News Round Up

PAISLEY, SCOTLAND—The Scotsman reports that a team of archaeologists has determined that a fourteenth-century drain beneath the 850-year-old Paisley Abbey extended some 320 feet to the banks of the River Cart. “We found the end of the drain and what…

KENT, ENGLAND—The Guardian reports that a kayaker paddling off the coast of southeast England spotted an intact piece of Roman cobalt-blue glassware, pottery fragments, and a terracotta roof tile in clear, shallow water during low tide. Mark Dunkley…

CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA—The Post and Courier reports that a fragment of Colonoware from Charleston’s Heyward-Washington House, the eighteenth-century home of a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and a similar fragment unearthed at Drayton…

A century ago, 250 soldiers were buried behind enemy lines in unmarked mass graves on the outskirts of the village of Fromelles in northern France. In 2009, a team from Oxford Archaeology was charged with recovering and helping to identify these men…

GONGJU, SOUTH KOREA—The Korea Herald reports that 41 small burial mounds have been discovered near the tomb of King Muryeong, the 25th king of the Baekje Kingdom, who ruled from A.D. 501 to 523. Researchers from South Korea’s Cultural Heritage…

ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT—Ahram Online reports that a team of Egyptian and Polish archaeologists discovered a well-preserved Roman mosaic floor in a house at the site of Kom El-Dikka, which features a small theater, an imperial bath, and a group of 22…

ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA—Located on the coast of northeastern Florida, the city of St. Augustine was founded in 1565 by Spanish explorers. The St. Augustine Record reports that an archaeological investigation ahead of a construction project on Aviles…

RAHAT, ISRAEL—BBC News reports that the remains of a possible mosque dating to the seventh or eighth century A.D. were discovered in the Negev Desert during construction work. Jon Seligman and Shahar Zur of the Israel Antiquities Authority said the…

Anyone visiting Hadrian’s Wall is well advised to take a guidebook. There are many available, but one of the most useful is Guy de la Bédoyère’s handy volume. Though a slim book, it is packed full of detail. The post Review – Hadrian’s Wall: history…

The importance of the Clayton Collection extends significantly beyond its home ground of Chesters (Cilurnum), though the focus of the present volume is on the material from Cilurnum. That is set in the context of Clayton’s ownership of, and interest…

As the author herself asks, why do we need another book on Hadrian’s Wall? The question is conclusively answered over the course of the book’s 400 pages. It includes the standard sections on, for example, the history, construction, and purpose of…

Archaeologists do not often get the chance to excavate Hadrian’s Wall. The monument is well protected by law (rightly so) and spared from development, meaning that invasive investigations are few and far between. While that is good news for the…

Although attempts have been made to strip away later activity and present Roman – usually specifically Hadrianic – ruins to modern visitors, traces of the Wall’s afterlife still endure. Such sparse survivals, though, do not reflect the rich legacy…

David Breeze’s new book on Hadrian’s Wall began as a series of lectures to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Even wonderful lectures do not always translate well to print, but there are no such fears with this volume, a (forgive the pun)…

How do you explain the latest thinking about a 73-mile-long monument to the public? Visitors to Hadrian’s Wall in recent years may have noticed some changes at the English Heritage sites and museums on the Roman frontier. Frances McIntosh takes us…

MONT-ST-JEAN, BELGIUM—The Guardian reports that the group Waterloo Uncovered, led by Tony Pollard of the University of Glasgow, has uncovered three human leg bones, one of which bears the marks of a surgeon’s saw, at the site of a farmhouse used as…

CAIRO, EGYPT—Ahram Online reports that the largest of King Tutankhuman’s three coffins has been removed from his tomb and transported to the new Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), where it will be restored for the first time. This wooden coffin is the…

PLOVDIV, BULGARIA—Archaeology in Bulgaria reports that a grave dated to the third or fourth century A.D. and an early Roman dwelling were found by utility workers in the city of Plovdiv. The city was occupied by the Thracians and known as…

MOTZA, ISRAEL—Reuters reports that a 9,000-year-old settlement estimated to have covered dozens of acres of land has been discovered near Jerusalem. As many as 2,000 to 3,000 people once lived at the site, according to researchers from the Israel…

Inspired by the east: how the Islamic world influenced western art examines how European and North American visual arts have been inspired by the Islamic world for centuries. Known as ‘Orientalism’, this representation of the East in Western art…