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CWA 64

2 mins read

CWA64_COVEROur cover feature reads like detective fiction: archaeologists come across a pharaoh’s sarcophagus stolen in antiquity that leads them to the discovery of the tomb of an unknown king of a long-forgotten Egyptian dynasty. Dr Josef Wegner and his team from Penn Museum have found the archaeological evidence to substantiate a recent theory that there once was a third kingdom of Egypt at Abydos between Memphis and Thebes, and in so doing they have re-written Egyptian history.

In Romania, rescue excavations have revealed the country’s largest Bronze Age necropolis and archaeological evidence for the ceremonies described so vividly in Homer’s epic poem The Iliad.

Andrew Robinson takes another look at the enduring riddle of the Indus Valley script. Its enigmatic symbols continue to intrigue scholars of this long-lost language. Will the code ever be cracked?

A short walk from Rome’s city centre lies an unusual hill: it is made up of broken pieces of pottery inscribed with the minutiae of business transactions that recount 300 years of trade across the Mediterranean at the beginning of the 1st millennium AD.

Across the other side of the world, we discover the archaeological remains that bear witness to the trials and tribulations of the first Christian missionaries to venture onto the remote shores of Tanna, a tiny island that forms part of the archipelago of Vanuatu.

How did people live in Pompeii? And how did they – rich and poor – live in
the Egyptian city of Amarna? It is rarely possible to get down close to the lives of people in the past, but at Pompeii and Amarna, Andrew Selkirk provides a close-up view of how they really lived.

IN THIS ISSUE

FEATURED

EGYPT: Kings of Abydos Solving the mystery of the stolen sarcophagus, and finding the unknown pharaoh of a lost dynasty

ROMANIA: Păru Unravelling the secrets of the dead in Romania’s largest Bronze Age cemetery

INDUS VALLEY: The Indus Script A new look at an old riddle

ITALY: Monte Testaccio Excavating an amphora mountain in Rome

VANUATU: Tanna Missionaries and converts in the South Pacific

EGYPT AND ITALY: Amarna vs Pompeii, part 2 Living and working in the city

NEWS

Infant sacrifice at Carthage

Submerged Sweden

Controlling fire

800,000-year-old footprints

An odd egg at Sardis

Climate and decline of the Indus Valley civilisation

Royal Roman hoard in Germany

Uffizi plague casualties

Bog body is Inca murder victim

NEWS FOCUS

Nunalleq: Defrosting Alaska’s past

SPECIAL REPORT

Peru: using past technologies to solve future problems

CHRIS HIGHAM

Revelry and revelations at the IPPA

CWA PHOTO COMPETITION RESULTS

Photo of the Year award wimers 2014.

TRAVEL

CENTRAL AMERICA   Sky High: Venturing into Maya territory

CROATIA  Salona: home of an emperor and a saint

AMERICA  Richard Hodges travels to the Florida Keys

CULTURE

MUSEUM

Aztecs at the Melbourne Museum

REVIEWS

Climate Change Archaeology: building resilience from research in the world’s coastal wetlands by Robert Van de Noort

Early Mainland Southeast Asia: from first humans to Angkor by Charles Higham

Constantinople: archaeology of a Byzantine megapolis by Ken Dark and Ferudun Özgümüs

Ancient Economies of the Northern Aegean: fifth to first centuries BC by Zosia Halina Archibald

Vikings: life and legend edited by Gareth Williams, Peter Pentz, and Matthias Wemhoff

CHRIS CATLING

Neanderthal Genes and Frank Sinatra

OBJECT LESSON

The Gjermundbu Helmet, from Norway

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