• sean-williams

    Roman Villa and Saxon Minster Discovered in Gloucestershire

    Evidence of an imperial Roman villa has been discovered in Gloucestershire, England – just hours before archaeologists were due to fill its trench back up. The remains, a large quantity of Roman wall plaster, were found last Friday (June 11) as a Bristol University team led by TV archaeologists Dr Stuart Prior and Prof Mark Horton were winding up work at the site, which has already offered proof of Saxon settlement. The remains, in the grounds of Berkeley’s Edward Jenner Museum, also include Roman coins and roof tiles. The villa is likely to date from the 3rd or 4th century…

  • owenjarus

    Calling all west-coast Egypt fans – King Tut event to take place in Vancouver!

    While the golden kings exhibition has left Canada for southern climes, those in Vancouver will have an opportunity to learn more about him and more specifically how his artefacts reinforced his position as pharaoh. Professor Katja Goebs research looks at Egyptian pharaohs and the artefacts that cement their hold on power. Her most recent book Crowns in early Egyptian Funerary Literature: Royalty, Rebirth, and Destruction, examines the white and red crowns ofUpper and Lower Egypt. They possess a wide-ranging symbolism that transcends the terrestrial sphere to encompass the divine and the cosmos, death and rebirth, she wrote in the book…

  • sean-williams

    Reimagining Stonehenge – Rejecting the Three Phases

    The three phases of Stonehenge? Wrong. In fact you can throw your three phases out the window – it just doesn’t work any more. “We were wrong about Stonehenge,” says anthropologist Mary-Ann Craig during today’s HKTV live lecture. “(Three phases) doesn’t explain it properly: we need phase 3.1; 3.2 and then 3.2b, it doesn’t seem to work.” Mary-Ann’s lecture on the history of Stonehenge and the mystery of stone circles was an instant hit with the HK office, and our many viewers online. Personally I was fascinated by the idea that Bluestonehenge, a stone circle discovered just last year, may…

  • owenjarus

    ROM set to announce new CEO… but what should his or her goal be?

    In a matter of weeks, or even days, the Royal Ontario Museum, in Toronto Canada,will be announcing who their next CEO is going to be. I dont have any knowledge as to who it is, but, can certainly say that the new leader has an almost impossible act to follow. William Thorsell, the museums current leader, will be retiring in August. His ten year termat the museum was one of unprecedented growth. Under his leadership the ROM built an expansion that saw its Bloor Street frontage turned quite literally into a giant crystal. Collections that had been in storage from…

  • world

    The Detmold Child

    Key Dates 4504 BC The Detmold Child has been radiocarbon dated to between 4504 and 4457 BC. It arrived at the Lippisches Land Museum in Detmold in 1987. The Detmold Child is an embalmed Peruvian baby of 8-10 months, discovered at an unknown location in Peru and currently held by the Lippisches Land Museum in Detmold, Germany. It is one of the oldest mummies ever discovered, and predates King Tut by more than 3,000 years, and Ötzi the Iceman by 1,000 years. It cane to the Lippisches Land Museum from a small ethnographic museum in Hessian Witzenhausen. Until then it…

  • sean-williams

    ‘Bottomless Pit’ of Ancient Cult Vessels Discovered in Israel

    A massive haul of ancient cultic vessels dating back over 3,500 years has been discovered in Israel. The find, made ahead of gas pipe works at the base of Tell Qashish, near Tishbi Junction, has been described as a ‘bottomless pit’ of artefacts, and contains over a hundred intact objects – almost unheard of in archaeological circles. The find includes incense-burning vessels, a sculpted woman’s face – seen in the picture below – and various items of tableware. Experts from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) who made the find believe the artefacts were part of an ancient pagan cult which…

  • Ann

    Queen Cleopatra: More than Egypt’s Sex Kitten

    The exhibition ‘Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt’ premired this weekend at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Blogs and major newspapers have been in awe about the exhibition, featuring the amazingphotographs from the underwater excavations by Franck Goddioand articles about Cleopatra’s glamour and quite disastrous – love life. There’s nothing but praise for the ‘beautiful queen’ and mass coverage on the two quests for her tomb, where she rests with lover Mark Antony. But a true must-read before visiting the exhibition is Rosemary Joyce’s critical blog entry on how we perceive the last Queen of Egypt. She…

  • sean-williams

    ‘World’s Only Well-Preserved Gladiator Cemetery’ Discovered in York

    Around 80 gladiators have been discovered in what experts are calling the world’s only well-preserved gladiator cemetery, in the northern British town of York. The grisly find, made ahead of modern building works since 2004, includes the skeletons of men who had been killed with swords, axes and hammers – and one who had been bitten by a tiger. Other telltale signs the 1st-3rd century AD men were gladiators are their arm asymmetry, testament to years of training with heavy weapons, and seemingly ritual decapitation. Though most losing gladiators were killed by a stab to the throat, the practice may…

  • mike-williams

    Inside the Shaman’s Mind

    Shamanism a practice by which a person communicates with the spirits can be found throughout the ancient worlds. Although shamanism takes many and varied forms around the world, what a shaman actually experiences whilst in trance is remarkably uniform. Almost all report leaving their bodies to journey to an otherworld where they meet and interact with spirits. The reason for such similarity lies within the mind itself and the shared neurobiology of every human. In fact, any one of us could have the same experience as a shaman if we put ourselves in trance. Shamans have varied ways of entering…

  • wadders

    Without Evidence: Atlantis Theories, Slightly More Left of Centre

    Plato has a lot to answer for when he wrote about Atlantis. Its been the inspiration behind TV series and Hollywood films; some even made for reasonable entertainment (think Captain Nemo and Man from Atlantis), and some, well sank (think Kevin Costner in Waterworld). Even James Bond, in The Spy who Loved Me, had an Atlantis element. He saved the earth from arch-villain Karl Stromberg, a powerful shipping magnate whose scheme for world domination was to blow up the land leaving the chosen few living safely beneath the ocean. Atlantis has it all; an ancient thriving city with ambiguous plans…