The Good Shepherd of Miseeda project investigates remains in a section of the Mahas region in northern Sudan. Centred on a church built around an ancient petroglyph, integrated archaeological survey and ethnographic research trace millennia of cultural interaction, continuity and transformation that shaped the sacred and social landscape.

A mysterious giant has long stood watch from a hilltop overlooking the rocky landscape of Miseeda in northern Sudan, where locals have been said to know of its existence for centuries.

Community-funded archaeological excavations of ‘really important' sixth-century monastery also rewrite story of Lismore

Until recent decades, the monastery of Lios Mòr (Lismore) in Argyll, Scotland, established by Saint Mo Luóc in the sixth century, was attested only via historical references and local traditions. Community-led investigations have now revealed an early medieval cemetery, sophisticated craftworking of international importance and early structures around the island’s parish church. These discoveries underscore the site’s status as a high-ranking ecclesiastical centre of the Insular north-west and elucidate its significance and integral role within the early Christian networks of Dál Riata, offering insights into the material traces of early medieval monasticism in northern Britain in the first millennium AD.

Lios Mòr monastery was once ‘a thriving centre of worship, craftsmanship and learning’

Community-funded archaeological excavations of ‘really important’ sixth-century monastery also rewrite story of Lismore

A major monastic centre? Rethinking Lismore’s place in the ecclesiastical landscapes of early medieval Britain - Volume 100 Issue 413

Cambridge Core - Antiquity - Volume 100 - Issue 413

Until recent decades, the monastery of Lios Mòr (Lismore) in Argyll, Scotland, established by Saint Mo Luóc in the sixth century, was attested only via historical references and local traditions. Community-led investigations have now revealed an early medieval cemetery, sophisticated craftworking of international importance and early structures around the island’s parish church. These discoveries underscore the site’s status as a high-ranking ecclesiastical centre of the Insular north-west and elucidate its significance and integral role within the early Christian networks of Dál Riata, offering insights into the material traces of early medieval monasticism in northern Britain in the first millennium AD.

Community-funded archaeological excavations of ‘really important’ sixth-century monastery also rewrite story of Lismore

A major monastic centre? Rethinking Lismore’s place in the ecclesiastical landscapes of early medieval Britain - Volume 100 Issue 413

A major monastic centre? Rethinking Lismore’s place in the ecclesiastical landscapes of early medieval Britain - Volume 100 Issue 413

The Darband Wall in southern Uzbekistan marks an important political border in the Classical world, yet the dating of its construction is largely relative and contested. Presenting 10 new radiocarbon dates from the wall, the authors argue that construction began in the early or middle third century BC, likely under Seleucid or early Greco-Bactrian rule, while later reconstruction efforts coincide with Kushan expansion around the first and second centuries AD. Early Hellenistic-style fortifications reveal a defensive, and possibly an orientational, shift during Kushan rule that underscores both the strategic significance of the wall and the need for more extensive investigation.

One century after its initial excavation, this article presents the first absolute chronology for the settlement of Karanis in Egypt. Radiocarbon dates from crops retrieved from settlement structures suggest that the site was inhabited beyond the middle of the fifth century AD, the time at which it was previously believed to have been abandoned. These dates add to the complex picture of population fluctuations and the remodelling and reuse of structures at Karanis. Two dates reach into the middle of the seventh century, placing the abandonment of the site in a period of political and environmental transition that changed the physical and social landscape of the Fayum region and beyond.

A tomb dating back to the time the Romans controlled Egypt contains a funerary poem in ancient Greek.

The Mexican archaeological site of Chalcatzingo is best known as a Formative centre, famed for its extensive Olmec-style iconography (c. 900–500 BC). Yet, recent investigations at Cave 19 on the western face of Cerro Delgado provide evidence of continued ritual use into the fourth–sixth centuries AD. Here, the authors examine three painted glyphic compounds, identifiable as part of the Teotihuacan writing system, associated with a fire-blackened shelf arguably used for pyrolytic rites. Interpreted as indicators of place and warrior veneration, the authors argue that the glyphs attest to the enduring significance of the local sacred landscape.

Three Teotihuacan glyphs found in a Mexican cave point to rituals linked to mountains, warriors and death.