Yoda in a 14th century manuscript?

Just a short post today, to share something rather wonderful that the good folk at Irish Archaeology tweeted this afternoon: it's an illustration from the Smithfield Decretals (also known as the Decretals of Gregory IX), an early 14th century collection of canon law, probably from Toulouse, or at least southern France.

This manuscript has some gorgeous illuminations, but one in particular might jump out at Star Wars fans.

Familiar he looks, yes?

The good people at the British Library have made the entire manuscript digitally available to browse online here. Do go and look - there are some wonderful illustrations.

Visiting the Staffordshire Hoard

Looking along the table where the entire hoard was laid out -
in the foreground are its 86 sword pommels, with other sword
fittings behind, followed by decorative and religious items.

Sometimes being a journalist is a real boon for this little history nerd, getting me access to places I would never normally see. Until recently the pinnacle of this was being invited to attend the press conference where they announced that the human remains excavated from beneath a Leicester carpark in 2012 were those of Richard III, 'beyond reasonable doubt'.

But last week I experienced something that, for an Early Medievalist, was even more exciting: a top-secret trip to Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery to see the Staffordshire Hoard, England's largest collection of Anglo-Saxon metalwork, assembled in one place for the first time since its initial discovery in 2009.

Why, if it was that exciting, am I blogging a week after events? Because until today we few journos, we happy few, who had been summoned to come and see the hoard, had been under strict embargo - such were the security concerns surrounding this unique group of objects that we were forbidden from breathing a word about it until it was safely split up among its normal four homes once more.

An astonishing assemblage

The hoard had been temporarily reunited for a major research project, allowing Anglo-Saxon expert Chris Fern to carefully examine every piece and group together matching fragments, and sword fittings that belonged to the same weapon - and as a single collection, spread out across a black tablecloth, the newly-cleaned and conserved pieces of gold and silver were an astonishing sight. It was actually rather moving to see this extraordinary assemblage with my own eyes, having read so much about it - though less than helpful to be struck speechless at a press conference!

Experts have now
matched sword fittings
from the same weapon

Piecing together the hoard physically has allowed researchers to begin to piece together its meaning, and a wealth of new information has already emerged - we now know that the items were collected over a period of some decades, and that they were probably made in a number of different regions of Britain. This helps to narrow down the hoard's purpose.

The enigmatic 'Mystery Object'. Now
reassembled, the jury is still out on
the intended purpose of this item.

Since its discovery, three main theories have been debated: that it was the war chest of a powerful Mercian chieftain; that it is a spectacular votive offering; or, less likely, that it represents the wares of a virtuosic but ill-fated artisan who stashed his stock for safekeeping but was unable to return to reclaim it later. Now it appears that these items, mostly made up of sword fittings roughly stripped from the weapons they adorned, were plunder, gathered from multiple battles with multiple peoples.

Decorative mount shaped like a bird of prey

What has also become evident, now the items have all been painstakingly cleaned (a delicate task; conservators have been using natural thorns instead of metal tools, to avoid damaging the soft gold), is the extraordinary artistic skill of their creators. Garnets barely 3mm across have been shaped into delicate curves, while some items are decorated with filigree (metal wires soldered onto a plate base) curls so fine that three of them are still not quite the length of a grain of rice.

Sword pyramid, boasting delicately
carved garnets barely 3mm in diameter

There is much still to find out about the hoard, but it is extremely exciting to see its secrets beginning to emerge - and even more so to hear about these developments in person. I'd reckoned on being at the museum for an hour... almost three passed before I could tear myself away.

The hoard team have a fab website here, with lots of photographs, as well as blogs and videos giving behind the scenes insights into their work. You can find out more about visiting the hoard here.

All images copyright Birmingham Museums Trust

Vikings: Life and Legend

Three 12th century walrus ivory Lewis Chessmen gnash their
shields in berserkr fury.  But how vicious were the Vikings?

When I was at uni, my Scandinavian History lecturer was so sick of undergrads asserting that 'Vikings were traders as well as raiders' and thinking that they were the first to come up with that neat little rhyme, that he banned the phrase from our essays. Yet this dichotomy still lies very much at the heart of our image of the Vikings - on one hand we have the blood-and-guts stereotype of marauding monk-murderers, setting out in their longships in search of plunder and cheerfully blood-eagling their rivals, while the archaeological record provides evidence of skilled craftsmen capable of creating works of stunning delicacy, and imaginative individuals who dreamed up myths full of dark imagery and earthy humour, and bleak, ringing poetry.

Copper alloy longship brooch, AD 800-
1050, found in Tjørnehøj, Denmark.
Photo: National Museum of Denmark 

To be fair, there is some truth in the violent stereotype; the Old Norse word vikingr means 'raider' - but it's a specific job description, not a synonym for 'Early Medieval Scandinavian'. The British Museum's new exhibition, Vikings: Life and Legend sets out to balance this picture, by drawing together artefacts from all aspects of life, both domestic and martial.

They have a broad palate to work from - the Vikings ventured as far as North America and served as mercenaries in Constantinople, while Swedish warriors known as Rus settled in Kiev and gave their name to modern Russia - and have exploited this to full effect, assembling a simply stunning collection of objects.

Displays include the poignantly domestic - toy boats and ivory ironing boards - to impressively elaborate jewellery and staggering hoards of plundered booty, chopped up into 'hack silver' and stashed for safekeeping in the ground. These latter finds reinforce the image of the ferocious Viking warrior, though of course the fact that the owners of these caches were unable to return to reclaim them might suggest that their battle-luck had ultimately run out.

Housed within a metal shell, the remains of 37m-long Roskilde
6 represent the largest Viking vessel yet excavated.

More dramatic evidence of what happened when a raid went awry can be found in a low glass case nestled against the great steel flank of a reconstructed longship housing the fragmentary remains of Roskilde 6 - at 37m, the largest Viking vessel yet excavated. Sprawled beneath the glass are a number of human skeletons, arranged as they were found in an old quarry pit up on Ridgeway Hill, Dorset. The chaotic arrangement of their bones testify to their bodies being thrown into the grave, while the men themselves had evidently met a violent end: they have all been decapitated, their heads piled in a heap to one side.

These are some of the roughly 50 individuals, dated to the 10th or 11th century, who were excavated from this pit during the construction of the Weymouth Relief Road. With an average age of 18-25, and isotopic signatures suggesting they grew up in the Viking world (albeit with disparate origins across Scandinavia, the Baltic regions, and Russia), it is thought that this was the crew of an ill-fated raiding expedition, who were captured and executed by local Anglo-Saxons.

Silver Odin figure, from Lejre, Zealand, Denmark.
Dated c.AD 800-1050. Photo: Roskilde Museum.

Equally arresting are the religious items, not least a fabulous silver model of a one-eyed man, seated on a throne with two ravens beside him - surely the god Odin - and a beautiful set of silver figures depicting armed women, perhaps the Valkyries, 'choosers of the slain' who fetched doomed warriors from the battlefield to join Odin's ranks in Valhalla. I was delighted to see that among these is a very recently-discovered example: an unusual 3D version of the motif, with adorably big eyes and a long plait of hair. I understand the exhibition had to be reworked several times to incorporate new finds, and it's wonderful to see so much up-to-date material.

Speaking of new, this is also the first exhibition to be held in the BM's new purpose-built facility. It's certainly bigger than the Reading Room, where exhibitions used to be held, and doubtlessly it is easier to design displays for a big open space than a circular room, but it is also a lot less atmospheric. There is something of the aircraft hanger about this new building, not helped by the fact that the decor is so overwhelmingly grey - though perhaps this is not helped by the fact that so many of the objects on display are also varying shades of black, grey, or brown. The next exhibition to inhabit this space will be Ming China - perhaps a more colourful range of artefacts will dilute this effect somewhat.

Gorgeous little Valkyrie figurine.
Photo: Asger Kjærgaard, Odense City Museums

I also felt that Vikings would have benefitted from a clearer narrative structure - I would be hard-pressed to say which themes the various areas were arranged around - and the labelling in many of the cases is minimalist at best, and absent at worst, but if the design merits only a B+, the contents are definitely A* material. And yes, for those of you worried that the revisionism has gone too far, there are swords and axes on display too.

Vikings: Life and Legend runs until 22 June 2014. Visit the exhibition website for more information.

All photos copyright of the Trustees of the British Museum, unless otherwise stated.

Into Parliament I shall go!

 It never hurts to have friends in high places, and today I took advantage of a rare Monday off to visit a friend who works in the House of Lords. Having lived in London for the best part of 4 years the Palace of Westminster is a pretty familiar sight, but shamefully I'd never made it inside. Until today.

Getting into the Lords is a bit like getting into departures at an airport - security scans for me, and a trip through an x-ray machine for my satchel. I also had to wear the most unflattering photo ID I've ever had the pleasure of hanging round my neck for the day - I was talking at the time it was taken, so I can't say I was unhappy that at the end of the day I had to surrender that gormless portrait at the gate rather than keep it as a souvenir.

Westminster Hall
Image: David McKelvey

From there our tour started, rather unexpectedly, with a trip through the service passageways and carparks - with a bit of impromptu Prescott-spotting en route. There are some fab things to see even in this more mundane environment, though: fixed to on one concrete pillar is a plaque marking where Guy Fawkes was apprehended in his attempt to blow up Parliament, while the sight of a sign marking two parking spaces as 'Peers' motorcycles only' is always good for a giggle.

From there we made our way into Westminster Hall, the oldest building in the complex: a cavernous stone space with a soaring Medieval timber roof and a veritable floor of brass plaques marking historic events. It's an inspiring sight - and also home to both the palace's gift shop, and home to what I'm told is a beautiful crypt, though it wasn't open on the day we visited.

House of Commons

The palace itself is a bewildering warren of corridors, though you can always tell when you have strayed from Commons into Lords or vice-versa due to the strict colour-coding; should the carpet or furnishings switch abruptly from red to green, you know you've wandered into the other territory. Along these passages are committee rooms and other official chambers, sometimes opening out into vast galleries glittering with gilded picture frames and elaborate floor tiles, their walls packed with huge murals and regal statues.

Royal Gallery

Largest of these is the Royal Gallery, which forms the main procession route for the Opening of Parliament, and often hosts addresses by visiting foreign heads of state. I understand Angela Merkel spoke there quite recently, though it was deemed politic for Nicolas Sarkozy to hold his speech elsewhere, decorated as its walls are with images of British victories in the Napoleonic wars.

House of Lords

The culmination of the trip, though, was seeing the Commons and Lords chambers, decked out in green and red, the former with its ornate throne for the Speaker and (now glassed-in) public gallery, the latter home to a great red cushion or 'woolsack', for the Lord Speaker. This cushion lies in front of an even more elaborate throne, where the monarch sits during the State Opening of Parliament, and I was amused to learn that the eldest child of any serving member of the House of Lords is entitled to sit on the steps of the throne to watch proceedings in session.

Before it was time to go, I was offered the chance to get a bite to eat - and instead of one of the fancy Lords' restaurants, we opted to eat in the canteen beside the Press Gallery - I've always wanted to know what it's like to be a lobby journalist. And it turns out it's cheap and cheerful, but still much more comfortable than your average cafeteria. Very cheap, in fact; a roast lamb lunch cost less than £3. Maybe the politicians hope that well-fed journalists will write friendlier stories about them!

All images copyright UK Parliament unless otherwise stated

Britain: One Million Years of the Human Story

Dating back 850,000-950,000 years, these ancient footprints
 recently found at Happisburgh on the Norfolk coast are the
earliest-known human tracks yet identified outside Africa.

These days we Brits define ourselves very much as an island nation, but until about 6,000 years ago we were connected to Continental Europe by a broad land bridge, allowing humans and animals to roam back and forth. Not that this was an easy place to settle - archaeological evidence tells a story of multiple waves of would-be colonists making their way to these shores, only to be driven back or wiped out by dramatic climate change or advancing ice sheets.

Finally, as the ice sheets withdrew for the last time in around 12,000 BC, a group of migrants were able to cling on, and it is from these prehistoric pioneers - thought to represent the 10th attempt to settle here - that our current population is descended. Compared to our Continental neighbours, then, we are relative newcomers - though archaeological evidence for human activity in this country goes back much further - as much as 1 million years, in fact.

Right now, the most important area of research in this field is a cluster of Palaeolithic sites near the modern village of Happisburgh (Haze-burra) on the North Norfolk coast. Now, as a Norfolk girl myself I could be accused of bias, but this spot is honestly pretty spectacular. It's been in the press most recently because its cliffs are eroding frighteningly fast - you might remember seeing dramatic photos of Happisburgh's outermost houses balanced precariously on the brink of sliding into the sea - talk about living on the edge!

Excavating 'Happisburgh 3', home to the
earliest stone tools yet found in Britain.

But (small comfort to the villagers, granted) the crumbling cliffs have an archaeological silver lining: the erosion has also exposed layers of glacial deposits dating back hundreds of thousands of years. These are thick bands of sediments laid down at a time when Happisburgh lay not on the coast but about 15 miles inland, in a fertile river valley - and within them archaeologists have found animal bones from long-extinct species, plant remains, and the earliest-known manmade stone tools yet found in Britain.

Dating back 850,000-950,000 years, they are significantly earlier than the previous record-holders, found at Pakefield in Suffolk (700,000 years old), and older still than our earliest-known human remains: a few fragmentary bones found at Boxgrove, West Sussex, which date back a mere 500,000 years.

This prehistoric landscape also holds more tangible traces of these early settlers: earlier this year, high tides stripped back layers of sand from the beach below the cliffs to reveal ancient peat deposits, speckled with human footprints. At least 49 prints have been identified, made by at least five individuals, both adults and children - perhaps a family group.

A very friendly
Neanderthal

This research - spearheaded by the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain (AHOB) project - forms the core of the Natural History Museum's wonderful new exhibition, Britain: 1 million years of the human story. After opening with displays and videos exploring these latest exciting developments, winding themed areas draw you back in time, introducing the different hominin species that have inhabited Britain at various times - Homo sapiens (us), Homo heidelbergensis, Neanderthals, and Homo Antecessor (this latter group likely the ones who left behind their tools and tracks at Happisburgh) - and what we can learn about these early settlers from the objects and physical remains that they left behind.

Boxgrove
tibia

What makes this exhibition truly special is that it brings together all the most important early human fossils in one place - for an archaeology enthusiast, it's like being in a gallery full of celebrities,and I confess I did feel a little starstruck. To name-check but a few, you an see a tibia from Boxgrove - one of our earliest-known hominin fossils, likely from a H. Heidelbergensis - as well as the controversial Kent's Cavern maxilla, a fragment of lower jawbone that was found in a cave near Torquay. Recent re-dating has provoked fierce debate among archaeologists, who disagree both over its exact age, and whether it is the earliest-known fragment of a member of our species, or a Neanderthal. There are fragments of a Neanderthal (or H. Heidelbergensis - another disputed fossil) skull from Swanscombe in Essex, and, laid out in a glass case, the skeleton of the fabulous 'Red Lady of Paviland'.

The Swanscombe skull fragments

Found in a Welsh cave in 1823, this skeleton is an amusing example of how spectacularly wrong antiquarians could get their analysis in pre-scientific times. The discoverer, William Buckland, announced that he had found the remains of a woman from the Roman period, perhaps a prostitute who serviced the legionaries based in the camp above her cave. In fact the remains are those of a young man (the 'Red' bit of the name is because the bones are stained with ochre), and much earlier than Roman - recent radiocarbon dating evidence suggests the bones could be as much as 33,000 years old.

At 450,000 years old, the Clacton
 speartip is the oldest surviving
wooden artefact yet found in Britain.

The artefacts on display are spectacular too - at 450,000 years old, the Clacton spear is our earliest-known surviving wooden artefact, and there is also a fine range of stone tools, and bones carved with delicate animal images. Some of the other man-made items are more grisly - cups from Gough's Cave in Somerset, fashioned from human skulls, have been interpreted as evidence of ritual cannibalism.

Keeping a watchful eye over this part of the exhibition are two strikingly realistic - and very charismatic - lifesized reconstructions of a male Neanderthal and a H. Sapiens. The Neanderthal is short and stocky with a friendly, bearded face, while the rugged, squinty appearance of H Sapiens, combined with the twig hanging from his lips like a roll-up, led us to dub him 'Flint Eastwood'.

A skull cup from Gough's Cave, Somerset

A though-provoking final section explores more recent human migration and our genetic make-up - including the revelation that many of us have between 1 and 4% Neanderthal DNA, while equally mind-blowing are the displays of exotic animal bones - lions, elephants, hippo, hyenas - that used to live in this country. Valley'. Walking through Palaeolithic Britain must have been quite the safari.

Britain: One Million Years of the Human Story runs until 28 September 2014 - for more information, visit the exhibition website here.

All images copyright of the Trustees of the Natural History Museum