• Ann

    Anglo-Saxon Aloud – Add some Old English to your iPhone

    I believe I’ve found the ideal solution to ‘what music will we play in the office’. As we never seem to be able to reach agreement on the channel (really? Brit pop? Sounds from outer-space?), for tomorrow, I suggest we tune in on ‘Anglo-Saxon Aloud’, a website by Michael Drout that contains daily* readings of the entire Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records – which includes all poems written in Old English. Professor Michael DCDrout (an American teaching English at Wheaton College, blogs at Wormtalk and Slugspeak, and *has a dog named Lancelot that likes lfric a lot – or not at all)…

  • sean-williams

    Boudicca, Boadicea or Queen Victoria? What to Call the Warrior Queen

    “What’s in a name?” opined a portly Englishman recently, whose entire family had been handed ASBOs for verbally abusing their neighbours. This sort of stoic ignorance blights the English, much like bad hair or David Cameron, and it’s been going on for centuries. Boudicca was a Celtic warrior queen, a bloodthirsty battle-axe who massacred her way through Colchester, London and St Albans in 60AD (see a video on Roman Colchester here). By the time she’d been defeated at the mysterious Battle of Watling Street a year later, all three cities lay in tatters, and 80,000 were dead. Not a forgettable…

  • Ann

    Mummies, Pterodactyl and Occultism! The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Dry-White

    Good news for all fans of ‘light’ historical films such as The Mummy, Return of the Mummy and 10,000 BC. Even greater news for fans of the – sublime – comic (although BD, ‘bande dessine’ is more correct) series by Tardi. ‘Les Aventures Extraordinaires d’Adle Blanc-Sec‘ has been made into an adventure movie by Luc Besson (Taxi, Kamikaze, Leon, The Fifth Element), which will star lots of Mummies, at least one Pterodactyl and enough demon worshippers and mad scientists to keep the film going. Indiana Jones, beware emancipation! 😉 Set in 1912, before the Great War, the adventure starts when…

  • sam-ling-gibson

    One More Flash of Light in the Crowd: Photographing the Hadrian’s Wall Illumination

    Last weekend I went to Hadrian’s Wall to document what turned out to be a remarkable event. The plan was to shoot as many great photos as I could. But when your subject stretches across 84 miles, and includes 20,000 people, not to mention millennia of history… where does a photographer start? Here are the results of my attempts to capture Illuminating Hadrian’s Wall on camera. (Heritage Key also took the video camera along, watch the report here.) As I entered Segedunum Roman fort in Wallsend, Newcastle, I was met by half a dozen armour-clad Roman soldiers wielding spears, swords…

  • Ann

    The Secret of Kells – An Illuminated Animation Film

    In these times, who would make an animated movie that was intentionally two-dimensional? Deflated and only minorly shaded, but visually ravishing. Flat, but filled with ancient swirls and Celtic knots. And who would have thought such a film would become a major hit? ‘The Secret of Kells’, a spirited retelling of the provenance of one of Irelands most cherished artefact, the Book of Kells, was a success in Irish, French and Belgian cinemas alike, got an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature Film and is now well on its way to conquering the United States of America. It is also…

  • willhunt

    Arbil, Iraq Discovery Could be Earliest Evidence of Humans in the Near East

    Czech archaeologists have excavated remains of a prehistoric settlement in Arbil, north Iraq, which could date back as far back 200,000 years, placing it among the earliest evidence of hominid activity in the region. The expedition, led by Dr. Karel Novacek from the University of West Bohemia in Plzen, unearthed clusters of stone artifacts at the bottom of a 9-meter-deep pit dug just outside the tell in Arbil. Novacek recently explained to Heritage Key that the excavated stone tools, comprised of flakes, scrapers and cores, can be traced back to the Late Middle Paleolithic Age (200,000-40,000 years before present). The discoveries align chronologically with…

  • mary-harrsch

    Will Virtual Reconstruction of Çatalhöyük be Abandoned Due to High Rent Rates in Second Life?

    Virtual atalhyk is one of the most well-researched and painstakingly executed ancient world reconstructions in Second Life. But with the rent due, and funding tight, can the researchers keep the environment alive? I spoke to creator Colleen Morgan about the problems of creating reconstructions for high-rent platforms. Model Town Over 9,000 years ago, a group of Neolithic people began to build a mud-brick settlement on a hill overlooking the Konya Plain of Turkey. The structures were placed closely together and the people moved from place to place by accessing the roofs with interior or exterior ladders. Scholars believe communal activities…

  • mary-harrsch

    Will Virtual Reconstruction of Çatalhöyük be Abandoned Due to High Rent Rates in Second Life?

    Virtual Çatalhöyük is one of the most well-researched and painstakingly executed ancient world reconstructions in Second Life. But with the rent due, and funding tight, can the researchers keep the environment alive? I spoke to creator Colleen Morgan about the problems of creating reconstructions for high-rent platforms. Model Town Over 9,000 years ago, a group of Neolithic people began to build a mud-brick settlement on a hill overlooking the Konya Plain of Turkey.  The structures were placed closely together and the people moved from place to place by accessing the roofs with interior or exterior ladders. Scholars believe communal activities…

  • 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…

  • Ann

    Tutankhamun’s Funeral – A New King Tut Exhibition at New York’s Met

    In 1908, more than a decade before the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb, American retired lawyer and archaeologist Theodore Davis made a remarkable discovery. While excavating in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, he unearthed about a dozen large storage jars. Their contents included broken pottery, bags of natron, bags of sawdust, floral collars, and pieces of linen with markings from years 6 and 8 during the reign of a then little-known pharaoh named Tutankhamun. The significance of the find was not immediately understood, and the objects entered the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art as a mystery. It…