The Medieval Hindu temples of Puri, Rhubaneswar and Konark are promoted as Orissa's version of northern India's ‘Golden Triangle’ of Agra, Fatehpur Sikri and Jaipur. One of the less affluent States in India, Orissa stands to benefit from tourism (FIGURE 1). The promotion seeks to appeal to all Indians and foreigners and also to prompt an image of Orissa as a distinct region. Such duality is typical among the diversity of community, ethnic, communal, federalist and national values at issue in India (Chatterjee 1993: 75).

Cultivation of the temples is nothing new. Whatever the original purposes of icons, significance is ascribed, not simply inherent. It depends on economic or political interest and context (Cohen 1985). Harrison (1999) has argued that images of ethnicity tend to be defended as if at risk of pollution or theft by outsiders. Under the influence of European ideology, the commonest symbol for ethnic or nationalist aspiration is language but religion and other markers of culture have been used too (Smith 1981). Other than religion, one of the criteria for invoking the temples is the discipline of archaeology. However, archaeology too is a Western conceptual idiom (Cohn 1983: 209). Although literacy — including in the ‘English medium’ — is spreading, archaeology is not appreciated by everyone in Orissa. Partly for that reason, there have been various views as to how the temples should be presented and to whom.

A recent re-examination of the architectural and other sculpted stone fragments from Silchester (Calleva Atrebatum) drew attention to the small sandstone column on which is scored an ogham inscription. The commonest materials used for columns, capitals and ornamental sculpture at Silchester are the fine Jurassic limestones of Bath or Portland type. A very few pieces are carved intertiary sandstones or imported marble. This is the pattern for architectural masonry throughout southern England in the Roman period; limestone predominates and sandstone, usually greensand, is rare. On visual examination the particular stone with the ogham appears to be different from that of the other architectural fragments in the Silchester collection. It should also be noted that no similar material has so far been identified in the city wall or amongst any of the other ordinary building materials recovered from the Roman town. On the basis of visual examination alone it has been suggested that the stone originated from the calcareous grit of the Oxfordshire Corallian (Boon 1959, 87), but doubts about this identification led us to a more searching investigation to ascertain the character and source of the stone. Before introducing these analyses and their results it will be useful to summarize our present knowledge of the Silchester ogham. In this way the implications of the new results can be more satisfactorily appreciated.

The peninsula of Athos, home of monks, resort of pilgrims and the sole surviving example of the life of the Middle Ages which exists in Europe, is the only spot in these days of hooting motor cars, roaring machinery and rushing, busy people, in which it is possible to lead a completely altered life. There only in Europe can one meet an entirely original mental outlook. Even in the remotest European village everyday life is of this age and it is only by exercising the imagination that one can transfer oneself to the past. But on arrival on Athos this earth is left behind and one begins to experience the life of a pilgrim of the Middle Ages. One sees from actual experience what that life really was, and one continues to live it until the discomforts of the thirteenth century finally persuade one that the evils of this age are amply repaid by its merits and that the romance of the Middle Ages is even excelled by the adventurous spirit of today. The medieval life is something that one likes to remember as a curiosity, something to be experienced occasionally only. But the claims of its art are more lasting and in these days of ease and luxury we can appreciate them the more fully.

One of the battles of the Hundred Ýears’ War was fought in Portugal on the 14th August, 1385, on the so-called ‘Cumeira de Aljubarrota’, about 80 miles north of Lisbon. There, the small army of King D. Joao I, led by Constable D. Nuno Àlvares Pereira, faced the greater forces of D. Juan I of Castile. Under the Portuguese flag, as Professor Peter Russell has shown, about 700 English archers fought, and on the enemy's side were many subjects of the King of France (n. 1). There are different contemporary versions of the battle which have caused a certain perplexity among historians. Froissart's chronicle tells us that D. Nuno Àlvares Pereira's men had fortified the battlefield; this assertion figures in another narrative known as the Cronica del Despensero, and also in the well-known letter written by D. Juan I of Castile, dated the 29th August, 1385. The Castilian Chronicler, Ayala, an eye-witness of the battle, says nothing about it however, and this fact must have prompted another chronicler, Fernão Lopes, who wrote 60 years after the battle, to assert that there was nothing to be said about the defensive system, even giving us to understand that it never existed. This conflict in the evidence had made it impossible to make a thorough investigation of a battle which is fundamentally important to Portuguese history. To overcome this, in February, 1960, the Ministry of War ordered the Commission of Military History to submit the battle to an intensive study and to make an attempt to evaluate the contradictory versions.

A recent survey of the fortified site of Takht-i-Sulayman situated some distance south of Tabriz and near the northwest comer of Iran has brought to light architectural remains of the Parthian, Sasanian and Islamic periods? A plan of the entire area is given in FIG. 2. Among the numerous ruined structures are two buildings of the Parthian period; the larger of them has already received brief mention by earlier visitors to the site. These two buildings can now be described in detail and an attempt be made to establish their place in the history of architectural development.

Durham University's Sudan Archive was founded in 1957 by former members of the Sudan Government under the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium, and by staff from Durham University, including the first director of the Oriental Museum, T.W. Thacker (Cory & Forbes 1983). Since the initial call for donations, the Sudan Archive has now collected 800 boxes of documents and photographs, mainly from former Sudan Government officials. This material now forms an integral part of Durham University Library's special collections (Sudan Archive Catalogue). The archive holds a wide variety of documents, from personal communications and photographs, to official reports mainly pertaining to political and social issues from early twentieth-century Sudan and neighbouring countries. It also includes a wealth of material relevant to the archaeology of both the Sudan and neighbouring countries (e.g. Egypt, Israel, Syria) (Figure 1), yet only a limited amount of the potentially relevant material has been used by archaeologists. The Sudan Archive remains a largely untapped resource for archaeological research. This situation is probably to be explained partly by the description of the archive as a historical and political collection; moreover, a search of the existing catalogue for the term ‘archaeology’ returns only four results, whereas about 700 documents are directly relevant to the subject. An additional problem is that the spellings of both archaeological sites and locations are inconsistent; for example, Meroë also appears as Meroe, Merowe and Bakarwiyyeh. To remedy these issues and to make the material more accessible, a recent project has identified over 1000 individual references to archaeological sites or themes and catalogued them in a database (Figure 2).