Fast and Feast – Christianization through the Regulation of Everyday Life
This article will illustrate that an important part of rulers’ wish to create a Christian society was the introduction of Christian legislation.
Women’s Devotional Bequests of Textiles in the Late Medieval English Parish Church, c.1350-1550
My investigation is set within the context of the current high level of interest in the workings of the late medieval parish.
Rethinking Hardown Hill: Our Westernmost Early Anglo-Saxon Cemetery?
This paper reassesses the early Anglo-Saxon assemblage from Hardown Hill, Dorset. Wingrave excavated the objects in 1916 but apart from his 1931 report, and Evison’s 1968 analysis, there has been little subsequent discussion.
The cultural identity of medieval Silesia: the case of art and architecture
The cultural identity of architecture and visual arts of the Middle Ages in Silesia can be analyzed in the following frameworks: 1.) the distinct formal features of local artwork; 2.) the specific content expressed through it. Macro factors (the type of materials and their availability) are important in architecture, as are architectural patterns and styles.
Death as an architect of societies Burial and social identity during the Viking Age in South-western Scania
In my opinion, the mono-cultural Viking Age is largely the product of one past social group, that had imposed on us their narration about the events, through production of tangible and durable monuments and sources. If analysis of the past should be of any value, it needs to be not only specifically spatially located, but also socially located.
The Identity of the St Bees Lady, Cumbria: An Osteobiographical Approach
USING AN OSTEOBIOGRAPHICAL approach, this contribution considers the identity of the woman found alongside the St Bees Man, one of the best-preserved archaeological bodies ever discovered. Osteological, isotopic and radiocarbon analyses, combined with the archaeo- logical context of the burial and documented social history, provide the basis for the identifica- tion of a late 14th-century heiress whose activities were at the heart of medieval northern English geopolitics.
Early Medieval Ireland: New Perspectives
Finbar McCormick examines the archaeological research being carried out in Ireland, including early medieval burials, monastic sites and ringforts.
Tomb of Vlad the Impaler may have been found in Italy
Researchers from Estonia believe that the remains of Vlad III, better known as Vlad the Impaler, are buried in a church in Naples, Italy.
A Grave Revisited: On Grave Robbery in Viking Age Iceland
Are they broken into for social or religious reason or perhaps for simpler reasons of plunder?
Like Father Like Son? Henry III’s Tomb at Westminster Abbey as a Case Study in Late Thirteenth-Century English Kingship
Who was this king, and who made this grand monument to him? An inscription around the edge of the upper tomb chest identifies its occupant as Henry III, the English king who died in 1272 after a reign of fifty-six years.
10th-century Viking king may have been discovered in Scotland
These might be the remains of Olaf Guthfrithsson, King of Dublin and Northumbria from 934 to 941.
‘Warrior-women’ in Viking Age Scandinavia? A preliminary archaeological study
This paper seeks to provide a new contribution to the debates on Viking Age women by focusing on a rather controversial notion of ‘female warriors’. The core of the article comprises a preliminary survey of archaeological evidence for female graves with weapons (axes, spears, swords and arrowheads) from Viking Age Scandinavia.
‘Vampire’ skeleton discovered in Poland
Archaeologists working in northwestern Poland have unearthed the remains of man who was buried with a rock jammed into his jaw and a stake driven into his leg.
Archaeologists discover London’s Black Death mass grave
Skeletons discovered last year in London were victims of the Black Death, according to new research announced yesterday. Furthermore, archaeologists believe that have found an emergency burial ground created in 1348 for victim of the pandemic.
Writing conquest: traditions of Anglo-Saxon invasion and resistance in the twelfth century
Writing Conquest examines the ways in which Latin, Old English, and Middle English twelfth-century historical and pseudo-historical texts remembered and reconstructed three formative moments of Anglo-Saxon invasion and resistance…
Medieval Mass Grave discovered underneath the Uffizi Gallery in Florence
Workers doing renovations at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy have uncovered what seems to be the remains of a mass grave from the fifth-century AD.
Bright Beginnings: Jewish Christian Relations in the Holy Land, AD 400-700
This paper shows that Christian and Jewish relations in the Holy Land between the fourth and seventh centuries, according to the archaeological evidence, were characterized by peaceful co-existence.
Remains of Blanche Mortimer discovered in lead coffin
The discovery of a body inside a church memorial has caused amazement in the world of archaeology and surprised experts.
‘Royal’ pediculosis in Renaissance Italy: lice in the mummy of the King of Naples Ferdinand II of Aragon (1467-1496)
Pediculosis seems to have afflicted humans since the most ancient times and lice have been found in several ancient human remains. Examination of the head hair and pubic hair of the artificial mummy of Ferdinand II of Aragon (1467-1496), King of Naples, revealed a double infestation with two different species of lice…
A Reburial fit for a King
An Oxford University academic has put together an authentic order of service for the planned reburial of Richard III.
Viking slaves were beheaded and buried as grave gifts, archaeological find suggests
An archaeological research project on the northern Norwegian island of Flakstad has revealed new details about the lives and deaths of people who live during the Viking era
Medieval Mass Grave discovered in England
An archaeological dig near Durham Cathedral in England has uncovered at least 18 bodies ‘piled one top of another’ in what appears to be a mass grave dating back to the Middle Ages.
Danse Macabre’ Around the Tomb and Bones of Margaret of York
Over 500 years ago on 23 November 1503, at Malines, in present day Belgium, died Margaret of York, sister to Edward IV and Richard III of England and third and last wife of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, whom she survived by a quarter of a century.
Viking Age Queens: The example of Oseberg
The Oseberg ship burial is a Viking Age burial mound containing a double female inhumation, which is located in the Oslofjord area in Norway.
The diagnosis and context of a facial deformity from an Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Spofforth, North Yorkshire
Osteological analysis of the complete skeletal population identified one individual, Skeleton 177, who presented an abnormal and pathological swelling to the left facial bones. The following discussion describes these pathological lesions and presents a differential diagnosis based on visual, radiographic and histological examination.