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Sunday 13 May 2012

Glastonbury Abbey excavations reveal Saxon glass industry

Professor Roberta Gilchrist, from the Department of Archaeology, has re-examined the records of excavations that took place at Glastonbury in the 1950s and 1960s.
Glass furnaces recorded in 1955-7 were previously thought to date from before the Norman Conquest. However, radiocarbon dating has now revealed that they date approximately to the 680s, and are likely to be associated with a major rebuilding of the abbey undertaken by King Ine of Wessex. Glass-making at York and Wearmouth is recorded in historical documents in the 670s but Glastonbury provides the earliest and most substantial archaeological evidence for glass-making in Saxon Britain.
The extensive remains of five furnaces have been identified, together with fragments of clay crucibles and glass for window glazing and drinking vessels, mainly of vivid blue-green colour. It is likely that specialist glass workers came from Gaul (France) to work at Glastonbury. The glass will be analysed chemically to provide further information on the sourcing and processing of materials.

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Thursday 3 May 2012

The Easter Controversy of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Its Manuscripts, Texts, and Tables

The Easter Controversy of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Its Manuscripts, Texts, and Tables


2010 saw the publication of the Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on the Science of Computus in Ireland and Europe, which took place in Galway, 14–16 July, 2006. That first collection, which had the sub-title Computus and its Cultural Context in the Latin West, AD 300–1200, brought together papers by ten of the leading scholars in the field, on subjects ranging from the origins of the Annus Domini to the study of computus in Ireland c. 1100. All those who participated in the Conference were unanimous that a second, follow-up event should be organized, and that duly took place (also in Galway), 18–20 July, 2008. The proceedings of that Conference are published in this current volume.
The topics covered in the 2nd Galway Conference ranged from the general – but vitally important – vocabulary of computus (i.e., the technical terminology developed by computists to describe what they were doing) to the origins of the different systems used to calculate the date of Easter in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. In addition, there was discussion also of the great debates about Easter, epitomized by the famous Synod of Whitby in AD 664, and the role of well-known individuals in the evolution of computistical knowledge (e.g., Anatolius of Laodicea, the African Augustalis, Sulpicius Severus, Victorius of Aquitaine, Cassiodorus, Dionysius Exiguus, Willibrord, the ninth-century Irish scholar-exile, Dicuil, as well as the late-tenth century Abbo of Fleury).

 The Easter Controversy of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Its Manuscripts, Texts, and Tables

Discover your genetic ancestors - Irish Times

Discover your genetic ancestors
 
WHOSE BLOOD courses through your veins? Could you be a descendant of a Viking warrior or a Berber pirate? Or perhaps you are related to the Uí Neill chieftains or the kings of Laighin (Leinster)?
If so your genes will carry the proof, and a new company set up by scientists offers a service that can reveal your genetic heritage.
Today sees the launch of “Ireland’s DNA”, a direct to customer genetic ancestry service. “We are planning it as a national project. The more people that get involved, the more we can understand about Irish history from the resulting dataset,” says Dr Gianpiero Cavalleri, one of three founders of the company....

 Discover your genetic ancestors 

Wednesday 2 May 2012

New Oxford University Press e-Catalogues

Oxford University Press is delighted to introduce their NEW interactive e-catalogue for History titles publishing in 2012. View the new History 2012 e-catalogue