A key new signing has been made in the lead-up to the biggest sporting event of the year for philosophers: historian Bettany Hughes has joined Greek team Socrates Wanderers in a shock late move in the Philosophers’ Football Match 2010. Hughes, who has appeared in shows such Alexandria: The Greatest Cityand The Spartans joins a star-studded line-up for the show-off that includes comedians Mark Steel, Tony Hawks and Ariane Sharine.
They’ll be facing off against a German side, Nietzsche Albion, featuring philosopher Julian Baggini, journalist Mark Vernon and funnyman Arthur Smith (missing his usual vets game for the occasion), as the two teams replicate Monty Python’s famous ‘Philosophers’ Football Match‘ sketch. The game is being held at Harry Abrahams Stadium in north London on May 9th at 3pm. It is being held to raise awareness for the Philosophy Shop, which aims to introduce more reasoning skills to children.
Epicurus will test the German back four with his never-ending runs
Time will tell whether the move comes off – or if time exists at all – but the Greek side, aka Socrates Wanderers, have an experienced head at the helm in the turnipesque shape of ex-England honcho Graham Taylor. Taylor will be banking on Hughes’ knowledge of classical battle formations in a team relying heavily on creativity, and will hope to send his opposite number, philosopher A.C. Grayling, into an existential rage. Either that or Hughes can put in some shocking challenges on German star striker Nietzsche.
Though it promises to be a close-fought contest, this blogger’s money’s on the Greeks with Archimedes’ spinning free-kicks and Plato’s penchant for fair play (read about his Atlantis legend here). Epicurus will test the German back four with his never-ending runs, though Wittgenstein’s analytical play can unlock any defence on its day.
Saint George killed a dragon, saved a princess and became the patron saint of England. Tomorrow he’ll be honoured with no small amount of flag-waving, beer-drinking and, you’d think, a fair few A&E visits. But who’s the man behind the myth, the man Shakespeare’s Henry V evoked so brilliantly at Agincourt?
George – good, strong English name, right? Wrong:George was born into Christian nobility in Cappadocia, a lunar landscape in central Turkey best known for its ‘fairy chimneys’, around the middle of the 2nd century AD. In truth George’s early years are about as ephemeral as Emile Heskey’s England career, but as the son of a high-ranking soldier he soon worked his way into the Roman Emperor Diocletian’s personal entourage.
George’s military career is ill-documented, but Diocletian issued an edict in 302 declaring that every Christian soldier be rounded up and made to convert to the Roman pagan faith. George refused to renounce Christ, and was summarily tortured and executed by beheading in Palestine a year later, on April 23. Various sources claim these tortures were particularly nasty, including lasceration on a wheel of swords and being tossed into a burning cauldron, though they’re not the most reliable.
George’s brave refusal led many to honour him as a martyr. A church was consecrated in Lydda, Palestine by Emperor Constantine (ruled 306-337; introduced Christianity officially into the Roman Empire), to ‘a man of the highest distinction’, but his identity has never been revealed. Yet George wasn’t made a saint until 494, and it wasn’t until the 11th century that Crusaders reignited the story of George, adding the famous tale of his slaying a dragon to save a princess. In 1222 the Synod of Oxford declared the day of Saint George’s death a feast in England, a decision that endures to this day.
“Cry, ‘God for England, Harry and Saint George!'” Henry V
Today it’s sad that more isn’t done to celebrate St. George’s Day. Yes, we can complain about the hijacking of the English flag by far-right loons like Nick Griffin, but apathy in the face of globalisation and turgid politics is surely to blame. It’s a shame England doesn’t put the same intensity into its patron saint as the Irish do on St. Patrick’s Day, or the Scots do on Burns Night. Yet a whispered post-modern patriotism is beginning to burble below the surface in Britain, sparked this year by a hotly-contested election and the forthcoming World Cup.
The St. George’s Day website aims to take back the flag from the right, and claims to have over a million voters in its poll to make tomorrow a public holiday. The Turkish town of Urgup, which claims to be the home of George’s dragon-slaying exploits, has invited English villages with ties to the saint to twin with it. “We are very proud of being connected to such a famous and well known character, who has since become the patron saint of England,” says mayor Fahri Yildiz. “It is good to know that the tradition of Saint George, and the legend of Saint George and the Dragon is alive and well there.”
So there’s the history of our patron saint, however swathed in mystery. His day might fall on a Friday night this year, but wherever you’re drinking tomorrow raise a glass to George: the old boy’s had a tough few decades.
The circus, discovered in 2005, is the largest-known example outside Rome. Plans for the site include excavating the gate area of the quarter-mile-long track and installing interactive screens showing what a day at the races would have been like 2,000 years ago. Acclaimed author Caroline Lawrence hails the circus as a “real national treasure…well worth saving for the thousands of schoolchildren (and their parents) who love learning about Britain’s Roman heritage.” Colchester is widely acknowledged as Britain’s first Roman town. The settlement was destroyed in AD60 by Boudicca’sbloody rebellion.
Viewers are encouraged to get into character for the ancient epic – the best-dressed Roman on the night will win two tickets to the opening night of the new Robin Hood film, Scott and lead man Russell Crowe’s latest offering. Tickets for the screening at 8pm cost 10. Email organsier Darius Laws to avoid missing out on this one-off chance to relive a true modern classic.
When he arrived in Britain in 122AD, Emperor Hadrian immediately saw a problem. The Roman Empire was already stretched thinner than a Jim Davidson joke, and spreading out into the monstrous back yard of the Picts and Brigantes, two of the island’s fiercest clans, was a hassle he couldn’t afford. So rather than waste energy fighting, Hadrian set about cordoning off Britannia with an 84 mile-long stone wall, manned by thousands of soldiers with its own towns and forts.
But while Hadrian’s Wall ligatured Britannia’s frozen north, the southern capital of Londinium was also at risk of attack. And while wooden walls and several forts marked the city limits, it took until 200AD, a full 140 years after Boudicca had torn through the city, for Londinium to get the stone barricade we see today.
Most of London’s Wall has been lost in the 1,800 years since its construction, but fearsome chunks still viewable at Tower Hill, St Alphege Gardens and other places show what an impressive feat of engineering it was. Standing up to 6m (20ft) high, it was an ample deterrent against raging Celts. Constant additions until the 4th century ensured the wall kept Londinium from suffering its Boudiccan fate twice, and it was even used to defend the city from a Saxon raid in 457AD.
The two scripts are obviously key, but let’s face it, in a head-to-head face-off between the two, which do you think would win? Let’s consider the facts…
Hadrian’s Wall
Hadrian’s Wall was built over a six-year period, between 122 and 128AD. It was commissioned by Emperor Hadrian,one of the Roman Empire’s most successful rulers.
Reasons for the wall’s construction have been debated over the years, but the three most common are that 1) it was meant to keep out the mad Picts and Brigantes, Celtic tribes roaming the area who were decidedly prickly about becoming Roman subjects; 2) it was built to secure valuable mineral and metal deposits in the area; and 3) it allowed the Empire to command in Britannia without spreading themselves too thin – border troubles blighted Hadrian’s rule, from Northumbria to north Africa.
The wall covers a total distance of 84 miles, from Segedunum Fort at Wallsend to the Solway Firth, Cumbria.
Up to 18,000 soldiers built the wall, and around 15 per cent of the entire Roman army was stationed on the wall at some point or other.
The wall’s fortifications are immense for the era: milecastles (tiny outposts) were built roughly every Roman mile (about 0.9 modern miles), and no fewer than 26 forts, such as Vindolanda and Procolita (Carrawburgh) lined the route.
Emperor Antoninus Pius all-but abandoned the wall during the 140s to create his Antonine Wall, some 100 miles further north. But Pius never conquered the region, so when his successor Marcus Aurelius took power in 161, he retreated back to Hadrian’s Wall.
Vindolanda has proved a fascinating insight into the daily lives of Roman soldiers and their families. It is home to the Vindolanda Tablets, a series of ink-written wooden ‘postcards’ from the frontline. These range from requests for more socks and shirts, to the invite to a birthday party.
A local newspaper recently reckoned it would take around 1,500 workers two-and-a-half years, at a cost of 400million ($601million) to make the wall today (it has cost around 990m to build Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building).
PLUS POINTS:
It represents the frostbitten edge of the Roman Empire at its greatest strength.
Its 84 miles make it a huge defence system by anyone’s standards (except, possibly, the Chinese)
Vindolanda and its tablets provide a rare insight into the daily lives of Romans.
The number of people used to build and man the wall are, in Roman terms, staggering.
LET-DOWNS:
The wall is as narrow as 1.8m in places, rendering it as good as ceremonial compared to the area’s natural defences.
The London Wall
London’s wall was built between 190-220AD. In total the wall stretches almost three miles, from Blackfriars to the Tower of London. The evidence for its dating comes from a forger, whose imitation silver denarii coins, and a real denarius dated 213-17, were found in a tower stairwell at Old Bailey.
The wall was made from ragstone, a grey limestone quarried from the Kentish town of Maidstone over 40 miles away. Courses of ragstone were complimented with two to three layers of red brick, a well-used Roman style. The whole thing, which reached a height of up to 6m and 2.7m in width, was propped up on a foundation of flint and clay.
London Wall’s development didn’t end there. Various forts and towers were added right up to the reign of Emperor Constantine and beyond, until around 350AD. In fact the wall stayed in use for another 1,000 years, defending London and defining the City of London’s boundaries.
More of the wall would be visible today had it not been for voracious development in the 17th and 18th centuries, as it became a burden for London’s rapidly expanding transport system. London Wall’s various gates are still recognisable as some of the City of London’s best-known roads and areas, for example Cripplegate, Aldgate, Aldersgate and Bishopsgate.
A defensive ditch surrounded the wall, making invasion all-but impossible. This V-shaped dugout measured about 5m wide and 2m until the 4th century, when in addition to the previously mentioned forts a new wider ditch, located further from the wall.
Today the wall can still be seen at various points in the City of London, most notably at Tower Hill, where it is accompanied by a statue of the Emperor Trajan, and outside the Museum of London, who have taken responsibility for excavating a large amount of it.
PLUS POINTS:
London Wall has defined Britain’s capital city for almost two thousand years.
Its 6m height and almost 3m width make it much beefier than Hadrian’s Wall.
The gates that defined the wall still form some of the City of London’s most iconic areas today.
Parts of the wall can be found next to main roads, car parks and office blocks, in a fascinating juxtaposition of old and new.
LET-DOWNS:
At 3 miles long it’s barely 1/25 the length of Hadrian’s Wall.
There’s not much of London Wall left to look at, and with some of it stuck in underground car parks you’d be hard pushed to see it all.
It was a little late, having been built 140 years after Boudicca burnt London to the ground in 60AD.
Fearless globetrotters or carpetbagging looters? Whatever your opinion, Britain’s adventurers during the Age of Exploration, from the opening of the world’s first museum in Oxford to the King Tut tomb raid, changed ancient history forever. The Ancient World in London is reaching its climax, and over the course of our video series I’ve seen most of the city’s stunning treasures, from the Knidos Lion to the Assyrian Lion Hunt. So here’s a top ten greatest Age of Exploration personalities. If you think I’ve done well, or if you think I’m more inept than a boxer’s tear ducts, have your say in the comments box below.
Amelia Edwards represents so much about the Age of Exploration. A talented writer from the tender age of seven, she led the suffragette movement back in Britain whilst founding two of the nation’s most important archaeological societies. Fascinated from a young age by ancient Egypt Edwards set off for Cairo, without male company, in 1873 aged 42. She would soon witness the glamour and history of the Nile, chronicling her adventures in a number of books including A Thousand Miles up the Nile, in 1877.
Edwards became distressed at the lack of care given to Egypt’s ancient monuments, some of which she had had a hand in excavating such as the temple of Ramesses II at Abu Simbel. So in 1882 she brought together archaeologists like Flinders Petrie and Gaston Maspero to form the EEF Egypt Exploration Fund (now society). Her influence over the fund weakened over the following decade thanks in part to rows with the British Museum. Yet Edwards was keen to help still, and founded a new museum at University College, London, installing Flinders Petrie as its first professor, whose name the museum would later take. Edwards died later that year, yet her contribution to Egyptology is one of the most vital in history.
8. Charles Newton
Newton’s name might not feature in many top ten lists of famous archaeologists, but his greatest discovery propels him rightly into the big-time. After working at the British Museum for over a decade, Newton spread his wings and became vice-consul at Mitylene, capital of the Greek island of Lesbos in 1852 and tasked with exploring the coasts of Asia Minor. After excavating at Knidos Newton stumbled across his greatest achievement in 1856-7 by discovering the remains of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world(play a seven wonders quiz here).
Newton’s later legacy would be played out back in Britain, where he had a key role in founding the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies (known as the Hellenic Society), the British School at Athens and the Egypt Exploration Fund. Newton was later instated as professor of classical archaeology at University College, London for eight years between 1880 and 1888.
Leonard Woolley is one of Mesopotamia’s greatest archaeologists, having excavated many of its most illustrious sites. Woolley became assistant keeper of the Ashmolean Museum in 1905, yet found his calling several years later when he teamed up with T.E. Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia, to explore the Hittite city of Carchemish. Woolley’s adventurous life would then see him incarcerated as a POW in Turkey from 1916 – 18 during a British Museum expedition to Palestine. The BM and Penn Museum then commissioned Woolley for his greatest expedition, to the ancient Sumerian city of Ur in modern Iraq. Woolley excavated several royal cemeteries, the most glittering of which was that of Queen Pu-Abi. He took his bounty back to Britain, where most of it can be found in the British Museum.
Woolley soon had a knighthood under his belt, and shifted his sights to the Syrian city of Al-Mina, exploring links between the empires of the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas. A number of books then cemented his place in archaeological history, and Agatha Christie even based Murder in Mesopotamia on Woolley’s work.
Arthur Evans has to go down as a true great of archaeology: not only did he discover one of the most famous sites in ancient mythology, but he also rediscovered an entire civilization and its two languages. Evans was well educated in England before adventuring in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1875, where he and his brother Lewis were imprisoned for making sketches in politically sensitive areas. 25 years later Evans would satisfy his love of travel and history when he purchased the archaeological site of Knossos in Crete. Evans had soon excavated the site’s famous palace, whose maze-like structure has led it to be suggested as the home of the mythological labyrinth in which King Minos held his deadly minotaur.
Evans concluded from Knossos that there must have been a culture on Crete even earlier than fellow great Heinrich Schliemann had claimed, creating the concept of the Minoan Civilization. And 3,000 tablets Evans excavated from the area became his next focus, as he began trying to decode their strange languages, which he noticed bore more than a passing resemblance to the Phoenician alphabet. These languages became Linear A and Linear B, great examples of which can be found in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.
Lord Carnarvon was a hedonistic English aristocrat who, amid his love for travel and fast cars, managed to spare a few moments to become one of Egyptology’s biggest names. Badly injured in a car crash in Germany, Carnarvon was ordered to eschew the cold winters of Britain for Cairo’s arid heat. But whilst in Egypt, he developed a taste for its history, and was soon spending his fortunes excavating some of the country’s greatest treasures.
It was Carnarvon’s meeting Howard Carter that changed his legacy in Egypt. Together the pair would form a close bond: Carter the avid archaeologist, Carnarvon the immeasurably wealthy adventurer. Carnarvon would fritter away his fortune in the desert, selling country manors (not Highclere Castle, mercifully) to fund houses for himself and Carter and an army of local workers. But the gamble paid off in 1922 when he and his friend discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun, the most famous archaeological breakthrough in history. Carnarvon would soon be dead, the victim of the ‘Curse of the Mummy’, aka a mosquito bite. Yet his posterity was secured: Lord Carnarvon was the epitome of an English adventurer.
Another gallavanting eccentric, it seems Henry Layard was born to live out a dramatic life. His family were immensely rich and powerful, allowing young Henry a platform to pursue his passion for travel and culture. He studied in Italy, France, England and Switzerland before qualifying as an attorney in 1839, aged 22. Layard wasn’t overly interested in law though, and trapsed off towards Ceylon, modern Sri Lanka, where he could use his father’s contacts to get a job working for the civil service. YetLayard’s love of ancient history got the better of him, and he spent several years exploring the Near East with friend Edward Mitford. Soon the pair had reached the Iraqi city of Mosul, where Layard noticed a suspiciously man-made protrusion coming from a mound.
Work in Constantinople followed, yet Layard could not take his mind off the mound and convinced diplomat Sir Stratford Canning to fund a Mosul excavation in 1845. Canning’s gamble paid off asLayard pulled hundreds of reliefs, statues and other treasures from the site, which he would later announce as the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud. Layard’s name was made, and subsequent missions saw him unearth the fabled Assyrian capital Nineveh, where he found the amazing Lion Hunt reliefs. Every find was recorded in minute detail with accompanying line drawings, and later work for the British Museum saw Layard trying to decipher cuneiform, the first ever written language.
It’s difficult to think Carter without mentioning Tutankhamun, and it’s admittedly thanks to the discovery of the boy king’s tomb in November 1922 that Howard Carter makes it so high up this list. But there was much more to the man than KV62: Carter had been an archaeologist for over 30 years before his fateful collaboration with Lord Carnarvon. Carter began his career in Egypt in 1891 aged just 17 as a tracer and artist for the EEF, drafted in primarily to draw animal images found on tombs. Yet his reputation for a studious individual soon saw him one of Flinders Petrie’s apprentices at Amarna, learning the skills of the trade and discovering the wonder of ancient Egypt.
By 1899 Carter has become First Chief Inspector General of Monuments for Upper Egypt, a title given by the Director of the Egyptian Antiquities Service, Gaston Maspero. Yet this position lasted only a short while, and Carter found himself frozen out of affairs after an incident with a drunken French tourist. Carter’s career was in tatters, and he made a living drawing pictures for tourists on the Nile. It wouldn’t be for another decade until Maspero introduced Carter to Carnarvon and the Tutankhamun saga began, ending in the greatest discovery of all time. The rest, as they say, is history, and Carter died in London a hero in 1939.
Yes, the ‘Father of modern Archaeology’ only makes it to second on my list; roll on the dissent. Flinders Petrie, born in Charlton in 1853, was afforded a good education and from an early age thought logically and meticulously about his interests. Upon hearing the Brading Roman Villa had been excavated with shovels, Petrie was horrified and vowed to install his own methodology to archaeology. His sights were turned first to Stonehenge, then to the famous Giza Plateau, where Petrie became the first person to properly record the pyramids’ geometry and study minute details to explore how they were built.
His reputation already growing, Petrie set out for the delta city of Tanis, where Amelia Edwards and the Egypt Exploration Fund allowed him 170 workmen. Petrie didn’t disappoint, and though he didn’t make any huge discoveries his precise methodology allowed him to recover thousands of smaller everyday items, which would have likely been lost otherwise. Further groundbreaking work was carried out at Sehel, Fayum and Palestine until Petrie made arguably his greatest discovery: that of the Merneptah Stele, aka the Israel Stele, at Luxor. It is the oldest mention of Israel by far, and proves Israel was a culture over 3,000 years ago. Petrie may not have made the same headline-grabbing finds as his contemporaries, but his acute way of working revolutionalised archaeology, and made people interested in the daily life of ancient Egypt.
You might wonder why a circus strongman-cum-archaeologist who graffitied his name on Egypt’s greatest landmarks is ahead of all these famous names. But read that sentence back and I’m confident you’ll agree with me: Giovanni Belzoni is one of archaeology’s oddest characters, and his life story needs no hyperbole.
Ok hold your breath: Belzoni was born in Padua in 1778, yet left home for a monastic order in Rome aged 16. But to avoid arrest after a revolution in Italy he fled first to the Netherlands, then to England in 1803 where he met his wife Sarah Bane. At 6ft 7inches Belzoni found work in London as a circus strongman, named the ‘Patagonian Samson’, before working for antiquarian Henry Salt moving objects in Spain, Portugal and Sicily. Belzoni became obsessed with ancient culture, and after meeting an Ottoman emissary in Malta, travelled to Egypt where he met Salt again, who employed him to remove artefacts like the Colossal Bust of Ramesses II. Yet Belzoni wanted to make discoveries himself and began excavating.
It was at this time that Belzoni, now enamored with Egypt and growing his beard and wearing local clothing, made his biggest discovery: the tomb of Seti I, with its sarcophagus. The tomb is one of Thebes’ most beautiful, and the sarcophagus would eventually make its way to London’s Soane Museum. Belzoni continued to work as both an archaeologist and a ‘fixer’ in Egypt, helping to bring monuments like Cleopatra’s Needle to London. His second great discovery was the inner chambers of the Pyramid of Khafre at Giza, in which he wrote his name in huge lettering. Belzoni’s life of adventure came to an end in Benin in 1823, after a terminal case of dysentry. Yet his legacy remains in the hundreds of great artefacts he brought to the west. Do you still not think he should top this list?
From the bloody rebellion of Boudicca to the fearsome Norman invasion, London had always been under attack in its ancient past. Yet successes during the Middle Ages allowed the city and nation to branch out, conquering new lands and forging trade links all over the world. 1683 saw Oxford play host to the world’s first museum, the Ashmolean, allowing a new generation of explorers to quench their thirst for adventure. And just a few decades later London’s great archaeologists and antiquaries would spread their wings proper, globetrotting to far flung corners of the planet in search of great discoveries and beautiful artefacts.
That thirst for adventure has rarely weakened, and London is still exploring the ancient world in the form of societies like the Egypt Exploration Society (EES), who have funded some of the world’s greatest discoveries, such as the Tomb of King Tutankhamun (KV62). The discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun is another one of these game-changing moments for archaeology,” says EES deputy director Chris Naunton. “It’s absolutely as spectacular an archaeological discovery as you could imagine.
“What was important about the discovery was that it raised public awareness to a new level, Chris adds.
Yet Carter was a mere protege to the ‘Father of Archaeology’, Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, a man so highly regarded he had his head preserved after death. He wouldn’t be too impressed, you suspect, that it ended up getting lost in transport between Jerusalem and London, though modern sources suggest it could be safe and sound in London after all. (Petrie’s) legacy is in the methodology he introduces and the rigour he introduces,” says Chris. “He’s known as the father of archaeology for good reason. He really changes the game.”
Look around cultural epicentres such as the British Museum, and you’ll find a backstory for almost all of their greatest treasures. Take the Elgin Marbles, for instance, taken under dubious circumstances from the Parthenon by Lord Elgin, a British noble, between 1801 and 1812. Taken from Greece while under Ottoman rule the operation cost Elgin around 4 million in modern terms, and the debate rages as to whether they should be returned to Athens alongside the rest of the collection.
The Assyrian Lion Hunt is another spectacular work of art, created for the royal palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh between 645 and 635 BC. Metre upon metre of fresco, discovered by the great Sir Austen Henry Layard the hand that rocked the cradle of civilization – shows the ferocity of the king as he slaughters dozens of lions to prove his unrivaled wealth and power.
Yet the greatest of all the Age of Exploration characters must surely be Giovanni Battista Belzoni. An Italian circus strongman who settled in London, Belzoni took a keen interest in ancient Egypt. Soon he’d excavated some of the nation’s most stunning treasures, such as the sarcophagus of Seti I, held today in the Soane Museum. His audacity even stretched to leaving graffiti behind wherever he went including the Pyramid of Khafre at Giza. Belzoni, being a strongman and all-round fixer is perfectly placed to arrange for very large objects, and what we would think of as being fairly prestigious, very important objects, to be moved from where they were found, says Chris. He plays a major part in bringing ancient Egypt, and physically bringing monuments to the west.
These are only a handful of London’s incredible discoveries during the Age of Exploration. Leonard Woolley, for example, unearthed the royal cemeteries of Ur in Mesopotamia, bringing back amazing relics like the Royal Game and Queen’s Lyre. Arthur Evans even found the Palace of Knossos in Crete, the fabled home of the minotaur. People might argue whether Britain’s explorers were fearless globetrotters or carpetbagging looters, but there’s no denying they changed history forever.
King’s Lynn in Norfolk played host to the year’s oddest cultural occasions yesterday, as a 1.5 ton tree stump was lowered into the town’s Lynn Museum. But it was no ordinary stump: the giant piece of oak was once the centrepoint for 4,000-year-old Seahenge, an ancient circle of wooden posts discovered off the coast of Holme in 1998.
The move is the last major event before the completed henge goes on display at the museum this summer in a replica of its original surroundings. Almost 50,000 people have visited the posts since they were first exhibited there in 2008. Each stump has been preserved by the same team that worked on restoring the Mary Rose, Henry VIII’s famous warship, yet the stump took longer to save thanks to its 8ft size.
“It’s great to see the stump being reunited with the remainder of the timber circle after all these years they’re been apart and great to see the timbers back together in West Norfolk,” says area museums officer Dr Robin Hanley. “We’ve been extremely pleased with the response to the displays, a lot of people have been inspired by the preservation of the timbers and have enjoyed being able to see them in such detail. To be able to get so close to 4,000-year-old timbers and see individual axe marks left by Bronze Age axes is extraordinary.”
“To be able to get so close to 4,000-year-old timbers and see individual axe marks left by Bronze Age axes is extraordinary.”
Seahenge was built in the spring of 2049BC, around 300 years after Stonehenge. It was preserved for so many years thanks to a thick layer of peat, yet tidal surges exposed it twelve years ago. There are many more henges in Britain: check out this interactive map to see some of the better ones.
The Lynn Museum is currently closed to the public while the exhibition is set up. Click here for more details.
It may not come as much of a relief to the tens of thousands stuck in airports across the world, but Wednesday’s Eyjafjallajkull eruption in Iceland is smallfry compared to some of the ancient world’s most destructive episodes. Women in China’s Yunnan Province are still suffering huge mortality rates from lung cancer today, for example, from coal formed after Siberian eruptions five million years ago. Here are four more ancient eruptions that changed the world.
Lake Toba Eruption, c74,000 years ago
The Toba Explosion is one of the most mysterious events in human history. Occurring some 69,000 – 77,000 years ago, the blast, from Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia, was the strongest anywhere on Earth for the last 25 million years. Some experts claim that the ensuing six-year volcanic winter devastated life on the planet, reducing human numbers to as little as 1,000 breeding pairs. This could have not only caused an evolutionary bottleneck, resulting in the divergent races we see today, but also mother nature’s coup-de-gras to other hominid species on Earth.
Minoan Eruption, c1500BC
The Caldera of Thera, better known to holidaying Brits as Santorini, may be known today for its stunning sea views and blue-domed churches. Yet three-and-a-half thousand years ago it was home to one of the ancient world’s deadliest eruptions. A layer of ash up to 60m thick coated the tiny Greek island, home to the Minoan city of Akrotiri, famous for its frescoes. Minoan settlements nearby, including those on the Cretian coast, were also ravaged by the blast and communities as far wide as Egypt and China recorded poor harvests and famines as a result. Most interesting, howev, is the theory that the Minoan eruption may have been the basis for Plato’s famous Atlantis story – click here to see other explanations for the fabled land’s whereabouts.
Vesuvius, AD79
Probably the most famous of all volcanic disasters is the immense eruption of Mount Vesuvius, near Naples, Italy, in AD79. The giant blast, which lasted for up to 19 hours, quickly engulfed the nearby Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, entombing their inhabitants in up to 3m of ash. Between 10,000 and 25,000 people are thought to have perished in the disaster, some of whom were spectacularly preserved by the event along with their houses and daily tools. From 1599 to today the city has been excavated, leaving it a popular if macabre tourist attraction.
Between 535 and 536, European and Asian civilizations were hit by freak weather, when extreme cooling caused widespread famine. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, are thought to have succumbed to the catastrophe, which the Byzantine historian Procopius described thus: “During this year a most dread portent took place. For the sun gave forth its light without brightness…and it seemed exceedingly like the sun in eclipse, for the beams it shed were not clear.” Various reasons for the weather have been put forward, one of which is that it was caused by an eruption of Krakatoa in Indonesia.
“The sun gave forth its light without brightness…”
Whatever the truth is, the event took a massive human toll: archaeology writer David Keys has claimed that it caused a number of historical events including the fall of the Mayan city of Teotihuacn; the western migration of the Mongol army; the end of the Persian Empire; the rise of Islam and the Plague of Justinian around Constantinople. Keys has since been discredited by a number of experts, but the sixth century’s answer to El Nio still remains an enigma.
The Museum of London Docklands (MoLD) is free to visit today, after its admission was dropped to bring it in line with London’s many free museums. The museum, which covers 2000 years of London’s port history, had charged 5 for adults and 3 concessions, but hopes to increase visitor numbers after today’s news.
The MoLD will now join the pantheon of London museums with no entry charge, that includes the British Museum, Petrie Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum. Entry to national museums in Britain was made free in 2001, a move which instantly bumped attendance figures up by 70%.
However there has been a vocal opposition to the move in recent years, not least from Mayor of London Boris Johnson, whose spokesman tells the Times, “Having visited the Met(ropolitan Museum of Art, New York) last week, he (the Mayor) was impressed by how they maximise voluntary contributions and believes there are lessons to be learnt from America about increasing philanthropic giving.”
Indeed, the issue may play a part in this year’s general election: a 2007 statement from the Tories claimed they would abolish the free entry rule if they win power. Then-culture minister Tessa Jowell slammed the proposal, saying, “The policy of opening up museums and art galleries has hugely increased visitor numbers, to the benefit of people from all classes and ages.
The Tories plan to end free admission if they win power this year
“David Cameron’s party talks about wanting to be more inclusive and yet they are promoting a policy that is a return to Thatcherism and would exclude the less well-off,” she added. The British Museum have even defended their free policy as a reason to keep the Elgin Marbles, claiming it allows more people to see them than if they returned to Athens.
The MoLD is housed in a striking Georgian warehouse near Canary Wharf, London’s glossy financial heart. Its aim is to chronicle the city’s history through the River Thames from Roman times to today, showing how war, trade and immigration have shaped the area. The Louvre in Paris remains the world’s most visited museum with 8.5million attendees per year. A full-day pass costs 9.50 (8.40). The British Museum is next on the list with just over six million visitors.
Do you think Britain’s national museums should return to charging visitors?
Astronomy rarely leaves today’s headlines, be it the latest shuttle exploring the limits of our galaxy, or feverish paranoia over the Maya Doomsday Prophecy. Man has always been obsessed by the stars, and since our humble beginnings we’ve always gazed up at night, asking the same questions those tens of thousands of years ago have.
We caught up with famed astronomer Paul Murdin at a special Ancient World in London event a month back, as he gave a talk about his book Secrets of the Universe. And as Paul describes, astronomical observations have been made for longer than we may think. The Ishango Bone is at first an unremarkable-looking baboon bone from the Congo. Yet the notches along its length may signify one of man’s first forays into astronomy. “It’s thought that the length of the scratches represents the phases of the moon,” says Paul. “As the moon gets bigger, the scratches get larger, until the full moon, and then the scratches get smaller.
“Maybe the owner was a woman who for some reason was keeping track of her menstrual cycle. But this person was making astronomical observations 25,000 years ago.”
“The stars are the common heritage of mankind, and we all have a right to enjoy them.”
Myths and legends have always been wrapped round the stars as a way for man to ascribe his own beliefs. In Roman legend, the Milky Way, our own galaxy, was created when milk from the goddess Juno’s breast spurted into the sky after wet-nursing her husband Jupiter’s son Hercules. There may have been a myriad great discoveries and theories since, but it’s certainly a colourful way of seeing things.
Stonehenge is one of the world’s most mysterious astronomical landmarks. Created up to 5,000 years ago, its stone circle has captivated everyone from ancient Celts to modern Druids. Today most experts see it as a monument to the sun, aligned with the sunrises and sunsets at certain points of the year. That’s why Druids still worship inside the circle at each equinox and solstice – see our AWiL video on Spring Equinox at Stonehenge. You don’t have to leave your home to witness a Stonehenge Summer Solstice – just log on to Stonehenge Virtual to explore the stone circle.
Yet archaeoastronomer (click here for a short guide to archaeoastronomy)Simon Banton says there are plenty of alignments and correspondences to suggest Stonehenge was first used as a lunar calendar:”There is some evidence to suggest that Stonehenge alignments were originally lunar. It’s not quite exactly on the solar alignment. The terminals of (its) ditches seem to be remodelled to try and coax it in that direction.”
Stonehenge will no doubt remain an enigma. But it does hark to an age when man was more in tune with the stars and the seasons than today. Thanks to today’s cities and their accompanying light pollution we barely get a good look at the night sky nowadays, and it’s something Paul feels is a great shame: “I would hope that everybody somewhere got the chance to go to a place that was darkish, and to be told about the stars in the sky,” he says. “The stars are the common heritage of mankind, and we all have a right to enjoy them.”
A key new signing has been made in the lead-up to the biggest sporting event of the year for philosophers: historian Bettany Hughes has joined Greek team Socrates Wanderers in a shock late move in the Philosophers’ Football Match 2010. Hughes, who has appeared in shows such Alexandria: The Greatest Cityand The Spartans joins a star-studded line-up for the show-off that includes comedians Mark Steel, Tony Hawks and Ariane Sharine.
Gladiator was the world’s biggest blockbuster when it hit screens in 2000. Now, ten years later, 
Newton’s name might not feature in many top ten lists of famous archaeologists, but his greatest discovery propels him rightly into the big-time. After working at the British Museum for over a decade, Newton spread his wings and became vice-consul at Mitylene, capital of the Greek island of Lesbos in 1852 and tasked with exploring the coasts of Asia Minor. 
You might wonder why a circus strongman-cum-archaeologist who graffitied his name on Egypt’s greatest landmarks is ahead of all these famous names. But read that sentence back and I’m confident you’ll agree with me: Giovanni Belzoni is one of archaeology’s oddest characters, and 
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