The Festival of British Archaeology 2009 may have officially ended on Sunday, but the summer spirit of historical adventure lives on thanks to the National Museum Wales‘ National Roman Legion Museum – where visitors can get involved in Gwent’s prosperous Roman past with a big dose of living history. Caerleon was once the site of an important Roman legionary fortress, named Isca Augusta, which housed over 5,000 soldiers, and by 75 AD had become the headquarters of the illustrious 2nd Legion Augusta during Sextus Julius Frontinus‘ conquest of Wales. The town was also the site of two famous Christian martyrdoms;…
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Good news for Maya fans feeling the pinch of recession – Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology (INA) has brought the enigmatic 7th century AD city of Palenque into everyone’s homes with an exciting new online virtual experience. Located in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, Palenque has long been a place of mystery; its majestic buildings, wrapped in a harlequin layer of vines and other flora, evoking dreams of adventure and romance. You almost want to slap on a fedora and crack a whip when you look at the unhinged magnitude of the Temple of Inscriptions, or the crumbling beauty…
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It may once have funded the most famous ever excavation in Egypt. But the modern-day plight of Berkshire’s Highclere Castle couldn’t be further from the dripping opulence of King Tut’s tomb. For the stately manor, once home to Howard Carter‘s esteemed cohort Lord Carnarvon (orGeorge Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, the 5th Earl of Carnarvon to give him his full name), needs a staggering level of funding if it is to survive the most difficult period in its history. No less than 12 million pounds are needed to repair the building’s sagging treasures – and its current occupant, the Lord’s great…
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Six years ago, archaeologists digging in Liang Bua Cave on the Indonesian island of Flores made one of the most shocking and controversial discoveries in scientific history. They found a brilliantly preserved, one metre-high skeleton which would soon be known as Homo floresiensis – or the Hobbit, as it has become affectionately known. Some were gobsmacked by the find, believing it to throw open the theory of evolution; others scoffed, believing it to be nothing more than a human being struck by a deformity known as microcephaly. Many believe the hobbit to have lived as late as 12,000 years ago,…
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There has been no shortage of sad stories surrounding the economic hardship of those living in the former Soviet Union. Nearly all of its satellite states, as well as the Russian homeland, have suffered an economic black hole after the Berlin Wall came down, where a tremendous chasm swells between the monied Mafioso and super-rich oligarchy, and the rural peasantry and jobless. And in Bulgaria, a country hiding millennia of prosperity beneath its soil, the tragedy has extended below surface level – as thousands of people loot national treasures to make ends meet. Prehistoric and Neolithic tribes, Ancient Thracians, Greeks,…
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No doubt plenty of our London-based readers have been getting hot under the collar over the past few years, as the East London line tube extension bumbles its way towards completion before the 2012 Olympics. Yet amongst the plumes of grime and grinding dirge of diggers, archaeologists have been burrowing beneath the tracks to unearth some remarkable objects from the city’s immense past. And Transport for London (TfL) and the Museum of London have teamed up to showcase some of the best finds at some of the capital’s smaller heritage venues. Beginning in June at the Hackney Museum, the exhibition…
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This year’s Egyptological Colloquium was roundly regarded as a success, as eighteen top Egyptological minds converged on London’s British Museum for two intense days of lectures, opinions and debate on the Book of the Dead. One of the most stunning pieces of Egyptian liturgy, yet a much maligned forum for study, the Colloquium promised some fascinating and truly groundbreaking discoveries on a visually engaging subject. Heritage Key took some time out at the end of the event to speak to a few audience members, and found a somewhat mixed response. Some were keen to stress their enjoyment of the colloquium,…
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The Egyptological Colloquium 2009, held on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, saw a glut of eager experts propose dozens of theories on the making, scribing and significance of the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead. Some were more in-depth than others; some were downright inaccessible to all but the longest-serving Egyptologists. But one lecture that really caught the eye was the British Museum‘s very own Richard Parkinson and Bridget Leach‘s talk, on the colours and pigments which went into making the Book of the Dead such a technicolour masterpiece. In particular, the pair and their BM collegues have researched their…
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By the middle of the 13th century, Dunwich was a prosperous coastal city with a fearsome royal flotilla, extravagant priories and thousands of happy inhabitants. It was a genuine rival to London, and the envy of Europe. But just two hundred years later the city lay in ruins, torn to shreds by the tyrannical tides of the East Anglian coast; its once-illustrious ramparts reduced to ruins at the bottom of the North Sea. Today the town remains a stunning coastal retreat, and the shattered pieces of its greyfriars’ abbey broods beatifully across the beach. But now a team of experts…
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Atlantis has got to be one of the world’s most longstanding myths. Devised by Plato over 2,500 years ago, its popularity has rarely waned, and has been the birthplace for some of humanity’s most truly bizarre theories. From Gibraltar to the Aegean, it seems everyone’s had their say on the whereabouts of the mysterious island, that was supposedly created by Poseidon. Not all of Atlantis’ proponents, it must be said, are total crackpots. There’s logic, bathymetric studies and topographical data to back their claims – however spurious they may frequently seem. Others most definitely do fit the conspiracy theorist bill,…