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Category: Archaeology News

Sunday Short Takes

A terse round-up this week since I think a cold virus has finally managed to catch me… I’m really surprised it took this long given the exhaustion I’ve had over the past 8 months and the fact that I interact with college students, globe-trotting faculty and research scientists, the general public, and school-aged kids on a regular basis! I guess my immune system just didn’t have enough energy left to fight off this one.

* Conservation plan set to preserve Woking Palace’s future

* Shakespeare first folio discovered at stately home on Scottish island

* Shakespeare’s Buildings

* Conserving Shakespeare

Sunday Short Takes

There were a couple of stories that really lit up my alerts this week, so I chose a couple of representative links. And I just realized that both of these graves were places I visited last year, so I’ve added a couple of photos.


Light projection showing the placement of Richard III’s skeleton in the grave.

* Armchair archaeologists can explore Richard III’s grave in online model – An interactive model of King Richard III

Sunday Short Takes

Sunday Short Takes Mega Edition! This is what happens when I actually have time to do things. (I took Spring Break off at work – although the fact that I was able to mostly use comp time accrued in the last month to take the *whole week* off tells you something…)

More interesting Shakespeare news:

* Shakespeare’s grave scanned in 400th anniversary – Shakespeare’s grave in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford upon Avon has never been excavated, but a scan has been carried out to search below ground. The findings are expected to be revealed in the next few weeks.

* William Shakespeare’s handwritten plea for refugees to go online – Sir Thomas More script is only surviving copy of a play in the bard

Sunday Short Takes

The Sunday Short Takes have accidentally become a monthly thing of late, but that’s just the way it has worked out between lack of enough stories on a weekly basis and my recent work schedule. But I actually had a whole weekend and enough stories today, so here we go!

* The March issue of BBC History Magazine is a Tudor special – it’s on my iPad now just waiting for me to find enough time to read it!

* Getting Clean, the Tudor Way – A historian attempts to follow Tudor hygiene with a daily regime of linen underwear. – Excerpted from How to Be a Tudor by Ruth Goodman – currently on my Audible wishlist 🙂

* Researchers seek Henry VII’s Pembroke Castle birthplace – Details of the exact location of Henry VII’s birthplace at Pembroke Castle could be uncovered by researchers using geophysical techniques. – I’ll keep an eye out for their results!

* It’s curtain-up for

Sunday Short Takes

I had no intention of waiting a whole month into the new year to finally post a Sunday Short Takes, but that’s just kind of how things worked out! So here’s a round-up of Tudor history-related news that caught my eye from the very end of 2015 and the first month of 2016:

* Archaeologists believe Thames gold hoard may have come from Tudor hat – Experts say 12 tiny pieces of gold recovered from the banks of the Thames may have come from a hat blown off the head of a high-status Tudor figure

* Explore Shakespeare

Sunday Short Takes

Even though I had a bunch of articles last weekend, I didn’t get around to doing a round-up post. So, here’s an extra big one!

Lots of Shakespeare news in the past couple of weeks, which I’m sure is just the beginning of the Bard frenzy we’ll see in the next few months leading up to the 400th anniversary of his death in April 2016.

First up – several articles about the recent discoveries in the dig at New Place in Stratford (I admit, I tried to sneak a peek when I was in the town in May but I couldn’t see much):

* Shakespeare

Sunday Short Takes – catch-up edition

Hello all… so the Sunday posts have been a little quiet of late! Things have been very crazy for the past month or so, so I’ve been really trying to take the weekends off from *everything* (except laundry!) and just relax and recharge to tackle another work week. Things are sort of calming down (or, probably more accurately, I’m finally learning some new job duties well enough that they don’t take as much time and I’m not as stressed by them) so I hope to get back into a groove with Sunday posts when there is enough news to post about.

I missed the upcoming books and events for September post, so I’ll mention below a couple of things that would have been in that post. The rest will be in the October round-up.

* Tudor tunes: music at the courts of Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and James VI and I

* First 3D model of church where remains of Richard III laid were laid created by DMU

* Cod bones from Mary Rose reveal globalized fish trade in Tudor England

* Renovation of Tudor chapel at The Vyne begins – More information from the National Trust website: New technology saves exquisite Tudor stained glass

And a few items that would have been on the September books and events round-up:

* The Anne Boleyn Files Tudor Calendar 2016 Now Available

* BBC History Magazine’s York History Weekend 25th – 27th September 2015

* BBC History Magazine’s Malmesbury History Weekend 15th – 18th October 2015

Sunday Short Takes

Finally, enough stories to do another round-up!

* The Roanoke Island Colony: Lost, and Found? – Some new developments in the search for the Lost Colony (one of my all-time favorite historical mysteries!)

* 12 buildings in use today that were around when King Richard III was on the throne

* The story that has lit up my alerts the most over the past week was about the discovery of a pipe in Shakespeare’s garden that tested positive for cannabis that created a lot of “Shakespeare was a pothead” headlines. Thankfully at least one article I came across took a more skeptical view of directly associating the find with the Bard himself: How the Web Got Suckered into Thinking Shakespeare Was a Stoner

* Wanna spend the night at Hampton Court Palace? You’ll have the chance on the night of September 26!

* Another neat opportunity – apply to be in the studio audience for the next Great History Quiz at the BBC, this time featuring the Tudors, on September 8.

And finally –

* A neat video from Historic Royal Palaces demonstrating how they wash their tapestries

Sunday Short Takes

Sorry I haven’t had a round-up in the past few weeks… once again I’ve tried to squeeze too many things into the weekends and some things just didn’t get done. And I’m still working my way through all my vacation photos!

A new project from the University of Leicester archaeology might not have the same fanfare as their Richard III dig, but this one is also relevant to Tudor history interests. Here are a few articles about the project to investigate Bradgate Park, the childhood home of Lady Jane Grey:

* Archaeologists prepare to reveal the secrets of Bradgate Park

* Archaeologists say Lady Jane Grey birthplace is “as good as it gets” as six-week dig begins

* Archaeologists find a hoard of historical artifacts at Bradgate Park

And in more archaeology news:

* ‘Highly significant’ Spanish Armada cannons discovered off coast of Ireland

And finally…

This should probably go in the monthly books and events round-up, but since the event is pretty close I thought I would go ahead and highlight it here in the news round-up. If anyone gets a chance to attend I’d love a write-up!

* Representing the Tudors: An interdisciplinary conference 10-11 July 2015 – Held at the University of South Wales, this conference brings together scholars working in a variety of fields to encourage dialogue between different perspectives and methodologies when engaging with the question of

Sunday Short Takes


Cowdenknowes Estate

I’m finally getting back into the groove of things after vacation!

* Where’s Wolsey? Hunt is on to find the remains of Cardinal Wolsey in Leicester – This isn’t really much of a new story since the topic has come up a few times since Richard III wad discovered, but it’s interesting that it has stayed in the news. I was originally planning to visit the abbey remains while I was in Leicester but I couldn’t really fit it into the schedule. Hey, if they find Wolsey and further develop the site, it would be a good excuse to visit the city again!

* Help save Shakespeare

Richard III Reinterment News Round-Up


Photo: BBC/PA

I’m sure anyone who is remotely interested in the Richard III story has already seen most of these stories, images, etc. but just in case, here is a selection of links from the past 10 days or so about the reinterment that I found interesting. Several are image galleries, because as they say, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’!

* Images from an unforgettable week

* Richard III’s tomb unveiled at Leicester Cathedral

* Picture Gallery : King Richard III reinterment service

* Richard III taken to final resting place after 500 years

* Richard III reburial: Leicester welcomes king’s remains

Sunday Short Takes

Short round-up this week!

* Priceless Royal coat of arms unearthed in walls of 15th century cottage – The stone Tudor coat of arms may have links to Elizabeth I and Henry VIII but had been used as building material in cottage

* Week of exclusive live programming for burial of King Richard III – Details from Channel 4 on their upcoming coverage of Richard III’s burial in Leicester Cathedral

* Richard III gets a lavish send-off

Sunday Short Takes


Medal of Anne Boleyn, the only known likeness from her lifetime and subject of the biggest Tudor news story of the past few weeks

 

Yes, finally, I’ve gotten around to doing another news round-up! The last few weeks have been insanely busy and therefore insanely tiring, so some things fell by the wayside (blogging, laundry, etc.) But now I’m getting caught up, so here’s a mega news dump.

 

The biggest ‘news’ of the past couple of weeks in the Tudor-sphere was the story about facial recognition software that was used on images of Anne Boleyn, which spawned a bunch of articles such as the two below:

* Possible Anne Boleyn portrait found using facial recognition software

* Portraits of Anne Boleyn may not be her, say experts

But it didn’t take long for those knowledgeable in Anne Boleyn’s portraiture to respond with a bit more level-headed analysis than the hyperbolic headlines. A few examples of those below:

* Anne of the Thousand Faces – by Roland Hui on his Tudor Faces blog.

* Anne Boleyn-ollocks – From Bendor Grosvenor on his Art History News blog.

* Update on Nidd Hall Portrait and 1534 Anne Boleyn Medal – From Claire Ridgway at The Anne Boleyn Files, who actually contacted the project coordinator and surprise! – the press got it all wrong.

 

And here’s a bunch of random, interesting articles that I saved:

* Wolf Hall in The National Archives – Nice compilation of documents from the UK National Archives with examples of real-life documents related to events in episodes of the Wolf Hall series.

* Hampton Court’s lost apartment foundations uncovered – A routine maintenance job at Hampton Court palace has uncovered the lost foundations of the splendid royal apartments of two ill-fated queens, Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour.

* Skirret: the forgotten Tudor vegetable – Wolf Hall has unearthed Tudor delights, ignored for centuries the sweet root vegetable has returned to Hampton Court

* Storm washes Armada wreckage on to Sligo beach

* Cambridgeshire church plague graffiti reveals ‘heartbreaking’ find – “Heartbreaking” graffiti uncovered in a Cambridgeshire church has revealed how three sisters from one family died in a plague outbreak in 1515.

* Henry VIII’s evidence to support break with Rome turns up in Cornish library – Book of legal and philosophical advice on king

Latest Richard III Research Results

As promised, here is my round-up of the latest news on Richard III!

First up, I wanted to point to this article about how to apply to attend the Richard III services and reinterment in March 2015. Information on the balloting process is here at the Leicester Cathedral website. If any of you get in, please let us know!

Now, on to the newest results!

If you want to read the peer-reviewed research paper that the results were published in, it is available here from Nature Communications. (I was able to access the full paper from home without my university login, so I expect that everyone should be able to read it.) And here is the official press release from the University of Leicester.

The BBC has a good summary of everything in this latest round of announcements.

And the University of Leicester has a great video summary:

The tl;dr version is that:

1) The DNA tests against a second all-female line of descent confirmed the initial tests (the mitochondrial DNA matched Richard III *and* Michael Ibsen, whose mtDNA was used in the first test).

2) Looking at some parts of the genome gave a probability that Richard III had blue eyes and blond hair (at least as a child, and it may have darkened as he got older)

3) The testing of the Y-chromosome along an all-male line did not match, revealing a false-paternity event

4) A statistical analysis of all of the accumulated evidence shows a 99.999% probability that the skeleton found in 2012 is indeed Richard III.

A few comments from me –

First, these are very exciting results and once again reminded me how much I love it when science and history can work together for a better understanding of our past. That said, I was pretty annoyed that most of the articles in the press focussed on the ‘false-paternity event’ and ran with a whole lot of misleading or down-right wrong headlines – often questioning whether or not Elizabeth II is the rightful Queen (ugh!). The Y-chromosome result was very interesting, don’t get me wrong! But since we don’t even know for sure where the false-paternity event occurred it’s just another historical mystery. There were 19 possible places where the event occurred and the odds favor it happening in the 15 steps that aren’t related to the succession to the throne. And even if it did happen in a place that impacted the Tudors (another popular target in the unfortunate headlines, and related to the current Queen since she is a direct descendant of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York), Henry VII claimed the throne by right of conquest. And even that wouldn’t really impact the current Queen’s claim to the throne since there are many other factors, primarily the Act of Settlement in 1701. I know I shouldn’t be surprised at sensationalist headlines meant to get clicks and sell papers, but it is still so frustrating to see so much misinformation out there, especially when it threatens to overshadow some very exciting results (including the Y-chromosome finding). Okay, rant over. 🙂

Previous Richard III news round-ups:

* September 2012

* February 2013

* February 2013 round 2