• review

    1066: The Battle for Middle Earth

    by Justin Hardy, Peter Harness Channel 4 Television (2009) 7/10 It’s tempting to toss this two-part Channel 4 dramatisation of the events of the most famous year in English history straight on the tall pile of low-rent British historical docu-dramas, full as it is of Z-list actors, tomato-ketchup-for-fake-blood, and epic battle scenes featuring up to 30 people. Indeed, after sitting through two-and-a-half hours of Ian Holm’s hammy, sub-Lord of the Rings voiceover – which reaches for added Shakespearean effect by the cunning ruse of beginning every other sentence “oh” or “and so” – it’s tempting to frisbee the thing straight…

  • review

    Attila the Hun: Barbarian Terror and the Fall of the Roman Empire

    by Christopher Kelly The Bodley Head (2008) 10/10 Attila the Hun, the ‘Scourge of God’, has become a byword for terror. Between 435 and 453, Attila established and maintained a large empire in central Europe, but he is best known for his campaigns against the Romans. By the 5th century, the Roman Empire – by then divided into east and west – was assailed from all sides. To the north, waves of migration had placed the empire’s frontiers under increasing strain. Attila took full advantage of the Romans’ predicament. The Huns launched devastating raids into Roman territory; burning cities, slaughtering…

  • review

    The Eagle of the Ninth

    by Rosemary Sutcliff OUP Oxford (2004) 6/10 The Eagle of the Ninth has been called a modern classic of children’s fiction. Originally published in 1954, interest has been rekindled in it by a new film of the story being shot. The movie will be directed by Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland), and star Channing Tatum (G.I Joe: Rise of the Cobra) and Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot). The big names guarantee maximum publicity for the film and, as a result, renewed interest in the book. In the foreword of the book, Sutcliff cites inspiration for the plot from two…

  • review

    Roman Roads in Britain

    by Hugh Davies Shire Publications (2008) 8/10 This is superb introduction to Roman roads in Britain. It is 72 pages long (including indices) and has plenty of colour photographs, diagrams and several aerial shots to illustrate Hugh Davies’ concise discussion of our Roman roads. Hugh Davies spent his working life as a highway engineer with the Transport Research Laboratory. He retired in 1994 and gained a PhD in 2001 from the Archaeology and Classics Departments of Reading University. He has since written extensively on Roman roads using his expert knowledge of road building and design. He is also the author…

  • review

    The Past from Above

    by Charlotte Trümpler, Georg Gerster Frances Lincoln (2006) 10/10 The first thing that strikes you when you click on to Georg Gerster’s website is the following quote: “Height provides an overview. And an overview facilitates insight, while insight generates consideration – perhaps.” Georg Gerster says this conviction is “both the premise and the result of” his work as a journalist and aerial photographer. And he should know. By following this line of reasoning, Gerster took aerial photography and progressed it, transformed it, challenged it, pushed it to its limits. He took a scientific and artistic pursuit and combined the two…

  • review

    Hadrian’s Wall

    by Derry Brabbs Frances Lincoln (2008) 7/10 Derry Brabbs is a well known UK photographer who has published nine books as photographer and author. He has also collaborated on 18 other books with other writers as photographer in his 25-year career to date. He is particularly interested in blending the story of England’s heritage with its landscape. Brabbs worked with the inimitable fell walker, Alfred Wainwright, on many books and told Heritage Key in December 2009 that he started to photograph Hadrian’s Wall in his first assignment along the Roman frontier with Wainwright in 1984. Brabbs’ Hadrian’s Wall can be…

  • review

    ‘Colour and Meaning in Ancient Rome’ reviewed by Rachael Goldman

    by Mark Bradley Cambridge University Press (2009) 8/10 When Vergil describes, in his epic poem the Aeneid, the weapons brought by Venus to Aeneas and the breast plate is compared to a blue cloud shining in the sun’s rays in Aen. 8.622 and likewise Vergil’s description of rosey-fingered dawn in Aen. 7.26, none of these images would have been possible without the use of colors and color-terms.  Similarly, the elegiac poet Propertius’ landscape in 1.20.38 may not have had the beautiful bucolic background with shining apples hanging from trees surrounded by white lilies mixed with purple poppies.  Mark Bradley’ Colour…

  • review

    Egyptology Today: An Introduction

    by Richard Wilkinson Cambridge University Press (2008) 7/10 Egyptology Today is a collection of essays by a team of archaeologists, curators, scholars, and conservators who are all working in the field, present techniques and methods to explain the discipline of Egyptology. Richard Wilkinson has written a short introduction about how Egyptology has changed from a gentleman’s pastime to a multi-disciplinary science. The book is separated into four parts, with three essays covering many aspects of Egyptology. Kent Weeks writes a nice introductory chapter describing Egyptology, its history and key players from the past including Petrie, Mariette, Reisner and Rhind. He…

  • review

    A Walk Along the Wall: A Journey Along Hadrian’s Wall

    by Hunter Davies Frances Lincoln (2009) 9/10 Hunter Davies has hit upon the right note as he strides along the path of Hadrian’s Wall for A Walk Along the Wall. Davies is a well-known writer, journalist and broadcaster who grew up in Carlisle, which forms part of the end of the Western section of the Wall. This is a revised edition of his original 1974 release, A Walk Along the Wall, which was the result of Davies’ walk along the wall, accompanied for much if it by an even earlier account called The History of the Roman Wall, published in 1802…

  • review

    Lost Languages: The Enigma of the World’s Undeciphered Scripts

    This richly illustrated book is about codebreakers, a unique group of people who dedicate their professional lives to unravelling the mysteries of ancient scripts. It proved to be an interesting and educational read. The book defines the difference in the roles of the epigrapher and the cryptanalyst, who are both deciphers. The epigrapher works with a script not originally designed to baffle the reader, and an underlying language which the reader may or may not know. The cryptanalyst tackles a code or cipher designed from the outset to baffle him or her, but an underlying language – such as German,…