News Item: Rich Grave Goods Point to East Anglian Royal Family

A remarkable excavation in the town of Exning, Suffolk, England may have uncovered members of the royal family of the ancient Saxon Kingdom of East Anglia. Twenty-one graves with rich grave goods, some imported from the Continent, dated to about 650 AD, point to this possible connection. Here is a link to an article about… Read More News Item: Rich Grave Goods Point to East Anglian Royal Family

Getty Villa Plans to Expand Focus Beyond Ancient Greece and Rome

In an interview published November 3 for THE ART NEWSPAPER web edition, J. Paul Getty Museum director Timothy Potts reveals plans for the Getty Villa to redisplay its exhibits and expands its focus to include broader Mediterranean cultures formative to and related to ancient Greece and Rome including making new acquisitions. Visitors may need to… Read More Getty Villa Plans to Expand Focus Beyond Ancient Greece and Rome

The Aventine Hill: One of Rome’s Lesser Known Treasures

When in Rome, most visitors focus on major tourist itinerary monuments clustered in and around the Capitolium, Forum and Palatine. Yet many Roman neighborhoods are home to very important monuments of the ancient past and it can be well worth the effort to get off the beaten path to visit these. This writer’s favorite such… Read More The Aventine Hill: One of Rome’s Lesser Known Treasures

Assyrian Art and the “Repatriation” of Antiquities

In April of 2013 I published on this blog a photo essay highlighting some of the many Assyrian antiquities in The British Museum (here is the link: https://clioantiquities.wordpress.com/2013/04/13/a-sampler-of-ancient-assyrian-art-at-the-british-museum/ ). Little could anyone have known at the time that a gang of fanatics and thugs, referred to now under the English language acronyms ISIS or ISIL,… Read More Assyrian Art and the “Repatriation” of Antiquities

UK Portable Antiquities Scheme Releases 2013 Annual Report

The UK’s Department of Culture, Media and Sport, along with The British Museum, have issued the Portable Antiquities Scheme’s 2013 Annual Report. The Report shows how, more than ever,  this model of public participation in the finding and recording of archaeological data can have huge benefits to finders, museums and the broader base of archaeological… Read More UK Portable Antiquities Scheme Releases 2013 Annual Report

Blog for the new exhibition “Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age”

This blog accompanies the exhibition Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age, on view from September 22, 2014, through January 4, 2015 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Both the exhibition page on the Met’s website and the Blog that accompany it – http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2014/assyria-to-iberia/blog – are packed with information… Read More Blog for the new exhibition “Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age”

Antiquities at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford: A Photo Essay

Visitors with a special interest in antiquities will be stunned when visiting the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University, not only because of the great quality of ancient art and artifacts on view but also because of the key role that many of these objects have played in the development of fields such as archaeology and… Read More Antiquities at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford: A Photo Essay