We look down upon 8m of stratigraphy at the caravanserai of Gor Khuttree in North Pakistan
Dangeil, Sudan
Excavations at the Late Kushite city of Dangeil in Sudan reveal a temple of Amun, and a massive bread-making facility
Raqqa, the Crucible of Islamic Technology
A medieval site of massive industry: the once-booming and cosmopolitan city of Raqqa, on the banks of the Euphrates, Syria
Iceland, Archaeology of Fishing and Trading Sites
The archaeology of post-medieval fishing and trading sites along the coasts of Iceland
Great Wall of China: Walk Wonder of the World for Parkinson’s
The undulating Great Wall of China is one of the world’s foremost historical sites. The mighty wall runs across the north of the country and was built over 2,000 years ago by the first Emperor of China who feared invasion by those pesky barbarians. Such was the imperial terror, that the Great Wall ranks as [...]
Valley of the Kings, A New Tomb?
A radar survey project in the Valley of the Kings may have revealed a new tomb
World’s Oldest-Known Jewellery
September 6, 2006
Filed Under: Issue 19, News, Middle East
New research indicates that self-adornment seems to be an archaic human trait
Firenze: Fast Way to Save Frescos
Florentine scientists have developed a new tool to help preserve precious fresco paintings
Ano Koufonissi, Greece
Richard Hodges writes from the island of Áno Koufoníssi where he spent time with Lord Renfrew
Rescuing the Past
By Jonathan Tokeley, Imprint Academic, Exeter, £25 Is the tide turning in the ‘cultural heritage crusade’? For a generation or more, it has been the conventional wisdom that objects should be returned to the land where they were discovered. Now the consensus is being challenged. Recently Dorothy King in her book on the Elgin Marbles [...]
Who Owns Objects
Edited by Eleanor Robson, Luke Treadwell and Chris Gosden Oxbow books £24 This consists of nine essays that had their origin in a series of lectures given at Oxford in 2004 with the aim of bringing together dealers and collectors on the one side with museum curators and academics on the other. The opening piece [...]
The Medici Conspiracy
Peter Watson and Cecili Todeschini Public Affairs Books £15.99 This is very much a Cowboys and Indians sort of book chronicling the trial of Giacomo Medici in Italy in 2003 with lots of provocative headlines such as ‘Collectors are the real looters’. Peter Watson is a former writer for the Sunday Times and the book [...]
Winning Cultural Heritage
The Annual European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage / Europa Nostra Awards seek to show how keen the European Union is to promote its ideals of a common European Heritage. Thus in June 2006, 34 Laureates from 22 countries made their way to Madrid to participate in a lavish European Heritage Awards Ceremony. The event [...]
Lebanon
Only a couple of months ago CWA published Dominic Perring’s optimistic feature on Beirut’s archaeology. It was about the 12 year programme of archaeological study that accompanied the post-war reconstruction of the Lebanese capital and was full of references to rebuilding and renewal. At that time, it seemed unimaginable that war would return, but in the [...]
Cranial Suture Closure: useful guide or distraction?
Determining age at death is one of the first assessments made of a human skeleton. In juveniles, this is straightforward: the body is still maturing and the bones and teeth develop on a fairly predictable schedule. But how do scientists assess the age of death in adults? For over 70 years, physical anthropologists have used cranial suture fusion – the rate at which the skull’s plates mesh – as one way to estimate age for adults. Researcher Rose Drew, however, suggests this relationship is hardly so simple. Here she reports on her findings.
Welcome to Current World Archaeology, the magazine that studies archaeology round the world.
