Synopsis
An Ice Age cannibal’s skull cup, a hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold, a seventeenth-century witch bottle… Britain is full of ancient wonders: not grand like the Egyptian pyramids, but small, strange places and objects that hint at a deep and enduring relationship with the mystical.
Secret Britain offers an expertly guided tour of Britain’s most fascinating mysteries: archaeological sites and artefacts that take us deep into the lives of the many different peoples who have inhabited the island over the millennia.
Illustrated with beautiful photographs, the wonders include buried treasure, stone circles and geoglyphs, outdoor places of worship, caves filled with medieval carvings, and enigmatic tools to divine the future.
Review
Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book.
This book is a brilliant tour around the British Isles and a wonderful introduction to Britain’s history. The introduction instantly hooks the reader, and can be read by people who have no prior knowledge, but is still engaging even if the reader is familiar with the subject. The book is always easy to read even though it includes some specialist or simply obscure terms because Ochota makes sure to provide some sort of explanation, clearly anticipating that not everyone will know what a midden layer is.
The book takes the reader on a comprehensive tour of some of the most interesting and important archaeological finds and sites in Britain. It’s very well laid out, with a useful timeline and map at the front of the book that allows your date to quickly dates sites and finds, and locate them, before moving on to reading about these “secret places” in greater depth. The pictures, too, are absolutely stunning, and if the content of the book doesn’t make a reader want to visit these places, the photos almost certainly will.
Reading this was fascinating, even though I’m quite familiar with a lot of what’s mentioned within. Each section is fantastically described, and there were some finds and places I’d never heard of, and rather than bombarding the reader with historical facts and figures and the wider history of a place, each section tells the story (or stories) of the places and objects there, and focuses on that one site or piece. This makes it easy to read, but it often also connects to the wider history of the place, as well as the beliefs, people, and culture attached to those places and pieces.
Ochota presents interesting and occasionally unique takes and theories as to what certain archaeological evidence might suggest about the history and beliefs of a place, and each theory is well-thought-out and well presented, never leaving the reader scratching their head trying to figure out what she means.
My only, very minor, complaint is the lack of focus on Seahenge, despite the fact that Ochota states in the introduction to the book that it’s an important sight. We have the picture and the caption that goes with it and provides some explanation about the site, but where some sites have two or three pages, Seahenge has only its caption. This, however, isn’t uncommon through the book, as several other sites and finds have little written about them.
Overall, it’s a very interesting and enjoyable read, and a very solid popular archaeology book.
The Ink Thief 