressways. In order of construction, they are:
The South Eastern Freeway (M1), connects the south-east corner of the Adelaide Plain to the Adelaide Hills and beyond to Murray Bridge and Tailem Bend, where it then continues as National Highway 1 south-east to Melbourne.
The Southern Expressway (M2), connecting the outer southern suburbs with the inner southern suburbs and the city centre. It duplicates the route of South Road.
The North-South Motorway (M2), is an ongoing major project that will become the major north–south corridor, replacing most of what is now South Road, connecting the Southern Expressway and the Northern Expressway via a motorway with no traffic lights. As of 2024 the motorway's northern half is complete, connecting the Northern Expressway to Adelaide's inner north-west; the section running through Adelaide's inner west and inner south-west will begin major construction in 2025 with completion estimated for 2031.
The Port River Expressway (A9), connects Port Adelaide and Outer Harbor to Port Wakefield Road at the northern "entrance" to the metropolitan area.
The Northern Expressway (Max Fatchen Expressway) (M2), is the northern suburbs bypass route connecting the Sturt Highway (National Highway 20) via the Gawler Bypass to Port Wakefield Road at a point a few kilometres north of the Port River Expressway connection.
The Northern Connector, completed in 2020, links the North South Motorway to the Northern Expressway.
Obtaining sufficient fresh water was difficult during early colonial times. A catchment called the Tank Stream sourced water from what is now the CBD but was little more than an open sewer by the end of the 1700s. The Botany Swamps Scheme was one of several ventures during the mid-1800s that saw the construction of wells, tunnels, steam pumping stations, and small dams to service Sydney's growing population.
The Upper Nepean Scheme came into operation in 1886. It transports water 100 km (62 mi) from the Nepean, Cataract, and Cordeaux rivers and continues to service about 15% of Sydney's water needs. Dams were built on these three rivers between 1907 and 1935. In 1977 the Shoalhaven Scheme brought several more dams into service.
Perth is served by Perth Airport in the city's east for regional, domestic and international flights and Jandakot Airport in the city's southern suburbs for general aviation and charter flights.
Perth has a road network with three freeways—Mitchell, Kwinana and Graham Farmer—and nine metropolitan highways. The Northbridge Tunnel, part of the Graham Farmer Freeway, is the only significant road tunnel in Perth.
Rail freight terminates at the Kewdale Rail Terminal, 15 km (9 mi) south-east of the city centre.
Perth's main container and passenger port is at Fremantle, 19 km (12 mi) south-west at the mouth of the Swan River. The Fremantle Outer Harbour at Cockburn Sound is one of Australia's major bulk cargo ports. (Full article...)
Perth is served by Perth Airport in the city's east for regional, domestic and international flights and Jandakot Airport in the city's southern suburbs for general aviation and charter flights.
Perth has a road network with three freeways—Mitchell, Kwinana and Graham Farmer—and nine metropolitan highways. The Northbridge Tunnel, part of the Graham Farmer Freeway, is the only significant road tunnel in Perth.
Rail freight terminates at the Kewdale Rail Terminal, 15 km (9 mi) south-east of the city centre.
Perth's main container and passenger port is at Fremantle, 19 km (12 mi) south-west at the mouth of the Swan River. The Fremantle Outer Harbour at Cockburn Sound is one of Australia's major bulk cargo ports. (Full article...)
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Being centrally located on the Australian mainland, Adelaide forms a strategic transport hub for east–west and north–south routes. The city itself has a metropolitan public transport system managed by and known as the Adelaide Metro. The Adelaide Metro consists of a contracted bus system including the O-Bahn Busway, 7 commuter rail lines (diesel and electric), and a small tram network operating between inner suburb Hindmarsh, the city centre, and seaside Glenelg. Tramways were largely dismantled in the 1950s, but saw a revival in the 2010s with upgrades and extensions.
Road transport in Adelaide has historically been easier than many of the other Australian cities, with a well-defined city layout and wide multiple-lane roads from the beginning of its development. Adelaide was known as a "twenty-minute city", with commuters having been able to travel from metropolitan outskirts to the city proper in roughly twenty minutes. However, such arterial roads often experience traffic congestion as the city grows.
The Adelaide metropolitan area has one freeway and four expressways. In order of construction, they are:
The South Eastern Freeway (M1), connects the south-east corner of the Adelaide Plain to the Adelaide Hills and beyond to Murray Bridge and Tailem Bend, where it then continues as National Highway 1 south-east to Melbourne.
The Southern Expressway (M2), connecting the outer southern suburbs with the inner southern suburbs and the city centre. It duplicates the route of South Road.
The North-South Motorway (M2), is an ongoing major project that will become the major north–south corridor, replacing most of what is now South Road, connecting the Southern Expressway and the Northern Expressway via a motorway with no traffic lights. As of 2024 the motorway's northern half is complete, connecting the Northern Expressway to Adelaide's inner north-west; the section running through Adelaide's inner west and inner south-west will begin major construction in 2025 with completion estimated for 2031.
The Port River Expressway (A9), connects Port Adelaide and Outer Harbor to Port Wakefield Road at the northern "entrance" to the metropolitan area.
The Northern Expressway (Max Fatchen Expressway) (M2), is the northern suburbs bypass route connecting the Sturt Highway (National Highway 20) via the Gawler Bypass to Port Wakefield Road at a point a few kilometres north of the Port River Expressway connection.
The Northern Connector, completed in 2020, links the North South Motorway to the Northern Expressway.
Obtaining sufficient fresh water was difficult during early colonial times. A catchment called the Tank Stream sourced water from what is now the CBD but was little more than an open sewer by the end of the 1700s. The Botany Swamps Scheme was one of several ventures during the mid-1800s that saw the construction of wells, tunnels, steam pumping stations, and small dams to service Sydney's growing population.
The Upper Nepean Scheme came into operation in 1886. It transports water 100 km (62 mi) from the Nepean, Cataract, and Cordeaux rivers and continues to service about 15% of Sydney's water needs. Dams were built on these three rivers between 1907 and 1935. In 1977 the Shoalhaven Scheme brought several more dams into service.
