A trip to Crete allows Rachel Glaves to delve into the fact and fiction of Knossos. Knossos is hardly an unsung site. Indeed, this archaeological gem comes with a mythology that almost rivals that of Troy. It is no coincidence that Heinrich Schliemann, the maverick investigator of Troy, had designs on Knossos, before being famously […]
Europe
Richard Hodges travels to… Etruria
There are dowsers, whose hazel wands will tremble, not only for water, but also for gold and bronze and iron, even for bones or an urn-full of human dust. Archaeologists have used these mysteriously gifted persons as the truffle-hunter uses his dog or his learned sow, to nose out the buried treasures of ancient cemeteries… […]
Dhaskalio
Situated at the remote tip of a sparsely inhabited Cycladic island, Dhaskalio seemingly had little to draw visitors. Yet they came in sufficient numbers to create a type of settlement previously unseen in Europe. Why?
Travel: a mid-Byzantine mystery on Kefalonia
Sami Redux …I have sailed the seas and come To the holy city of Byzantium. W B Yeats, ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ (1928) The arrival of a parcel from Amazon awakens memories of magical summer days last year. Inside is Brian and Eileen Anderson’s Walk and Eat Kefaloniá, an evocative pocket guide to this Ionian island. […]
New finds from Pompeii
Excavating Regio V and Civita Giuliana Discoveries continue at Pompeii as more electoral inscriptions, fine frescoes, and victims of the eruption of Vesuvius are unearthed, offering snapshots of public and private life in the Roman city. We take a look at some of the finds so far. In Pompeii’s Regio V, a large-scale excavation is […]
Review: Greece in the Ancient World
Greece in the Ancient World Jeremy McInerney Thames & Hudson, £35 ISBN 978-0500252260 Review by: Matthew Symonds The story of Greece from the Minoans to the arrival of the Romans is one of great powers rising and falling, trade networks flourishing and fading, and artistic highs set against the darker work of the arts of […]
Travel: Vela Spila
The millennia-long story of a Croatian cave Magnificent Vela Spila overlooks the town of Vela Luka, which spreads around an L-shaped bay on the island of Korčula on Croatia’s Dalmatian coast. The imposing cavern yawns to accept the visitor down into its depths, where archaeologists from the EUH2020-funded Mend the Gap project have been finding […]
Travel: Ancient Rome’s first responders
Richard Hodges investigates pestilence and climate chaos in the eternal city The trams rumbling along the Viale Trastevere wake me. The bell announcing morning prayers at San Crisogono tolls a little later. From my terrace, I can see the Ponte Garibaldi and the many roofs stretching away to the distant onion dome of Sant’Andrea della […]
Gerace: Philippianus and his rural estate in late Roman Sicily
Few villas have been excavated in Sicily, but recent work at Gerace has revealed the name of the landowner from c.AD 350 to 400, one Philippianus. How much can archaeology tell us about him?
Object lesson: the Pylos Combat Agate
What is it? This masterpiece in miniature is an engraved agate sealstone, measuring only 3.6cm in length. Carved with exceptional skill onto its hardstone surface is a combat scene with such fine details (some barely visible through the veining of the agate) that they can only be seen properly with photomicroscopy or a close-up camera […]
Richard Hodges travels to the Peloponnese
Seeking a Byzantine rebirth All Greece is absorbing and rewarding. There is hardly a rock or stream without a battle or a myth, a miracle or a peasant anecdote or a superstition; and talk and incident, nearly all of it odd or memorable, thicken round the traveller’s path at every step. Patrick Leigh Fermor, Mani, […]
Excavating a Phoenician shipwreck off the coast of Gozo, Malta
The Phoenicians occupied the coast of the Levant for over 1,000 years, but knowledge of their trade network and practices remains elusive. In 2007, an ancient wreck containing a large cache of ceramic containers was discovered off Malta. This ship proved to be one of only a handful of known Phoenician vessels. Since 2014, further […]
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