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The hoard of silver bracteate medieval coins found by a dog in Poland!                  Source: Dolnośląski Wojewódzki Konserwator Zabytków

Polish Dog Unearths Rare Booty of Revealing Bracteate Medieval Coins

Out on his daily constitutional, a dog in Poland unexpectedly struck gold, or rather, silver. The dog was being taken for a walk by his owner near the city of Wałbrzych in southwestern Poland when he...
This Hanseatic League ship, which may exceed the Bremen Cog for preservation quality, was miraculously discovered 5 feet (1.5 meters) beneath the streets of Tallinn, Estonia’s capital.	 	Source: Patrik Tamm / ERR

Massive Medieval Hanseatic League Ship Found Near Tallinn, Estonia

One of the largest ports in the Baltic Sea, Estonia’s Tallinn Port is also one of the oldest in northern Europe, famous as trade center between Rurik Novgorod and Viking Scandinavia. Yesterday, a 700...
Ukrainian refugees in Ballindooley Castle, Ireland.		Source:  Ballindooley Castle

Ukrainian Refugees Hosted in Historic 15th Century Castle in Ireland

When Barry and Lola Haughian purchased an historic old castle on the outskirts of Galway in west Ireland in 2017, they had no idea that one day they would be opening the castle doors to people...
The other side of this graffiti covered slab at The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem led to the discovery of the beautiful medieval ancient altar.		Source: YouTube screenshot / Reuters

Stunning Lost Medieval Altar Found in the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem

For many years in an obscure back corridor of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City of Jerusalem there was a large stone slab leaning against a wall. The eight-feet-by-five-feet (2.5 meter...
The screen poster for the 1982 film The Return of Martin Guerre.		Source: Erogers148 / CC BY-SA 4.0

Martin Guerre: A Much Celebrated Historic Tale of Stolen Identity

On the 16th of September 1560, in the small rural French town of Artigat, a man named Arnaud du Tilh was put to death by hanging for a most unusual crime: for over three years, he had assumed an...
Saffron has always been a luxury because it is so labor intensive but saffron money was all the rage as a way for medieval English elites to show off until Puritan values began to weigh against this odd currency that was even used to pay the rent!	Source: Marco Verch Professional Photographer / CC BY 2.0

Medieval Cambridge Elites Used Saffron to Pay Rent

The world’s most expensive spice by weight, saffron, has been valued and coveted by many ancient civilizations for a multitude of purposes, and debates over its origins still continue. Worth its...
A researcher holding the bollock dagger that was found at Ypres, Belgium.	Source: VRT

Dropped Your Bastard Sword? Then Whip Out Your Bollock Dagger

If you find the term ‘bollock dagger’ too crude, you could rightfully call this weapon a ‘kidney dagger.’ But that’s how the Victorians attempted to mask the true nature of this horrendous invention...
Facial reconstruction of one of the ancient Scots who may have come from Loch Lomond but  was buried at Cramond. Source: Hayley Fisheer / University of Aberdeen

Ancient Scots Were Sometimes Born Apart But Buried Together

Nine ancient Scots were buried in a mass grave in eastern Scotland some 1,400 years ago. However, a new study in the Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences journal shows they were born in...
Greenland’s Lake 578 site was one of the sites where core samples and other data were taken that showed evidence of a prolonged drought. “Nobody has actually studied this location before,” said study lead author Boyang Zhao, a postdoctoral research associate at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. 						Source: UMass

A Prolonged Drought Drove Out the Greenland Vikings, Says New Study

European Nordic seafaring pirates and raiders, known as the Vikings, would come to Greenland to settle around 950 AD, but mysteriously the Greenland Vikings vanished with the onset of the Little Ice...
The rare St George seal, a matrix seal, found during the Villers-Cotterêts medieval castle restoration project last year.		Source: Serge Le Maho / Inrap

Unique St George Seal Found in Castle Ruins in Northern France

In 2020 the Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs (DRAC) in France’s northernmost region, Hauts-de-France, requested that the country’s National Monuments Center (CMN) begin renovation of an...
Game pieces and board retrieved from the excavation site in Oslo, Norway.	Source: Ida Irene Bergstrøm / Science in Norway

Game Pieces Of The Medieval Norwegian Dope Addicts

Game pieces from the gaming and gambling history of Norway have been discovered in medieval Oslo. So bad did gambling addiction become that the king had to change national gaming laws. An excavation...
The caltrops the Ukrainian Art of Steel workshop has been manufacturing with traditional blacksmithing for the current war with Russia.		Source: Art of Steel

Medieval Caltrop Defense Weapon Coming to the Aid of Ukrainian Resistance

When nations go to war, the most tragic aspect is the disruption and annihilation of civilian lives. International media has been reporting the robust resistance put up by Ukrainian citizens in many...
Reproduction horse armor and linen pierced by an arrow point. Source: Jones et. al. / CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Knights and Armored Steeds: Was Horse Armor Effective in Battle?

Nothing recalls the medieval era in Europe better than the image of a gallant knight in shining armor mounted on a fully barded—or armored—steed. But how effective was such mail horse armor in...
A plaque to the Black Death dead from 1349 and 1369 at Monmouth, Wales.		Source: Jaggery / CC BY-SA 2.0

Was Medieval Black Death Really That Bad? A New Pollen Study Says No!

Black Death is said to have killed over half of Europe’s population. However, a new pollen study suggests many parts of Europe were not affected by the bacterial onslaught. Black Death was a bubonic...
 Medieval exorcism of a woman.

The Exorcism Of Marthe Brossier: The First Exorcism With Scientific Controls

Marthe Brossier was a celebrity in France in the 1590s. She was a woman possessed by demons and her family took “the act” on tour. They went from town-to-town showing off the Satanic entity that...
Researchers from Norway, France, Austria and England were able to use information from SK152 to reconstruct what she might have looked like. Source: Stian Suppersberger Hamre/FaceLab

Ancient Norse Teeth Plaque Helps Explain Pandemics

A team of Norwegian scientists have been tracking the evolution of diseases in medieval bodies. Not only have they added to the understanding of how diseases become pandemics, but they’ve revealed...
The compacted human excrement found inside a medieval barrel toilet at the Old Berwick Hospital site in Northumberland, England.   Source: Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

Medieval Loo and Strange Foundation Walls Found at UK’s Berwick Hospital

An archaeological dig prior to the demolition of the Old Berwick Hospital site, built in 1874 in the town of Berwick in Northumberland, continues to unveil interesting discoveries about the town’s...
The causeway found on Berlin is remarkably well preserved. Source: Morgenpost.

700-year-old Causeway Found Under Central Berlin Street

Located in Berlin-Mitte in the German capital, Stralauer Straße has a storied history which is now known to stretch back to the medieval founding of Berlin in the year 1237. Excavations in January...
Pages from the 15th century medieval manuscript the Talbot Shrewsbury Book.       Source: British Library / Public domain

Lost Lovers and Heroes: 90% of Medieval Manuscripts Have Not Survived

A study comparing the survival of medieval manuscripts and tales from regions around Europe has arrived at some stark conclusions about the preservation of the medieval European past. A vast majority...
Rock cut houses south of Nottingham Castle, with the castle building just visible above. The city of Nottingham predates Anglo-Saxon times and was known in Brythonic as Tigguo Cobauc, meaning Place of Caves (known also as "City of Caves").            Source: CC BY-SA 4.0

Nottingham’s 1000-year-old Man-made Caves Are Focus of Regeneration

A new project has been launched by archaeologists and historians from the University of Nottingham to make the city’s medieval underground cave network the focus of a regeneration plan for the city...
The Medieval Brooch found in Wiltshire. Credit: Solent News and Photo Agency

Thrilled Detectorist Finds 800-Year-Old Brooch with Magical Words to Ward off Illness

Metal detectorists have become important allies to the archaeology community. Over the past few years, several exciting finds of ancient coins, jewelry, tools, weapons, and other assorted metallic...
Mad monarchs usually battled themselves, but internal struggles often led to unforeseen encounters with other powerful forces like dragons!		Source: Dusan Kostic / Adobe Stock

Mad Monarchs and Dragons: Is there Truth Behind the Fantasy World of George R. R. Martin?

There is a saying stating that books are written from other books. Keeping this in mind, new books draw on ideas, aspects and inspiration contained within the pages of other already existing books...
Blue glowing ball lightning, a phenomenon that was reported in medieval times, with the earliest English reference now confirmed to be 450 years before the previous known mention in an English historical text. 		Source: sakkmesterke / Adobe Stock

English Benedictine Monk Describes Ball Lightning in 1195 AD Text!

A pair of academics from Durham University in the United Kingdom have discovered an 827-year-old reference to an unusual weather-related phenomenon in an obscure medieval English text. While...
The Court of Emperor Frederick II in Palermo by Arthur vom Ramberg (1865) Web Gallery of Art (Public Domain)

The Wonder Of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II Stupor Mundi

Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (1194-1250) was known as the Wonder of the World, Stupor Mundi , because there had never been anyone like him; nor will there ever be another to match him. Like many...

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