Britain might be staring a hung parliament in the face, but Heritage Key’s election has quickly become a two-horse race. And with just a few hours to go ’til the votes are counted in our grand finale (alas, no Jon Snow and his ever-brilliant green-screenery), it’s time to swot up on Alexander the Great’s manifesto. Alexander was born in Pella, modern-day Greece, in 356 BC. His father Philip II was already one of the Macedonian Empire’s greatest kings, and was determined that his son would make the nation even greater. A rigorous education ensued, during which Alexander was even afforded…
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It’s the end of the Ancient World in London video series! We’ve travelled up and down the country getting the inside line on London’s impressive history, and we’ve seen no small number of ancient wonders along the way. So here’s a video of our best bits and what we thought of them – from the rebellion of Boudicca to the fearsome Maunsell Sea Forts. The series has been much more than the videos, though: we’ve been running bloggers’ challenges, real-world and virtual events, a pub quiz and even a special concert. Of course you can still see Stonehenge, the Valley…
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London’s skyline today may be better known for a gherkin, a big wheel and Big Ben, but the city’s past has been littered with Egyptomaniacs, bent on saluting ancient Egyptians in Britain’s capital. And who better to lead us on a tour round London’s hidden Egyptian architecture than Dr Jasmine Day, self-confessed Egyptophile and author of TheMummy’s Curse: Mummymania in the English-speaking World. “For me the fascination with ancient Egypt,” says Jasmine, “is the way that it continues to exert its power on us today. We can see the tremendous influence that ancient Egyptians have on our own architecture, our…
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Boudicca’srampaging Celts tore through Calleva Atrebatum, now Silchester, killing thousands of Romans and leaving the town a smouldering wasteland. That’s what 13 years of excavations at the Berkshire town suggest, say a leading expert. Professor Michael Fulford of the University of Reading claims Silchester bears all the scars of the AD60 rebellion, in which up to 80,000 people were massacred by Boudicca and her Britons. An Iron Age settlement was found at Silchester just last year – and though it is often overlooked in the pantheon of Roman British towns Prof. Fulford insists it was at least as important than…
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It’s May Day this Saturday. And while to most of us all it means is an extra day off work, to some it’s one of the year’s biggest dates. A menagerie of anarchists, anticapitalists and fairweather philosophers will descend on London intent on burning down burger bars and breaking the system. But among the madness and the rolling news stories, most of them won’t realise they’ve hijacked an ancient festival going back thousands of years – and they’ve all got it hopelessly wrong. May Day today is the sibling of International Workers’ Day, an anti-establishment bash dating back to the…
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‘Evangelist explorers’ called Noah’s Ark Ministries International, (a name half-Orwell, half Playdays), search for the legendary vessel. Said explorers then ‘discover’ the ark up a Turkish mountain. Naturally not everyone welcomes the news without a hint of skepticism, and the blogosphere’s been buzzing with hoax stories, images, background info and videos – one of which you can see right here. So here’s a snippet of what the web’s been saying about this ‘breakthrough’ – Hot From NIMA The NIMA site itself gives little more than a few newspaper cut-outs (nearly all in Chinese) and an expedition timeline. Quote:March 2010 –…
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A replica Iron Age roundhouse is to be built in Chester, England, to teach local people about how people lived over two thousand years ago. Cities all over the country hold fascinating Iron Age secrets – watch our Ancient World in London video below to learn about pre-Roman London. The project, to be completed in August this year, will be housed in the grounds of Burwardsley Outdoor Education Centre, near Beeston Castle and Maiden Castle. The sheme, commissioned by Habitats and Hillforts, is part of a three-year landscape partnership between Cheshire West and Cheshire Council (CWaC), Chester Renaissance and the…
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A Chinese-Turkish group of explorers have announced their discovery of Noah’s Ark, 4,000 metres up a mountain in eastern Turkey. The team, named Noah’s Ark Ministries International (NAMI), claim to have taken photographic and physical evidence of the remains on Mount Ararat, near the Turkish-Armenian border. The ‘evangelical explorers’ even say they have carbon-dated the ‘ark’ to around 4,800 years, bringing it in line with most historians’ views on the Biblical flood story. The group, comprising 15 adventurers from Hong Kong and Turkey, have also shown reporters wooden fragments, rope and nails they claim to have brought from the wreckage.…
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More and more of us are travelling each year, but are we getting the most for our money? I’d say probably not, but the future’s looking brighter. As the latest Ancient World in London bloggers’ challenge suggests, travel continues to buck the economic meltdown. And it’s not surprising: at a time when it takes longer to get across London by car than to fly to the far end of Europe, and for less cash, why not globetrot? Much more of us are looking to infuse some culture into our foreign sojourns. But old-school P2P websites and shoddily slapped-together online guides…
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Boudicca is a stupid name for a ship. Naming a Liverpool-based cruiseliner after one someone who murdered around 80,000 Romans in antiquity is hardly a great idea, especially when said ship is supposed to be travelling round the Mediterranean – you know, the sea that’s right next to Italy. The Boudicca’s management are in hot water today, but not the balmy waters of the Med. Rather the ship has had to return to Liverpool early after passengers were struck with the nasty norovirus, an intestinal problem which causes vomiting, nausea and diarrhea, for the sixth time in as many months.…