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On an unknown date in (perhaps) the 860s, Norse raider Ragnar Lodbrok (or Ragnar Lothbrok) was allegedly put to death in the Indiana Jones-esque manner of being cast into a pit of snakes. Ragnar is a half-legendary character who plundered France and Britain in the mid-ninth century, the heyday of Viking marauders; he’s also the lead character of the cable TV series Vikings. He’s known from Scandinavian sagas, like the Ragnarssona Þattr, which describes Ragnar’s final battle after shipwrecking in Northumbria.....

The general lack of sources about the Picts and their way of life has led to numerous assumptions over the centuries. In the eighth century, during the early medieval period, for example, historians such as the Venerable Bede thought that the Picts emigrated from areas around the Aegean Sea or Eastern Europe and that they traced descent matrilineally, through the mother's side...In the newly published study, an international team of researchers extracted genetic information from eight human skeletons buried in two Pictish cemeteries — seven from Lundin Links and one from Balintore in modern-day Scotland...The team was able to extract...

The medieval era is full of mysterious events, occurrences, and places, with sometimes even entire kingdoms becoming entirely shrouded in the unknown. We will be examining one of these kingdoms today, Pengwern, whose impact on both the history of Wales and the history of England has seemingly only been slight, with this Welsh kingdom's base on the Wrekin in Shropshire, its only known king, Cynddylan, seems to have succeeded in only antagonising his English neighbours of Mercia and Northumbria. However, the fascinating Welsh history of this realm has largely eluded us for the past 1000 years, and today I'd like...

Archaeologists in Scotland shed "genuine tears" upon discovering a stone covered with geometric carvings that the Picts, the Indigenous people of the region, designed about 1,500 years ago.The team unexpectedly found the 5.5-foot-long (1.7 meters) carved stone while doing a geophysical survey in Aberlemno, a village with Pictish roots. The stone has several geometric shapes showing abstract Pictish symbols, such as triple ovals, a comb and mirror, a crescent and double discs. Some of the carved symbols overlap, suggesting that they were carved in different time periods, the researchers said.It's unclear what all of the symbols mean, but the "best...

Studies by Archaeologists from the Royal Agricultural University (RAU) and Wessex Archaeology, suggests that the Anchor Church Caves in Derbyshire, England, was the home of a deposed Anglo-Saxon King.The caves were carved from the Keuper Sandstone outcrop, close to the present-day village of Ingleby, and had previously been thought to have been an 18th century folly...Edmund Simons, a research fellow at the Royal Agricultural University said: “This makes it probably the oldest intact domestic interior in the UK – with doors, floor, roof, windows etc – and, what’s more, it may well have been lived in by a king who...

Macbeth was a king of the Scots whose rule was marked by efficient government and the promotion of Christianity, but who is best known as the murderer and usurper in William Shakespeare's tragedy. Shakespeare's Macbeth bears little resemblance to the real 11th century Scottish king. Mac Bethad mac Findláich, known in English as Macbeth, was born in around 1005. His father was Finlay, Mormaer of Moray, and his mother may have been Donada, second daughter of Malcolm II. A 'mormaer' was literally a high steward of one of the ancient Celtic provinces of Scotland, but in Latin documents the word...

MORE than 70 Roman skeletons were discovered on the site of a former hotel in York. The grade two listed building, formerly the Newington Hotel in Mount Vale Drive, overlooks Knavesmire and has been stripped back by developers to create seven new family houses. During the renovation of the Georgian building, developers were surprised to find human remains, and the York Archaeological Trust were called in to assist with the recovery. Developer John Reeves said the development had retained most of its original Georgian features, but the scheme had also involved some "interesting" elements. He said: "The refurb has not...

The Viking Great Army's arrival in 865 was recounted in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:.. According to the Chronicle, the Vikings spent years campaigning through the territory of the four Anglo-Saxon kingdoms -- East Anglia, Mercia, Northumbria, and Wessex... By 880, all the kingdoms had fallen to the Vikings except Wessex, with which they made peace... Excavations conducted [at Repton, the capital of Mercia] between 1974 and 1993 by Martin Biddle and his late wife, Birthe Kjolbye-Biddle, had revealed a small, heavily defended enclosure covering just an acre or two... some experts took these findings to suggest that the Great Army was...

Hunting for Hadrian Published on 25/01/2007 HISTORIANS hope to unearth evidence that Roman emperor Hadrian once stayed in a fort along the magnificent wall bearing his name. Archaeologists will be digging along Hadrian’s Wall this summer in an attempt to confirm speculation about why and when it was built. They hope their work at Vindolanda in Northumbria will prove that the emperor once stayed there on a visit to the wall, as well as unlocking secrets about the Roman army and people’s political and social lives. The 73-mile stone barrier – stretching east to west from the River Tyne to...

A new exhibition revealing the history of the palace of the ancient kings of Northumbria has opened in Durham. The exhibition, entitled Yeavering: rediscovering the landscape of the Northumbrian Kings, is now open at the Old Fulling Mill Museum of Archaeology on the Banks in Durham City. Known only from the 7th Century writings of the Venerable Bede, Ad Gefrin, the palace of the Anglo-Saxon kings in Northumbria, was little more than a legend until archaeologist Brian Hope-Taylor began work at the site of Yeavering in North Northumberland in the 1950s. It was in 1949 that aerial photography revealed the...