This paper focuses on a distinctive region of granite ridges and forests in the parish of Hogdal, well north of the World Heritage rock art area in Bohuslän. In the later second millennium BC, a wide lake, left by the receding sea, provided the setting here for an arc of rock-carving sites along its shoreline. A second group of sites lies near the entrance to a major fjord to the south. The two areas contain Bronze Age imagery remarkable for its variety of scale, subject and artistry. The paper describes recording and analysis work undertaken in 2006 and 2007, offers commentaries on changing environments, chronology, site conditions and preservation, and provides a discussion of Bronze Age imagery and society.

Mercury gilding is a well-known decorative technique that was applied to both silver and a range of copper alloys from the third century AD until the introduction of electroplating in the nineteenth century. The process is well understood but, until recently, there has been no good archaeological evidence for it. Excavations in Southampton have discovered two rather different objects that were used to produce gold-mercury amalgam, the first stage in mercury gilding. One is a block of stone and the other a reused amphora sherd. The stone comes from a ninth-century context, while the amphora sherd's findspot is less well dated: it could have been reused in the late Roman or the Saxon period.

Recent evidence for fallow deer at the first-century AD Roman palace at Fishbourne, Sussex, is supported by place-names identifying a nearby deer park and testifying to the presence of fallow deer in Anglo-Saxon Sussex.

Excavation within the Gothic nave of Lichfield Cathedral in 2003 revealed three phases of masonry building ante-dating the Norman period. These are likely to relate to the church of St Peter, which Bede described in 731 as housing the timber shrine to St Chad, fifth bishop of Mercia (d 672). A rectangular, timber-lined pit found on the central axis of the building might represent a crypt or burial chamber beneath the shrine. Buried in a small pit alongside this were three fragments of a bas-relief panel of Ancaster limestone, carved with the figure of an angel. They comprise half of the left-hand end of a hollow, box-like structure that had a low-coped lid. This is interpreted as a shrine chest associated with the cult of St Chad. The sculpture, which was broken and buried in, or before, the tenth century, is in remarkably fresh condition, allowing for an in-depth analysis of its original painted embellishment and for an assessment of the monument in terms of its iconography and stylistic affinities, and thus the possible conditions of its production. It is argued that the surviving portion of the panel represents the archangel Gabriel, and that it is one half of an Annunciation scene.

This paper presents the results of a detailed analysis of surviving paintwork on the chancel arch, the carved animal heads and the figurative panel in the west porch at the Anglo-Saxon church of St Mary, Deerhurst, Gloucestershire, UK. The context of the polychromy in relation to the ninth-century fabric of the church is assessed. The detailed results of the technical analysis are presented. The original scheme of painted decoration is described, including the newly discovered plant scroll painted on the arch. The results of the examination are evaluated, setting the polychrome decoration of the ninth-century church into its contemporary context in England and on the Continent, with special regard to both the technical and the artistic aspects.

Academic study of eleventh- to thirteenth-century high-status residence in Scotland has been largely bypassed by English debates over origin, function and symbolism. Archaeologists have also been slow to engage with three decades of historical revision of the traditional socioeconomic, cultural and political models upon which their interpretations of royal and lordly residence have drawn. Scottish castle studies concerned with the pre-1250 era continue to be framed by a ‘military architecture’ historio graphical tradition and a view of the castle as an alien artefact imposed on the land by foreign adventurers and a ‘modernizing’ monarchy and native Gaelic nobility. Knowledge and understanding of pre-twelfth-century native high-status sites is rudimentary and derived primarily from often inappropriate analogy with English examples. Discussion of native responses to the imported castle-building culture is founded upon retrospective projection of inappropriate later medieval social and economic models and anachronistic perceptions of military colonialism. Cultural and socio-economic difference is rarely recognized in archaeological modelling and cultural determinism has distorted perceptions of structural form, social status and material values. A programme of interdisciplinary studies focused on specific sites is necessary to provide a corrective to this current situation.

The Latin war-poem ‘The Song of the Welsh’ poses problems of dating and origin, as also does the identity of a mysterious ‘Broinsius’ mentioned in it. Yet the last seems to be the fifth-century British hero Ambrosius Aurelianus; while the influence of bardic verse on the poem suggests it is not from thirteenth-century England, but from a Welsh school (perhaps located at St Davids) of similar date.

This paper examines a later medieval small find excavated from Shapwick, Somerset. A multi-disciplinary approach is taken to understand the use of the decorated object, identified as a mirror case, and its symbolic meaning as a possible love when. Comparisons are made with other finds of metal mirror cases from mainland Britain and ivory examples from the Continent with depictions of hunting scenes. The imagery of hunting and hawking is discussed in relation to contemporary material culture in order to identify the socio-cultural significance of this activity and the mirror case.

The recent identification of whale baleen from a medieval archaeological context in Perth raises the issue of what uses were made of baleen in the medieval period. This note investigates the military uses to which this unusual material was put.

The Anglo-Norman French indenture discussed in this paper is apparently the first medieval English building contract to be discovered since L F Salzman published almost all the known examples of this kind of text in the 1967 second edition of Building in England Down to 1540: a documentary history. A short commentary sketches the significance of the document for architectural history.

The aim of this paper is to offer as full a discussion as possible of the best-known portrait of Henry VII. Information from a variety of sources elucidates the context in which the portrait was painted and the nature of its iconography; in particular, evidence is presented to show that the red rose was a symbol of great personal significance to Henry. With regard to the portrayal of Henry himself it is suggested that his face conforms essentially to an approved ‘pattern’ that had been recently reworked and updated, and that the frequently expressed modern view of the portrait as representing a mean and crafty character results from a misinterpretation of the artist's intentions. In a final section attention is given to the question of the identity of the artist, whose name remains unknown.

In Volume 82 (2002) of the Antiquaries Journal, the canopied benches at St Cross were described, along with a discussion of their date and patronage. This paper takes the subject further by suggesting a reconstruction of the layout of these fittings. Conclusions reached in the earlier paper are further refined: the distinctive mouldings on the frieze, benches and desks clearly demonstrate that all three elements are integral to the same work and not added to preexisting benches, as previously argued. Further research suggests that the imagery and style of the frieze at St Cross had little impact on the aesthetic of the works patronized by Bishop Fox in Winchester Cathedral. Instead, parallels are drawn between the St Cross frieze and other modes of all'antica work in France, including the celebrated Renaissance stalls from the chapel of the archiepiscopal palace at the Château de Gaillon (Eure) and the cathedral stalls at Amiens (Somme). It has also become apparent that there is no other extant work in England that directly parallels the frieze at St Cross, and that the nearest analogue is the stallwork from Gaillon.

This paper reports the identification of some fragments of an inscription now preserved in a window at All Saints, North Street, York, as the remnants of a statement of indulgences to reward prayers before a painted image in a window. As far as is known, this is the only surviving glass to demonstrate the proclamation of indulgences in medieval English church windows, although antiquarian evidence of at least one other is recorded.

The intentions expressed in William Sheldon's will of 1570 suggest an attempt to introduce tapestry weaving at Barcheston, Warwickshire. Interpreted in the 1920s as resulting in a commercial venture – the only production centre in Elizabethan England – tapestries were attributed to it without documentary evidence, without stylistic comparison with continental work and without study of the records of émigré Flemish weavers settling in London from 1559 onwards. Their presence and more easily available comparative material, in both documentary and tapestry form, combine W question the previous picture, never revised. On re-examination, the historical evidence used to link tapestries found at Chastleton House with Sheldon's enterprise appears weak. Challenging the time-honoured belief that those tapestries should be regarded as key pieces in the Sheldon corpus also calls into question subsequent attributions made by association, and opens the way for a new exploration of the tapestry industry in sixteenth-century England.

Previously unpublished correspondence and a re-analysis of events call into question William Buckland's description of his excavation of Paviland Cave in 1823, and illustrate why his interpretation of it changed prior to publication in Reliquiae Diluvianae. Buckland appears to have manipulated the archaeological evidence from Paviland in order to support his ‘Diluvial’ theory. A synthesis of the documentary evidence also illustrates the unrecognized contribution made by John Traherne, FSA and others to the development of Buckland's Paviland story. This paper suggests that modern descriptions and interpretations of Paviland continue to be incorrectly influenced by a reliance on Reliquiae Diluvianae and that the reinterpretation of early archaeological excavations might benefit as much from the application of critical historiographical analyses as from the application of new scientific or theoretical methodologies.

Three watercolours painted by Thomas Telford survive within the Society's archives. Two of these watercolours are a plan and sections of an excavation of a Roman bath suite, supervised by Telford at Wroxeter, and the third is an elevation of the medieval Mardol gate over the Welsh bridge, Shrewsbury. The paintings provide an insight into his interest in archaeology and ancient buildings whilst practising as an architect in Shropshire, before he began his engineering career. Further, their deposition helps confirm the standing of the Society at the time, as the place where important archaeological discoveries from across the country were brought to public attention, and how it acted as an archive for their primary records.

Discovered at the height of the Second World War, the Mildenhall treasure has been a cornerstone of the national collections of the British Museum ever since its acquisition in 1946. But the circumstances behind its discovery have always been problematical. Although it is indisputable that it was found by tractor-worker Gordon Butcher, and then hidden away by Sydney Ford, is there more to the story? Archaeologists such as Tom Lethbridge and Gordon Fowler certainly thought so. A fascinating set of documents in the archives of the British Museum, discussed here for the first time, helps to provide the answers.