The public are being invited to have their voices heard at an open session in Newcastle, England of a major congress of experts in the field of Roman history and archaeology, on the subject of the frontiers of the Roman Empire. Titled ‘Presenting the Roman Frontiers Communicating the Evidence’, it’ll take place at Newcastle University on August 21. Newcastle lies just south of the line of Hadrians Wall, the huge fortification built across northern England and southern Scotland by the Romans in the 2nd century AD at the northernmost extreme of their empire, to keep out marauding Picts. International specialists…
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In an adventurous and decidedly tall tale swarming with giant bats and poison spiders and strewn with places called exotic things like The Well of the Soul and the Hidden Realm of Sokar (the words Jones, Indiana and too much spring to mind), British explorer Andrew Collins will next month tell the full story of what he claims to be his discovery of the long lost subterranean realm of the Egyptian pharaohs. How much hard fact will be contained in his new book Beneath the Pyramids: Egypts Great Secret Uncovered (due for release in September) seems dubious, but it should…
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As well, presumably, as a few meticulously dug escape tunnels, archaeologists excavating adjacent to Belmarsh Prison in Plumstead, Greenwich, have discovered what theyre describing as Londons earliest timber structure. Comprising a wooden platform or trackway, buried 4.7 metres deep in a peat bog, its been radiocarbon-dated at 6,000 years old. Thats 500 years earlier than Stonehenge, and about 700 years earlier than the previous oldest-known example the timber trackway discovered at Silverton dating to around 3340-2910 BC. Whats so special about a very old plank of wood, you ask? For prehistoric Londoners, the wetlands surrounding the River Thames were a…
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A team of archaeologists, archaeology students and volunteers have made a major discovery in rural Perthshire, Scotland, and are opening it up to the public this Sunday. The removal of a four ton sandstone slab, discovered last summer at Forteviot, revealed a meticulously constructed Bronze Age-period burial chamber, containing a number of metal and crucially organic remains. The tomb is thought to have belonged to a dignitary of significant importance who lived between around 2300 and 2100 BC, in a region rich with historical connections stretching from the Neolithic period through to medieval times. The dig was headed up by…
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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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The ancient Maya civilization of Central South America apparently understood acutely how their fate was inextricably linked with that of the forest around them. New research at the site of Tikal in modern Guatemala, by a team from the University of Cincinnati led by paleoethnobotanist David Lentz, has discovered that during the Classic period (c. 250 AD to 900 AD), the Maya practiced a form of forest conservation. Further, the team have speculated that when the practice ceased, it may have had grave consequences for Maya society. They were not allowed to cut down what were calling the sacred groves,…
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The Festival of British Archaeology takes place across the UK throughout the summer. North of the border, it has a separate incarnation in the shape of Scottish Archaeology Month, which runs from August through September. Scotland is, after all, home to many of Britains finest archeaological treasures from Skara Brae to the Antonine Wall so it seems only appropriate. SAM aims to make archeology as accessible as possible with a programme of mostly free events celebrating Scotlands rich antiquarian heritage. You dont need to be Indiana Jones to get involved folks of all ages and abilities are invited, right down…
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The ancient world has long been lucrative business at the box office, ever since the original Fred Niblo-directed version of Ben-Hur burst onto the big screen in 1925, in a flurry of shameless promotional activity (the films strapline was: The Picture Every Christian Ought to See!) and famously brutal chariot crashes (some cast and crew were seriously hurt in the pictures spectacular climactic smash a genuine on-set accident that was ruthlessly left in the final cut). At a cost of $4 million by modest estimates, itremains the most expensive silent movie ever made, one that proved a $9 million box…
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(Mostly) fictional English rock band Spinal Tap made a much-anticipated come back at the Glastonbury music festival last weekend, followed swiftly by their 25th anniversary One Night Only World Tour show at Londons Wembley Arena on Tuesday. The bands magnum opus remains Stonehenge, their mystical hard rock mini-opera tribute to Salisburys millennia-old Neolithic masterpiece, “Where a man’s a man, and the children dance to the pipes of pan.” A performance of the song made for a memorable scene in the movie This Is Spinal Tap, featuring midgets dancing around – and threatening to crush – an 18 inch high megalith,…
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Stone Age man in a cave in south-west Germany 35,000 years ago really knew how to party it seems. Not only has an example of pre-historic porn been found in the cave of Hohle Fels, near the town of Schelklingen in the region of Swabia, but now too a portion of a thin rudimentary flute carved from bird bone which experts are calling unambiguously the oldest musical instrument in the world. Its not the first such example found in the cave, which is an ongoing source of spectacular archaeological finds dating from the Aurignacian culture of the Upper Paleolithic period.…