365 Days of Archaeology

The world heritage site of Troy, in modern Anatolia in Turkey, best known from the homeric epics, is today known as the site of nine successive cities dating between 3000 BCE and AD 500.

The Roman baths, in the City of Bath, England, are one of the best preserved roman bathing complexes in the United Kingdom.

A large, bronze, S-shaped trumpet in use by Iron Age Celtic peoples, the Carynx was regularly used in battle to intimidate their enemies.

The Ise Grand Shrine, also called Ise Jingū, is a paris-sized Shinto shrine complex with 125 separate temples that was founded in the 7th century. The Ise complex located in the city of Ise, Mie Prefecture of Japan.

The Saalburg is a Roman fort located northwest of Bad Homburg, 20 km north-north-west of Frankfurt in the state of Hessen in Germany.

Stonehenge is a British cultural icon that is also one of the best known archaeological sites in the world. It is set within one of the most extensive Neolithic and Bronze age landscapes in Britain.

Of the many methods of exploiting fish, weirs are one of the most important to archaeologists as they leave the longest lasting evidence on the landscape.

The ancient Chinese city of Dunhuang, located at a strategic crossroads of the ancient southern silk road, is famed for its art and archaeology relating to historical Buddhist worship.

Roskilde a Danish city with a fascinating history in its own right and whose origins date back to the pre-christian Viking age is most well known for the Danish Viking Ship Museum.

Jórvík, the scandinavian name for the southern kingdom of Northumbria, which roughly corresponds to present day Yorkshire, and also its capital city York, was controlled by a succession of Norse warrior-kings between the late 9th and early 10th century CE.

With a foundation date some time in the sixth century, the monastic landscape of Glendalough (Glen-daw-lock but said kinda fast) is a rich archaeological resource located 35 km south of Dublin.

The largest ever find of Viking Age blacksmithing and woodworking tools was found in the Mästermyr Wetlands, west of the town of Hemse, on the island of Gotland in Sweden.

The ancient citadel, known as the Acropolis of Athens or just the Acropolis, best known for the monumental temples and structures including the Parthenon, is a symbol of ancient Athenian and Greek power and civilisation the world over.

Wolin, a Polish island in the Baltic Sea, has evidence of a human presence from the Neolithic, but is best known as the site of trading settlements from the early medieval period.

The astonishingly beautiful, illustrated Gospel, known as the Book of Kells was created between the 6th and 8th centuries.

The cemetery hill at Valsgärde, in use for five hundred years, provides an unparalleled insight into elite life and death in Sweden during the tail end of the Migration Period, through the Vendel Age, and into the Viking Age.

Today Jelling is a small town of less than 4000 people, however, it is considered to be the site of the the founding of modern Denmark.

Ogham in Old Irish, or Ogham (Oham) in modern Irish, is a writing system that utilizes lines in groups of one to five across a longer, central line, usually carved into stone.

The Antikythera Mechanism is the oldest known analogue computer and was able to track astronomical and astrological movements as well as the four year cycle of ancient Greek Games.

Though considered by some to be the Dark Ages, some aspects of the Early Medieval period produced some phenomenal works of art. Many such works of art made in metal were created in Ireland.

Possibly produced in the Frankish part of Europe, these swords have long been a mystery. Some have agreed that they represent a new technology of crucible steel. However, there are examples of them found that have been pattern-welded, a method which usually indicates a different form of metal production.

Extending between the Iberian Peninsula in the West, Central Europe and Italy in the East, Britain, Ireland and Jutland in the North, and Sardinia, Sicily, and the Balearic Islands in the South the ‘Bell-Beaker’ culture is the most widely distributed and coherent prehistoric ‘culture’ that has been identified in Europe. 

The Pazyryk culture is thought to have been a purely nomadic culture of the Iron Age since it is only identified through burials and associated artefacts. No settlements have been linked to it. These burials are found in the Altay Mountains in Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and Russia, and were placed in long barrows similar to the tomb mounds of the Scythian culture in modern-day Ukraine. 

Prehistoric shellfish exploitation in the Chesapeake Bay This podcast is about prehistoric shell middens in the Chesapeake Bay region on the Atlantic coast of the United states.  Archaeologists use the term midden to refer to trash deposits, and a shell midden is just the result of prehistoric shellfishing.

The Baltic has become a major focus for maritime archaeology over the last three decades with a huge variety of different types of wreck dating from the medieval period to the 20th century in close proximity to each other.

Carcassonne is more than just a board game and is also one of the most well known medieval fortified towns in Europe.

A fulacht fiadh, as it is called in Ireland, or burnt mound as it is known in the UK is a type of cooking pit which usually dates to the Bronze Age (2500-500BCE).

Located in the south-east of modern Zimbabwe near Lake Mutirikwe, the 7.2 hectare World Heritage Site of Great Zimbabwe was the capital of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe which existed between c.1220 and 1450 CE.

Initially uncovered by bedouin shepherds in the first half of the 20th century the Dead Sea Scrolls, also known as the Qumran Cave Scrolls, contain the second oldest dated fragments of texts which eventually formed the canon of the Hebrew Bible.

Bathing was not only one of the most common daily activities in Roman culture but was a highly communal activity that was raised to the level of high art through extensive ritual.

During the construction of a predecessor to the present Chelsea Bridge, over the River Thames, workers dredging the river bed found a large quantity of Roman and Celtic weapons amongst a significant number of skeletons.

Sometimes storms cause nothing but destruction but sometimes they reveal secrets of our past. This is the case of Skara Brae, a Neolithic settlement on the Island of Mainland, part of the Orkney archipelago, North of Scotland.

Melting ice in Northern Norway is revealing more about human activity than ever suspected.

An Early Bronze Age site that just keep keeps on giving.

A linear earthwork along the border of Wales and England, Offa’s Dyke is one of the largest surviving Saxon-era earthworks in Britain.

The Tower of London has an enduring place in the popular imagination as a place of torture and execution, but it is also a World Heritage Site, and fascinating example of evolving castle design through history.

The Swedish island of Helgö represents one of the earliest phases of urbanisation in Sweden.

Most famous for its richly adorned Anglo-Saxon ship burial, probably of King Rædwald, a powerful, early Christian, East Anglian King in the 6th to early 7th centuries, the site of Sutton Hoo has been of unique importance to archaeologists and historians trying to understand the post-roman period in Britain.

A 4th-century Roman glass cage cup, the Lycurgus cup is truly a unique artifact. Depending on lighting, you'll see something different each time you look at it.

Located on the northernmost tip of Newfoundland in Canada lies the only confirmed site of a Viking settlement in North America.

The Hochdorf Prince's grave site is a Celtic burial chamber dating from 530 BC and was adorned with massive riches.

Ireland's County Meath is home to Newgrange, a Neolithic mound with stone passageways and inner chambers.