Barbaric Splendour: The Use of Image Before and After Rome
Barbaric Splendour: The Use of Image Before and After Rome

Author: Toby F. Martin

Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd

Published: 2020-06-11

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13: 1789696607

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This book comprises a collection of essays comparing late Iron Age and Early Medieval art. Fundamentally, the book asks what making images meant on the fringe of the expanding or contracting Roman empire, particularly as the art from both periods drew heavily from – but radically transformed – imperial imagery.

The Public Archaeology of Treasure
The Public Archaeology of Treasure

Author: Howard Williams

Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd

Published: 2022-09-01

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 1803273119

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Select proceedings of the 5th University of Chester Archaeology Student Conference (31 January 2020) reflect on the shifting and conflicting meanings, values and significances for treasure in archaeology’s public engagements, interactions and manifestations.

The Iconography of Early Anglo-Saxon Coinage
The Iconography of Early Anglo-Saxon Coinage

Author: Anna Gannon

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2003-04-24

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 9780199254651

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This is the first scholarly art historical appraisal of early Anglo-Saxon coinage. Anna Gannon examines the many coins produced during this most vibrant period of English coinage. She analyses their prototypes and explores their sources and parallels with contemporary arts, literature, and theology, setting their meaning in context.

Rewriting History
Rewriting History

Author: Dennis Harding

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-01-09

Total Pages: 427

ISBN-13: 0192549995

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In Rewriting History, Dennis Harding addresses contemporary concerns about information and its interpretation. His focus is on the archaeology of prehistoric and early historic Britain, and the transformation over two centuries and more in the interpretation of the archaeological heritage by changes in the prevailing political, social, and intellectual climate. Far from being topics of concern only to academics, the way in which seemingly innocuous issues such as cultural diffusion or social reconstruction in the remote past are studied and presented reflects important shifts in contemporary thinking that challenge long-accepted conventions of free speech and debate. Some issues are highly controversial, such as the proposals for the Stonehenge World Heritage sites. Others challenge long-held popular myths like the deconstruction of the Celts, and by extension the Picts. Some traditional tenets of scholarship have yet remained unchallenged, such as the classical definition of civilization itself. Why should it matter? Are the shifting attitudes of successive generations not symptomatic of healthy and vibrant debate? Are there grounds for believing that current changes are of a more disquieting character, denying the basic assumptions of rational argument and freedom of enquiry that have been the foundation of western scholarship since the Enlightenment? Re-writing History offers Harding's personal evaluation of these issues, which will resonate not only with practitioners and academics of archaeology, but across a wide range of disciplines facing similar concerns.

Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History 23
Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History 23

Author: Helena Hamerow

Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd

Published: 2023-11-03

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 1803275596

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Volume 23 of Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History (ASSAH), a series concerned with the archaeology and history of England and its neighbours during the Anglo-Saxon period (circa AD 400-1100).

The Spatha
The Spatha

Author: M.C. Bishop

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-01-23

Total Pages: 81

ISBN-13: 147283240X

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Adopted from the Celts in the 1st century BC, the spatha, a lethal and formidable chopping blade, became the primary sword of the Roman soldier in the Later Empire. Over the following centuries, the blade, its scabbard, and its system of carriage underwent a series of developments, until by the 3rd century AD it was the universal sidearm of both infantry and cavalry. Thanks to its long reach, the spatha was the ideal cavalry weapon, replacing the long gladius hispaniensis in the later Republican period. As the manner in which Roman infantrymen fought evolved, styles of hand-to-hand combat changed so much that the gladius was superseded by the longer spatha during the 2nd century AD. Like the gladius, the spatha was technologically advanced, with a carefully controlled use of steel. Easy maintenance was key to its success and the spatha was designed to be easily repaired in the field where access to a forge may have been limited. It remained the main Roman sword into the Late Roman period and its influence survived into the Dark Ages with Byzantine, Carolingian and Viking blades. Drawing together historical accounts, excavated artefacts and the results of the latest scientific analyses of the blades, renowned authority M.C. Bishop reveals the full history of the development, technology, training and use of the spatha: the sword that defended an empire.

Medieval Weapons
Medieval Weapons

Author: Robert D. Smith

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2007-04-20

Total Pages: 504

ISBN-13:

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This fascinating reference covers the weapons and armor used by warriors from the 4th to the 15th century and discusses how and why they changed over time. In the Middle Ages, the lack of standardized weapons meant that one warrior's arms were often quite different from another's, even when they were fighting on the same side. And with few major technological advances in that period, the evolution of those weapons over the centuries was incremental. But evolve they ultimately did, bringing arms, armor, and siege weapons to the threshold of the modern era. From the fall of the Roman Empire to the beginnings of the Renaissance, Medieval Weapons: An Illustrated History of Their Impact covers the inexorable transformation from warrior in the mail shirt to fully armored knight, from the days of spears and swords to the large-scale adoption of the handgun. Medieval Weapons covers this fascinating expanse of centuries in chapters devoted to the early medieval, Carolingian, Crusade, and late medieval periods. Within each period, the book details how weapons and armor were developed, what weapons were used for different types of battles, and how weapons and armor both influenced, and were influenced by, changing tactics in battles and sieges.