Divine kingship was as old as Egyptian civilisation itself, when the Predynastic kings of Hierakonpolis (Nekhen) ruled as avatars on Earth of the falcon god Horus. Pharaoh was entitled the ‘Good God, the Son of Ra’. Egypt’s gods and goddesses were his fathers and mothers. In life he was the incarnation of Horus; in death, his identity fused with Os…

In south-eastern Europe from the Neolithic to the Iron Age, across a period of some 5,500 years, communities with increasingly complex political and economic inequalities developed, and an emergent elite grew their power and influence by exerting control over four focal aspects of prehistoric life: technology, trade, rituals, and warfare. In a new …

In Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu, a single bite of a tea-dipped madeleine is enough to transport the author back into a vivid world of recollection. Our sense of smell is even more powerful in this respect than taste, however, with a direct route between the olfactory bulbs and the parts of the brain linked to emotion and memory. Th…

On 6 May 1682, HMS Gloucester sank off the coast of Great Yarmouth. The warship’s loss was a major disaster, claiming the lives of an estimated 130-250 people – very nearly including the Duke of York and Albany (the future King James II & VII), who was on board. The Gloucester itself was lost to the sea, and its wreck remained anonymously buried in…

An insignificant tarmac road leading off Jordan’s Desert Highway about 80km south of Amman soon becomes a dirt track across the desert. The landscape looks bare all around. No habitation can be seen, apart from a small modern farm in a side valley. The desert rolls on. And then, a speck on the horizon. A dark form, barely visible. Gradually, it bec…

In 2019, archaeologists and military veteran volunteers from Operation Nightingale excavated part of the hut camp of 'Easy Company' – the famous D-Day paratroopers better known as the 'Band of Brothers' – in Aldbourne, Wiltshire. The remains we uncovered were illuminating, but the onset of the pandemic called a halt to further investigations – unti…

Mummies, gold, and an obsessive belief in the afterlife – these concepts are all central to our image of ancient Egypt. But how important were they to the Egyptians, and how long did they survive after the last of the pharaohs? A new exhibition, Golden Mummies of Egypt, uses 108 objects to explore expectations of life after death during the relativ…

The site at Harpole, a village four miles west of Northampton, had been a very straightforward excavation for the small team from MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) in March and April of last year. That was until they uncovered an internationally significant burial furnished with a remarkable 7th-century necklace, as well as a number of other high…

In 336 BC, at the age of just 25, Alexander the Great had become ruler of Asia Minor, pharaoh of Egypt, and successor to Darius III, the ‘Great King’ of Persia. During the next seven years, Alexander became master of an empire that stretched from Greece in the west, into Central Asia and North Africa, and beyond the river Indus in the east, all bef…

The eyes of the world were on St James’s Palace on 10 September 2022 when David White, Garter King of Arms, read the Accession Proclamation formally announcing the succession of King Charles III following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. If royal palace expert Simon Thurley had been watching or listening, he might well have been frustra…

A landmark year in Egyptology, 2022 marks 200 years since the decipherment of hieroglyphs and 100 years since the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun. Now, new research on another intact royal burial group from Egypt, dating to about 275 years before the burial of Tutankhamun, is demonstrating the importance of reassessing historic museum collecti…

The ‘miracle of Dunkirk’ is lauded in British history, celebrated each year with a profusion of TV documentary veteran accounts and memorial services. German soldiers, too, constantly referred to the ‘wunder’, or ‘miracle’, of reaching Dunkirk in wartime letters back home. But there the resemblance ends. For the British, it was a miracle of surviva…

Archaeology is the study of people and their actions, preserved through the physical traces they left behind. How, then, could we not appreciate the detailed insights into individuals, communities, and populations provided by their very DNA? On this episode of The PastCast, Professor Duncan Sayer explains how, by combining excavated evidence from e…

For over 700 years between c.1196 and 1848, public executions were an inescapable part of the experiences of anyone living in London. Hangings, burnings, boilings, and beheadings were wielded as a way to protect the city’s ever-expanding population, to deter crime and rebellion, and to show justice being viscerally, visually done – but they also ha…

The Jomon peoples of northern Japan were unusual among foraging societies for being great monument builders. They constructed a range of such sites, including stone circles, settings of wooden pillars, shell middens, and bank-enclosed cemeteries or embankments containing large quantities of material remains, all of which represented an ability to u…

The Armada – and in English history there is only one – set sail from Lisbon on 28 May 1588, tasked with eliminating the Protestant Queen Elizabeth and restoring Catholic worship throughout England. Its creator, Philip II, ruler of Spain and Portugal, had at his disposal ‘the greatest and strongest combination that was ever gathered in all Christen…

Twenty-five years ago, a cargo of millions of pieces of Lego was washed off the ship Tokio during a storm off Land’s End. The cargo was en route from the company’s factory in Billund, Denmark, to North America, where it was to be made-up into sets. To this day, tiny pieces of plastic are still being found on Cornish beaches – and by a strange quirk…

It is 1,900 years since the Roman emperor Hadrian made landfall in Britain. His presence marks a departure from business as usual, as the island was not a standard destination for imperial inspections. The sparse surviving Roman accounts tell us little about Hadrian’s activities in Britain, and nothing at all about his motive for visiting in 122. I…

Just as the Titanic’s ‘unsinkable’ nickname proved to be somewhat hubristic, naming a ship Invincible might be seen as similarly tempting fate. This latter designation was intended to intimidate, however, as it described a mighty warship that was among the most technically advanced of her day. And although she sank off Portsmouth in 1758, Invincibl…

When Henrietta Howard (née Hobart) built her Thames-side country house in Twickenham in the 1720s, it represented so much more than a fashionable escape from the bustle of court life: it was a refuge from her abusive marriage, and a sign of hard-won independence. With the house and its grounds now restored to their Georgian glory, and the site reop…

The newly released, star-studded British movie Operation Mincemeat tells the remarkable story of a Second World War deception plan. A dead body disguised as a naval officer would be floated off the Spanish coast, in the hope that the Axis powers would come across fake documents on the body and accept misleading information about the impending Allie…

Just to the south of Hadrian’s Wall, and at around the same time as the frontier fortifications were being built, the Romans constructed a fort on high ground overlooking the Solway estuary. Then, the site was known as Alauna Carvetiorum – today we call it Maryport – and it formed part of a chain of forts safeguarding the Cumbrian coast, which also…

First airing in 1994, Time Team went from humble roots to become a celebrated British institution, with over 230 episodes and countless spin-offs and specials produced during its original 20-year run. And while the recent pandemic posed serious problems for archaeological fieldwork, it sparked a global renaissance for Time Time, as locked-down fans…

The Greek city of Apollonia, founded in 650 BC, today lies on the sea floor between the mainland of Libya and a chain of offshore islands, 200km east of Bengazi. In 1958, an archaeological team set out to undertake a trailblazing survey of the submerged ruins. It was led by Dr Nicholas Flemming, whose experiences shaped his career as a marine archa…

The Caucasus mountains have had, for millennia, a legendary association with gold. According to the myths recounted by Greek and Roman writers, the legendary hero Jason was sent there on an impossible quest to seek the Golden Fleece, a task so difficult that it was assumed he would never return. But despite an association between gold and the mount…

Waterloo Uncovered, a registered charity, has combined the archaeological exploration of the site of Napoleon’s final defeat with a support programme for Veteran and Serving Military Personnel (VSMPs). Every summer, the charity assembles an international team of archaeologists, students, and VSMPs to survey and excavate various sections of the site…

The British photographer Anthony Kersting was the most prolific and widely travelled architectural photographer of his generation. He travelled extensively across the Middle East throughout the 1940s and 1950s to document the architecture and people of the region. And upon his death in 2008, he donated his archive – containing some 42,000 photograp…

Located in the Caucasus, a meeting point between Europe and Asia, Armenia boasts of being the first state to have adopted Christianity around the year AD 314, followed by its neighbour Georgia twenty years later. Various encounters between this region’s indigenous peoples and many other groups led to centuries of church building across the landscap…

What might a pigsty, a chimneybreast, a rock garden, and a font all have in common? An obvious answer would, of course, be that they can all be made of stone – but for a special few there is a particular claim to distinction. Over the last three years, members of the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust-funded Elusive Sculptures team have been looking …

An immense communal effort, continental connections, and exotic materials travelling long distances for people to gather and marvel at: this could be a summary of the story of Stonehenge, but it also describes the creation of a new exhibition opening at the British Museum this month, and the challenges of organising hundreds of international loans …

The recent COP26 meeting in Glasgow has helped concentrate many minds on climate change. Projections of future temperatures and their impact on world sea-levels pose complex challenges for the present. At the same time, a new study by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reveals that our past is also at risk. The rep…

An ancient oasis and caravan city, Palmyra lies in the middle of the Syrian Desert, and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1980. Sadly, over the last decade most of the news from the site has concerned heart-breaking loss, of both people and archaeology, during the devastating civil war in Syria. Thousands of ancient inhabitants’ portraits…

Medieval warfare is sometimes caricatured as a matter of crude frontal collisions lacking in finesse. But the period also saw what has been called a ‘revolution in military affairs’, which coincided with the long struggle between the French and English otherwise known as the Hundred Years’ War. Spearheading this revolution on the English side was K…

Born into a cultured and well-connected bohemian family in London, the painter John Craxton (1922-2009) yearned from a very early age to live and work in Greece. He achieved his goal and enduring joy coloured his ensuing pictures – radiant images of a world where myth survived in everyday existence On this episode of The PastCast, Ian Collins discu…

Domitian has gone down in history as one of Rome’s worst emperors. When he met his violent end in AD 96, subsequent writers did everything they could to demolish his reputation. But a new exhibition at Leiden’s Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (National Museum of Antiquities) uses a broad palette of sources to present a considerably more layered and varied…

Located in the Outer Hebrides, the prehistoric settlement of Cladh Hallan is best known for the Bronze Age mummies found buried beneath its roundhouses. As well as these insights into how the dead were treated, though, the dwellings have also yielded illuminating insights into the world of the living. On this episode of the PastCast, Mike Parker Pe…

The annual Current Archaeology magazine conference, Current Archaeology Live! 2022, is fast approaching. Taking place online over the weekend of 25-27 February, an exciting line-up of expert speakers will cover the latest news on the most important discoveries and leading research projects in the archaeology of the British Isles. In addition to the…

Humans and jungles are often seen as a poor combination. It is easy to write off the environment as challenging at best and a ‘green hell’ at worst. But could it be that tropical forests have repeatedly helped rather than hindered humanity’s progress? On this episode of the PastCast, Patrick Roberts discusses his article in the latest issue of Curr…

Marking the bicentennial of Peru's independence, a fascinating new exhibition at the British Museum, subtitled ‘a journey in time’, explores the history, beliefs, and culture of six different societies who lived in the region from around 2500 BC to the arrival of the Europeans in the 1500s. The exhibition is the focus of a special feature in the la…

It signalled a new age of empire – an age of armed intervention by industrialised European armies. The Scramble for Africa had begun. In the latest issue of Military History Matters magazine, editor Neil Faulkner analyses the events at Tel el-Kebir, the 1882 battle in which Victorian Britain destroyed an Egyptian nationalist movement and took posse…

As the COP26 climate change conference takes place in Glasgow, we ask if studying past coastal change can help us to ameliorate the climate crisis facing us today. A project undertaken by the Coastal and Intertidal Zone Archaeological Network (CITiZAN) and focusing on Mersea Island in Essex may have the answer, as three members of the network’s tea…

The traditional story of Iona’s early medieval monastery ends in tragedy and bloodshed, with the religious community essentially wiped out by vicious Viking raiders. Increasingly, though, the archaeological and historical evidence does not support this persistent ‘zombie narrative'. On this episode of the PastCast, Adrián Maldonado discusses an art…

On this episode of the PastCast, two curators from the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge discuss its recently opened exhibition, Gold and the Great Steppe. The exhibition looks at the history of the Saka, a nomadic people from Eastern Kazakhstan who lived around 2,500 years ago. To accompany the exhibition, curators Rebecca Roberts and Saltanat Amir …

In the 8th century, Cookham Abbey was the focus of a decades-long power struggle between early medieval kingdoms, but over time the religious community’s location faded from memory, despite its association with a powerful Anglo-Saxon queen. Now, excavations in Berkshire are thought to have brought its remains to light once more. On this episode of …

For a visitor to a late 18th-century country seat, the most striking feature of the landscape, apart from the house, would have been the lake. For that reason, it is all the more surprising these bodies of water have had such little attention from garden historians and archaeologists. On this episode of the PastCast, Christopher Catling discusses h…

On this episode of the PastCast, Derek Alexander discusses the notorious Glencoe Massacre of 1692 and how recent archaeological fieldwork has shed new light on the 17th and 18th century remains in the area. Alexander is the Head of Archaeology at the National Trust for Scotland. He spoke with PastCast presenter, Calum Henderson. Glencoe is one of t…

On this episode of the PastCast, archaeologists Hella Eckardt and Philippa Walton discuss Roman finds made at Piercebridge, on the River Tees near Darlington. Between the mid-1980s and 2018, two divers excavated more than 3,600 objects from the site, before passing them on to Walton. Now, thanks to a two-year project funded by the Leverhulme Trust,…

On this episode of the PastCast, archaeologist Wouter Vos discusses his involvement in recent excavations at Valkenburg in the Netherlands. Valkenburg is already renowned for its Roman archaeology, thanks to an auxiliary camp excavated there after the Second World War. But now, new research has uncovered evidence of a larger and more significant le…

A seemingly unassuming lump of corroded bronze has confounded investigators for more than century, ever since it proved to contain precision gear wheels that simply should not have existed in the Ancient Greek world. Now, a new study into the Antikythera Mechanism, named after the island off which it was found, has used cutting-edge techniques to r…

On this episode of the PastCast, Dr Graham Goodlad discusses how Horatio Nelson cemented his status as a British naval hero in October 1805 when the fleet he commanded defeated the combined forces of the French and Spanish navies at the Battle of Trafalgar, at the height of the Napoleonic Wars. Graham spoke with PastCast presenter, Calum Henderson.…