• malcolmj

    Science Versus the Druids: Campaigners Lose Fight For Reburial of Charlie the Avebury Skeleton

    The 5,000-year-old skeleton of a young girl known as Charlie, found buried on a hilltop at Avebury in Wiltshire, will remain on public display at the nearby Alexander Keiller Museum where it has resided for 50 years.A campaign for its reburial by the Council of British Druid Orders (CoBDO) was defeated overwhelmingly by weight of government guidelines and expert and public opinion. The CoBDO argue that its disrespectful for the bones of our ancient ancestors to be stared at or stored in cardboard boxes in dark basements when not the immediate subject of study. In 2006 they selected Charlie who…

  • malcolmj

    University of Sussex Cutbacks: Protests, Riot Police and Strike Action

    Students and staff at the University of Sussex have united in angry protest against proposed cutbacks at the Brighton and Hove institution. The cutbacks will include a complete scrapping of the study of English history before 1700, a move leading historians have warned puts in peril the public function of history, and risks entrenching the ignorance of the present. A one day strike by staff is planned for today strike action which students insist they are right behind. For almost a week, a group of around 300 students have been staging a sit-in protest in a university lecture hall. It…

  • malcolmj

    Anglo-Saxon CSI: Archaeologists Stumped by Mystery Saxon Find

    Reminding us that archaeologists for all their undoubted intelligence, ingenuity, industry and general egg headedness dont always have the answers, experts from the Canterbury Archaeological Trust (CAT) have this week been forced to put up their hands and admit they remain unsure as to the purpose of a Saxon artefact discovered two years ago. The tiny circular silver, bronze and wooden disk was found in a Saxon burial ground at The Meads in Sittingbourne, Kent, in 2008. It was part of a cache of some 2,500 Saxon artefacts. CAT researchers have peered at the small object through a microscope and…

  • malcolmj

    Latin Lovers: Bettany Hughes Helps Boris Johnson Launch ‘Classics for Schools’

    Mayor of London Boris Johnson is to be joined by popular historian Bettany Hughes and head teachers from primary and secondary schools across the city at Londons City Hall tomorrow to launch a new drive to boost classical education in state schools. But is there any point teaching a dead language to already-bored kids? The tousle-haired Tory studied Classics at Oxford as an undergraduate, and has long talked-up how beneficial a good understanding of classical history can be when it comes to getting to grips with modern politics. In the past hes called for every child to be taught Latin,…

  • malcolmj

    Egypt’s SCA Avoids Politics… NOT!

    Last year, Dr Zahi Hawass spoke to Heritage Key in a video interview about the restoration work being carried out at the Moses Ben Maimon (Maimonides) synagogue in Cairo by the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities (see the video at the bottom of this page). With the project nearing completion, the SCA chief has today announced that a planned celebration to mark the reopening of the restored monument has been cancelled. Dr Hawass explained that the decision comes in the aftermath of Israeli authorities prohibiting worshippers from praying in the Al-Aqsa mosque in the West Bank. The West Bank has…

  • malcolmj

    Ancient World in London Bloggers Challenge 3: Should the British Museum Return the Rosetta Stone to Egypt?

    We set the task of nominating London’s most influential invaders and talking-up the Big Smoke’s most important ancient sites in the first two rounds of our Ancient World in London Bloggers Challenge, and got some fantastic responses from the blogosphere. In round three we’re posing a new question, to again be answered in blog form in competition for prizes both real and virtual. It’s sure to prove contentious: Should the British Museum return the Rosetta Stone to Egypt? This Ptolemaic era Egyptian stele – created in 196 BC and discovered by the French in 1799 at Rosetta in Egypt –…

  • malcolmj

    Ancient World in London Bloggers Challenge 2: Winner Announced!

    The deadline has now passed for entries to round two of our Ancient World in London Bloggers Challenge, which saw a number of denizens of the ancient history blogosphere eagerly and eloquently state their case for the most important ancient site in London. We’re pleased to announce that the winner is Livius Drusus, from The History Blog, who argued a great case for Drapers’ Gardens – a little known archaeological site that has yielded a wealth of fascinating Roman remains. There were good shouts made for the grave of the female gladiator in Southwark – the spot where a great…

  • malcolmj

    First Person Prosecuted in UK for Not Reporting Treasure

    23-year-old Kate Harding from Ludlow, Shropshire last week became the first person prosecuted under the Treasure Act in Britain for not reporting the discovery of a significant historical artefact to the Coroner, reported the Mail Online. The offending find is a 700-year-old silver coin-like item called a piedfort, marking Charles IVs ascension to the French throne in 1322. Thicker than normal coins from the period, piedforts are thought to have been used not as currency but as guides for mint workers or reckoning counters for officials therefore qualifying the object as potential Treasure under the Treasure Act 1996. Only three…

  • malcolmj

    Colossal Head from Statue of King Tut’s Granddad Found at Amenhotep III Funerary Temple Site

    A multi-national team of Egyptian and European archaeologists excavating at the site of Amenhotep IIIs enormous funerary temple in the Kom El-Hettan area of Luxors West Bank have uncovered the 3,000-year-old head of a massive statue of the 18th Dynasty pharaoh, the king of Egyptian kings, whom DNA testing has recently proven was Tutankhamuns grandfather. The find made by the Colossi of Memnon and Amenhotep III Temple Conservation Project was announced on Monday by Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni. Measuring 2.5 metres, made from solid red granite and depicting Amenhotep III wearing the Upper Egyptian white crown, it has been…

  • malcolmj

    London Invaders – The Scandinavians

    They came. They saw. They brought affordable self-assembly flat-pack furniture. Okay, so the Scandinavian contribution to the fabric of modern London might not be any more obvious than a few IKEA stores and a scattering of ubiquitous blonde-haired tourists, students, au pairs and bar workers. But without both the influence and menace of outlanders from Denmark, Norway and Sweden in the Anglo-Saxon period, Britains iconic capital wouldnt be the city it is today. Thats why I reckon theyre the invaders that had the biggest influence on London. The Vikings burned, raped, pillaged, ransacked and generally terrorised London frequently between 842…