CWA 137 – out now - World Archaeology

Ramses II knew how to make his mark. A fondness for ambitious architectural projects drove him to build new temples and embellish those of his predecessors. As a consequence, the names and likeness of this remarkable ruler can still be seen across Egypt, more than 3,000 years after his death. Amid the bombastic sculpture and self-aggrandising statements, though, it is possible to catch glimpses of the character of the king. As an exhibition focusing on him visits London, our cover feature takes a look at who Ramses was, and what he did to deserve the honorific adjective so commonly associated with him today: ‘the Great’.

When it comes to siege warfare, the Romans were also willing to build on the achievements of others. The operations conducted by Republican armies borrowed heavily from Hellenistic techniques. An enduring interest in the archaeology of Roman sieges means that there is plenty of scope to compare surviving ancient literary accounts with the evidence from the field, providing a vivid sense of the day-to-day realities of such warfare.

Research into the Late Antique ivory trade is bringing the everyday to the fore as well, by showing that ivory was not just for the production of highstatus artefacts. Instead, more mundane objects also relied on access to the material. The results have implications for our understanding of the quantities in circulation, as well as the impact on the elephants that the trade exploited.

Making elite statements was very much the order of the day at 10th-century Jelling, in Denmark. There, monumental architecture and inscribed texts shed light on how a place that was originally intended to honour the dead became a venue for royal and Christian display.

In our travel section, Richard Hodges returns to a site that made a lasting impression when he first visited in 1973: the monastery on Inis Cealtra, in Ireland.

Finally, CWA is delighted to introduce a new regular section: ‘Every Picture’. Starting here, it will make use of archive images to illuminate the changing face of the past.