You know something’s in vogue when it pops up on The Onion, the world’s best-known satirical newspaper. And so it was this week that immortality-seeking First Emperor of China Qin Shi Huang made the grade following the ‘discovery’ beneath Disney World in Orlando of a “legion of terra-cotta Mouseketeers”. According to the spoof article which was kindly sent to us by one of our Heritage Experts, Ethel Davies a Disney World maintenance crew discovered more than 8,000 ‘Mouseketeers’ underneath Cinderella Castle. The statues were thought to date back to 300BC. It was likely constructed during the Pre-Eisnerian period, one of…
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Egyptology researcher Paula Veiga, author of Health and Medicine in Ancient Egypt: Magic and Science is fascinated by the ancient Egyptians’ concepts of health and medical practice. We caught up with her to chat about religion, medicine and magic, and what lessons health professionals can learn from studying the ancient world. HK: Your background is in tourism – how did you go from tourism to religion, infectious diseases, medicine and magic in Egypt? PV: I have been attracted to ancient history since I was a child, and I collected all those National Geographic editions on ancient civilisations – my favourite…
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A single human bone found in a cave in Devon may prove that early Britons were cannibals. The arm bone carries seven cut marks made deliberately with a stone tool which are consistent with the act of dismemberment. Scientists believe the bone is evidence that Britons from the Mesolithic period – some 9,000 years ago, between the end of the last Ice Age and the start of farming – engaged in complex burial rituals and possibly cannibalism. They think that because the markings are in the same place, they would have been used to remove muscle from the bone while…
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“Death will come out of it! No-one will escape! I am done!” It may sound like the death-knell of a tragic big screen hero, but it’s actually the desperate pleas for help of an ancient Assyrian leader, as his city awaits destruction at the hands of bloodthirsty Babylonian armies. The words have been discovered inscribed on a cuneiform tablet at the site of Tushan – an Assyrian city near Diyarbakir, SE Turkey. The tragic epsiode was written by Mannu-ki-Libbali in 630 BC, as a final call-to-arms for allies in the region – yet experts believe the tablet never met its…
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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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A heated cross-border dispute has been rumbling the last few days over the origins of the humble haggis Scotlands national dish, famously memorialised as the great chieftain o the puddin race in Robert Burns 1787 Address To The Haggis. Its been sparked by historian Catherine Brown, who has attributed the delicacys origins to the Scots auld enemy, the English, on the basis of references to the dish shes recently discovered in a book called The English Hus-Wife, which was written in 1615 and thus predates Burns homage to stomach-cooked sheeps organs by 171 years. Well, the Scots who in questions…
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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,…