Ernest Griset in London

I really want you to see these paintings. Made around 1870, they’ve never been hung in public before. They are a wonderful early experiment in archaeological reconstruction illustration, are little known, and need researching – along with their creator. This is going to be a long blog, but the subject deserves it. There are 14 …

The art of animals

Reindeer engraved on a bone from the British Museum’s Ice Age art exhibition, and a white horse carved into a Dorset hillside – both feature on the cover of the new British Archaeology. The horse is to flag up the unexpected re-appearance of a lost dummy for an illustrated Puffin book about chalk hill figures, …

And Richard it was

A press conference revealing research? To read some of the reactions, you’d think it was a panel of bankers explaining why our mortgages had to go up to pay for their bonuses. Unsurprisingly, there was huge interest in the news about the car park dig in Leicester. Yet not everyone was happy about the way …

It’s Richard III! (see footnote)

Richard III (or, perhaps, a skeletal imposter) is giving us an interesting media moment. As has become apparent over the past week, on Monday the University of Leicester (to quote one of its press releases), “will reveal the results of a series of scientific investigations into human remains – which are possibly those of King …

On a portrait of Charles Darwin

Some extraordinary things are coming together in the Wellington Arch in London. English Heritage is getting ready to open a new exhibition in the Quadriga Gallery (The Birth of Archaeology and the Battle for the Past), which opens next week – the first public event in a year of celebration of the Ancient Monuments Consolidation …