"What we wanted to do was to make this about people. When I came into my role, it was exactly at the time that the pandemic began. We built a team, an idea, and a vision through remote work."
The Long Man may be Anglo-Saxon in origin; the shape is similar to the design on a buckle discovered in Kent in 1964 by the archaeologist Sonia Chadwick Hawkes, which probably represents the god Odin (or Woden).
The corrective fluid analysed using light infrared photography revealed a mixture of huntite and calcite, while images made using a 3D digital microscope show that there also are flecks of yellow orpiment, probably to make it blend in better with the fresh papyrus, which would have originally been pale cream in colour.
This project demonstrates the combined power of science, the study of human remains and historical research to discover new information about the six mortuary chests and their occupants which would not have been available to us a generation ago.
A new campaign is aiming to collect 50 objects that sum up Englishness in an effort to move the conversation away from reductive arguments over whether to hang a St George's flag or not. Supported by the Green party politician Caroline Lucas, the musician and campaigner Billy Bragg, and Kojo Koram, a law professor, the A Very English Chat campaign hopes to tackle England's growing social divisions and political polarisation.
An enigmatic coin that someone used to board a British bus seven decades ago is now entering the collection of the Leeds Discovery Centre, following the revelation that it's a bit of 2,000 year old currency from the former Carthaginian trading settlement of Gadir, in modern-day Cádiz, Spain-one of Europe's longest-inhabited cities, settled by Phoenicians around 1,100 B.C.E.
Treasures unearthed by hundreds of archaeologists so far during work on the controversial planned HS2 train line have been shown exclusively to the BBC. The 450,000 objects, which are being held in a secret warehouse, include a possible Roman gladiator's tag, a hand axe that may be more than 40,000 years old and 19th Century gold dentures. It is an "unprecedented" amount and array of items, which will yield new insights into Britain's past, says the Centre for British Archaeology.
It was discovered six years ago by a metal detectorist in a field in Warwickshire. Now the Tudor Heart - a gold pendant linked to Henry VIII's marriage to his first wife, Katherine of Aragon - will go on show to millions after the British Museum successfully raised 3.5 million to save it following a four-month fundraising campaign. The London museum launched an appeal in October as it was keen to save the Tudor Heart, which was discovered by a metal detectorist in 2019,
Two exceptionally rare and beautifully carved Mithraic altars found in Inveresk, East Lothian, Scotland, are going on display for the first time. They are not just the only Roman altars ever found in Scotland, but are among the finest examples of Roman sculpture in Roman Britain. They are also uniquely early in date, having been made in 140s A.D. during Antoninus Pius' reoccupation of southern Scotland, whereas most other archaeological materials related to the worship of Mithras in Britannia date to the 3rd century.
An excavation in central London has uncovered the remains of a boys school complete with artifacts from the students' schoolwork and their playtime. The objects include a slate tablet used as an erasable notebook to practice handwriting, a slate pencil and several ceramic alleys marbles made of decorated white ceramic from the Victorian era. Artifacts related to children's lives are less frequently found than ones relating to adults, so these objects give us a special glimpse into the lives of schoolboys.