Sublime

What the archaeology does not record are the events and emotions around the artefacts, but these are at the heart of ibn Faḍlān’s writing: the extraordinary unfolding narrative that was enacted in and around the vessel for more than a week prior to its burning, ceremonies of which he left the only eyewitness record. For many reasons his account is,

Oddly enough, the potters of the fifth century and beyond did not always use the best materials available to them. The distinctly localized oeuvres within which they mixed their clay and shaped their pottery, reinforced by many ethnographic studies of potters from around the world, suggest that the determinants of form, fabric and decoration were a

Rather like the cathedrals and churches of our own times, many prehistoric tombs and shrines have complex histories. When you enter Maes Howe, for example, you will notice the huge upright stones at the corners of the main hall – these most probably formed part of a pre-existing stone circle, now built into the tomb. It’s also very probable that an

If Celtic archaeology teaches us anything, it’s that the ‘Celts’, through time and from the Atlantic to Anatolia, were culturally diverse. There is no one package of Celtic material culture and behaviour.

the way to Almodôvar, to the small museum that has been created specially to house the stones bearing the ancient inscriptions,

It is therefore still impossible to tell whether the cargo on board was meant as a royal gift, perhaps from the king of Egypt to the king at Mycenae, or whether it belonged to a private merchant, selling goods at the principal ports around the Mediterranean. As hypothesized previously, it also could be purchases made on a long-distance shopping tri