This week's news from the medievalverse has Anders Winroth talking about his new book The Age of the Vikings, funding for Newport's medieval ship, and Buzzfeed talking another look at medieval images.

Today (September 29th) is also Michaelmas, the Christian feast of St. Michael the Archangel. During the Middle Ages it was an important feastday.

Some recent news on what medieval items people are finding in England and Wales...

Archaeologists working in Norfolk have discovered the remains of a boat which could be as much as 600 years old. The boat was found along the River Chet near Loddon, with some of its wooden timbers, iron and copper alloy nails. The vessel would originally have been about six metres long and would have had a sail.

This is the first time that a medieval vessel has been discovered in Norfolk, according to site archaeologist Heather Wallis. She explains, "We think it dates between 1400 and 1600 AD and is very well preserved. It might have been used for carrying lighter good on the river."

Click here to read reports from the BBC, Beccles and Bungay Journal and Eastern Daily Press.

A group of amateur archaeologists are working in Northampton, where they are doing digs to find remains of the town's medieval castle. John Duthie, one of the organizers of the dig, said in their last search, �We actually found a piece of the castle - a large piece of sandstone. We also found oyster shells and pieces of pottery which look to be medieval. They�re now being checked over by a professional archaeologist and we�re really delighted with the finds. For only a small dig, we found a great deal.�

The group of amateur archaeologists do digs of one-square metre around the site of the former castle, which was torn down in the 19th century so the land could be used for the town's railway station.

You can read more from the Northampton Chronicle and Echo.

The next two articles are a little odd. First, when Ifor Edwards dropped his keys somewhere on his farm near the Welsh village of Bronington, he called in spme metal-detecting experts from the Wrexham Heritage Society to help find them.

Not only did they find the keys, but also 14 coins dating from the later Middle Ages. Mr. Edwards told the Shropshire Star, �It is a once in a lifetime thing. It is such a shock, you just can�t quite believe it. You realize those coins were there before they ever found America or anything. You just can�t believe you�re holding something that is 600 and something years old. We only bought the land three years ago and nothing like this has ever been found before.�

You can read more from the Shropshire Star.

An even bigger discovery was made in a garage in Surrey - an auctioneer clearing out a house stumbled across a ninth-century gravestone. The 1,100-year-old stone is carved with Christian symbols, including an early Christian Celtic-form cross enclosed by a halo, with a panel of geometric carving below.

Guy Schwinge from the auctioneering house Duke's of Dorchester, told the Daily Mail, "Our valuer spotted the grave marker at the back of the garage, partially obscured by cardboard boxes and garden tools. To the untrained eye the gravestone appears insignificant, but closer examination of the carved decoration and detailed research has enabled experts to identify the object as an Anglo-Saxon grave marker, which probably dates from the time of Alfred the Great."

The gravestone has been sold at auction for �4,300. Click here to read more from the Daily Mail.

Ancient artifacts resembling the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient bronze clockwork astronomical calculator, may rest amid the larger-than-expected Roman shipwreck that yielded the device in 1901.


Marine archaeologists report they have uncovered new secrets of an ancient Roman shipwreck famed for yielding an amazingly sophisticated astronomical calculator. An international survey team says the ship is twice as long as originally thought and contains many more calcified objects amid the ship's lost cargo that hint at new discoveries.

At the Archaeological Institute of America meeting Friday in Seattle, marine archaeologist Brendan Foley of the Woods Hole (Mass.) Oceanographic Institution, will report on the first survey of Greece's famed Antikythera island shipwreck since 1976. The ancient Roman shipwreck was lost off the Greek coast around 67 BC,filled with statues and the famed astronomical clock.

"The ship was huge for ancient times," Foley says. "Divers a century ago just couldn't conduct this kind of survey but we were surprised when we realized how big it was."

Click here to read this article from USA Today

Researchers have now assigned a date to the sensational find of a rowboat. The dating cements the small vessel�s position as Denmark�s only preserved medieval rowboat.


Archaeologists in the Danish town of Vordingborg have every reason to be excited.

During a recent excavation of the moat surrounding the Vordingborg Castle ruins, they came across a fallen castle tower and a rowboat from the Middle Ages. The latter has never previously been found in Denmark.

Lars Sass Jensen, who headed the excavation, says that a dating of the boat�s wooden planks reveals that the little vessel was in its prime around the year 1400.

�A tree-ring dating of the rowboat reveals that the wood that the boat was built of was felled around the year 1390. So a good estimate would be that the boat has been sailing around in the moat around the year 1400,� he says.

With this dating, the soon-to-be-opened Danish Castle Centre in Vordingborg can boast of housing Denmark�s only preserved medieval rowboat.

Click here to read this article from ScienceNordic