Ancient Strangers - The Anasazi
We have a new addition to the gallery section featuring some of our photographs of Anasazi sites. The Navajo named the ancestors of modern Pueblo peoples the Anasazi: the ancient ones, or ancient strangers. They lived throughout the plateau country of the Four Corners area of the American Southwest, where the modern states of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah meet. This region saw dramatic population growth in the period AD700-1130 and, from the C10th onwards, the construction of magnificent, multi-storey Great Houses on the floor and mesa tops (table lands) of places such as Chaco Canyon, and the building of cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde and Canyon de Chelly.
Doorways at Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, USA. Photo © Jean Williamson
Ancient Ivory
For many years, and under very difficult circumstances, Georgina Herrmann OBE, FBA, has been studying, cataloguing and publishing the thousands of carved ivories discovered at the Assyrian capital of Kalhu, modern Nimrud in northern Iraq. Georgina has now brought all of her scholarship together in a beautiful book published by Thames & Hudson to reveal the remarkable story of the ivories to a wider audience. Ancient Ivory: Masterpieces of the Assyrian Empire combines archaeology, art history, adventure and romance. Accumulated in the early first millennium BC by gift, tribute and plunder, the ivories lay forgotten under the accretions of time after the destruction of Kalhu by the Medes and Persians. First redisovered in Victorian times by Austen Henry Layard, the extent of the collection was revealed by Max Mallowan who, with his wife Agatha Christie, excavated at Nimrud in 1949-51. Subsequent research by various organizations including the British Museum and the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, added to this important and breathtaking cache of ancient ivory. Mick was one of the photographers on the Nimrud Ivories Project, and some of his work features on the cover and inside this handsome book.
Head of a Pharaoh from Fort Shalmaneser, Nimrud. Photo Mick Sharp
Rhind Lectures 2017
In May 2017 the prestigious Rhind Lectures, organized by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, were given by Roberta Gilchrist, Professor of Archaeology and Research Dean at the University of Reading. A series of six linked lectures delivered over four days at the National Musem of Scotland, Edinburgh. Professor Gilchrist was kind enough to feature ten of Mick's photographs of Scottish monastic sites in her presentations examining medieval sacred heritage: churches and monasteries, beliefs, identity, magic and healing, memory and myth. A book drawing on the lectures is planned. The photograph is of St Fillan's Pool on the river adjacent to his priory near Tyndrum, Scotland. The deep pool, an ancient bell and a font in the priory were used in conjunction as a cure for lunancy. The pool is said to have lost its healing powers when a bull was thrown into it rather than a human patient. The swirl is formed by birch pollen moving on the surface of the water.
Photo of St Fillan's Pool © Mick Sharp
Bardsey Island/Ynys Enlli: Living in History
The 2016 edition of Across the Sound: The Bardsey Yearbook features a selection of our Enlli photos illustrating my article Living in History. In July and September 1993, Jean and I were on Bardsey Island taking photographs for a photo essay to be included in the book Enlli, edited by R. Gerallt Jones and Christopher J. Arnold, published in 1996 by University of Wales Press. We were there again in May 2002, at the request of the then vicar of Aberdaron (Rev'd Evelyn Davies MBE), to take photos of Carreg Fawr farmhouse prior to its refurbishment. As so many people do, we fell under the island's spell. Our new gallery has a selection of photos including some of the key features on the island and a few of its many moods. In 1993 we particularly appreciated the kindness and assistance of Dafydd Thomas (Bardsey Island Trust officer), and Gwydion Morley (Trust warden/caretaker) and Kim Atkinson whose paintings grace some of the pages of the Enlli book.
Photo of Bardsey Island Lighthouse © Mick Sharp
New Print Available
Jean has just added her giclée print of the Rocky Valley Labyrinth carving to our sales page. Check out page 4 of our gallery "Prehistory - Religious & Ceremonial (colour)" for more info about this site.
Photo of Rocky Valley Labyrinth © Jean Williamson
Ancient Britain & Roman Britain OS Maps
The Ordnance Survey has published new editions of their extremely useful guide-maps to sites in Ancient & Roman Britain. I'm delighted to say that two of my photographs have been used on the front covers.
Merrivale Stone Row & Portchester Castle © Mick Sharp
Maps/Design © Ordnance Survey
Editor's Choice
Mike Pitts featured Mick's letter & photo about the remarkable Amelia Edwards as his "Editor's Choice" in the March/April 2016 issue of British Archaeology magazine (www.archaeologyUK.org):
"I was particularly pleased to see Victorian writer, collector and trailblazing archaeologist, Amelia Blanford Edwards, given full credit in the article on the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology (Nov/Dec 2015/145) for her inspirational work. An intrepid traveller, Edwards wrote A Thousand Miles up the Nile (1877) and supported the researches of Flinders Petrie and Howard Carter, both blue-plaque recipients. Edwards joined them recently with a blue plaque at 19 Wharton Street, Islington, a Grade II-listed building where she lived in the 1850s. She died at Weston-super-Mare on the 15th of April, 1892. Her grave is in the churchyard of St Mary the Virgin, Henbury, Bristol, appropriately capped by an ankh, ancient Egyptian symbol of life (soul). Knowing nothing of Edwards’ history, I stumbled across her grave in October 1993 while photographing the head- and foot-stone of 18-year-old freed slave Scipio Africanus (d 1720). It is good to see Edwards receiving her due."
Photo of Amelia's Grave, Henbury Churchyard © Mick Sharp
Hillforts of the Iron Age
Archaeology Magazine is published online and in print by the Archaeological Institute of America. Eric A. Powell writes a Letter From...... various parts of the world. His November/December 2015 letter looks at the magnificent hillforts strung out along the Clwydian Range in Denbighshire and Flintshire, North Wales, with particular reference to ongoing investigations at Moel-y-Gaer (Bodfari) and Penycloddiau. A couple of our photos have been used along with aerial views, excavation pictures and a night-time intervisibility experiment.
Glastonbury Abbey
An important new volume was published this autumn (2015) by the Society of Antiquaries of London. Edited by Roberta Gilchrist, FSA, & Cheryl Green, leading a wide-ranging team of expert contributors, Glastonbury Abbey: archaeological investigations 1904-79 makes available results from thirty-six seasons of 20th century archaeological excavations along with modern research and interpretations. A huge amount of work has gone into this excellent and most useful account of one of Britain's most iconic sites. One of my photos of the abbey features on the front cover and a view of the Tor on page 53. Several of our pix are also to be used in new displays at the Abbey Museum.
Tomen y Mur
The Snowdonia National Park Authority is improving the access to Tomen y Mur - a spectacular Roman military complex and Norman motte - above Trawsfynydd. As well as possessing a remarkable range of earthworks, the site also features in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi Welsh hero tales. We spent an enjoyable day taking photographs to help with the reconstruction drawings and information panels.
Photo of Roman fort topped by Norman motte © Mick Sharp
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