October 2022

The summer months have firmly come to an end here in the UK, and with the autumnal weather rolling in, the new academic year and new projects and initiatives that it brings make for an exciting start of the autumn. This year, two major archaeology projects made our colleagues spend a lot of time outdoors, making the change in the seasons particularly noticeable.   As we enter October, we are delighted to announce the opening of the exhibition Circles of Stone: Stonehenge and Prehistoric Japan, an exhibition at Stonehenge itself which looks at the remarkable similarities occurring in the UK and Japan at the time that Stonehenge was built and […]

The September Third Thursday Lecture, taking place on 15th September 2022, was by independent manga and anime scholar Helen McCarthy (author of many books including The Anime Encyclopedia). The talk was introduced by Dr. Matsuba Ryoko and opening remarks were made by Dr. Eugenia Bogdanova-Kummer, to welcome the attendees back to the first talk of the new academic year. Dr. Matsuba introduced Helen, highlighting her long history as a part of UK fandom beginning with the first anime magazine, as well as highlighting her involvement with the British Museum’s 2019 Manga Exhibition. Helen started by explaining her studies began in the eighties, before the internet and when scholars were forced to […]

Circles of Stone: Stonehenge and Prehistoric Japan opened at the Stonehenge Visitor Centre on 30th September. The exhibition presents materials from stone circles in the Japanese archipelago dating to the later part of the Jomon period, overlapping in age with Stonehenge, including sites that were inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage in 2021. It asks what life in Japan was like at the time of Stonehenge, one of the most iconic sites of prehistory anywhere, and explores some intriguing connections in the history of study of British and Japanese prehistory. The exhibition represents an unprecedented partnership between the Sainsbury Institute and English Heritage, the charitable organisation charged with looking after over […]