News Round Up

A study recently published in Scientific Reports, examining examples from across Ireland of what is known as bog butter – waxy deposits found in the peat bogs of Ireland and Scotland (see CA 226) – has demonstrated that this was an unusually long-…

Recent news from post-excavation analysis of the excavations for the A14 Cambridge-to- Huntingdon improvement scheme (see CA 339), which recently won the Current Archaeology Award for Best Rescue Project of 2019, is bringing archaeobotany into the…

Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery brings together a diverse selection of curious objects, artworks, archive material and unseen photographs to tell the story behind the creation of WG Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn Not everybody who lives there…

The Fry Art Gallery in Saffron Walden puts Eric and Tirzah Ravilious side by side The Fry Art Gallery has a bit of a track record for this; reminding us of the wonderful world of Eric Ravilious, the artist whose cross hatched watercolours, designs…

ORCA Archaeology is pleased to announce that they have been awarded a grant of £202,000 by Historic Environment Scotland to complete an important archaeology research project centred on Newark Bay, Deerness, Orkney. Newark is the site of an early…

Marking the recent 75th anniversary of the Great Escape we return to a story from the Museum Crush archive and the late Dave Humphrey, then curator of the centenary room at RAF Cosford’s Defence School of Photography, on the story the Great Escape…

Museum Crush talks to American artist Doug Fishbone, whose new commissioned video piece, The Jewish Question, is part of the Jewish Museum’s hard-hitting exhibition, Jews Money Myth exploring the role of money in Jewish life How did you get involved…

Nick Sturgess, Head of Collections and Interpretation at Avoncroft Museum, takes us through their wonderful collection of K telephone boxes dating from the 1920s through to the 1980s The telephone box is as much an icon to Britain as the Houses of…

BEERSHEBA, ISRAEL—Archaeologist Daniel Varga of the Israel Antiquities Authority said an image of a nine-branched menorah has been found on a fragment of an oil lamp unearthed at a 2,000-year-old settlement in the Negev Desert, according to a report…

CAIRO, EGYPT—Ahram Online reports that a recent survey in south Saqqara, near the pyramid complex of King Djedkare, revealed the tomb of a Fifth Dynasty dignitary named Khuwy, and the name of a previously unknown Old Kingdom queen, Setibhor. Mostafa…

CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND—Cosmos reports that Marcos Martinón-Torres of the University of Cambridge and his colleagues analyzed well-preserved bronze weapons found with the terracotta army in the tomb of Qin Shihuang, the first emperor of China, who ruled…

New research into the origins of leprosy in Ireland has revealed connections with the Viking world. A team from Queen’s University Belfast, the University of Surrey, the University of Southampton, and the University of East Anglia analysed five…

Our cover story takes us to the longest archaeological ‘site’ in Britain: the banks of the River Thames. For ten years, Thames Discovery Programme members have been braving all weathers to record the refuse of centuries of Londoners and newly…

It’s been six weeks since I started working at the Archaeology Data Service and went down the rabbit hole and into a world of checksums, AIPs, OMS, CMS and DROIDs. I knew fairly little about digital preservation before starting, so had no real idea…

DENIZLI, TURKEY—Hurriyet Daily News reports that more than 350 pieces of a statue of the emperor Trajan and a long inscription known as the “Water Law” were uncovered at the site of a fountain in the ancient city of Laodicea, which is located in…

CLEVELAND, OHIO—Science News reports that two pieces of a Denisovan skull have been recovered from Siberia’s Denisova Cave. Based on sediment analysis, the human relative is thought to have lived in the cave periodically between 300,000 and 50,000…

AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS—The wreckage of an early sixteenth-century ship was discovered by a team of workers who were salvaging containers that had fallen off a transport ship in Dutch waters, according to a report from NL Times.…

HOHHOT, CHINA—According to a Xinhua report, artwork estimated to be 4,000 years old has been discovered on two sides of a rock in an area of China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region where more than 2,000 rock paintings have been recorded. Wu Yi of…

Hello all, Anastasia here, I’ve just started a placement here at ADS. I’m currently doing a masters degree in “Outreach and Development for Archaeological Heritage” at the University of Paris 1. I started off in archaeology on a research route (love…

GLENBROOK, AUSTRALIA—NITV reports that multiple handprints have been spotted on a 22-ton boulder dislodged from a cliff in the corridor of the Blue Mountains train line in New South Wales. “We have an obligation to not only ensure the line is safe,…