Archaeologies & Antiquaries: Essays by Dai Morgan Evans

David Morgan Evans (1944–2017) was a graduate of Cardiff University (1963–1966) before pursuing postgraduate research on the archaeology of early Welsh poetry. Evans was an assistant director of the South Cadbury excavations led by Professor Leslie Alcock. He joined the Inspectorate of Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings in Wales in 1969, transferred to the English Inspectorate in 1977 and became General Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries of London from 1992 until his retirement in 2004, after which he continued to lecture at UCL, Birkbeck and the University of Chester, and was appointed Visiting Professor at the latter from 2006. In retirement, Evans co-instigated fieldwork at the Pillar of Eliseg, at Llantysilio yn Iâl, Denbighshire. He was also known for his media activities which focused on two television shows involving the building of replica Roman buildings, the first at Buster: Rebuilding the Past, which resulted in his book Rebuilding the Past. A Roman Villa (Metheun, 2003); and a second at Wroxeter Roman City: Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day.Howard Williams BSc MA PhD FSA is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Chester and researches the Early Middle Ages, death, burial and commemoration, public archaeology and the history of archaeology.Kara Critchell BA MA PhD is Lecturer in History at the University of Chester and specialises in genocide studies, sensory experience of incarceration and the memorialisation of conflict.Sheena Evans MA (Cantab) History joined the Ministry of Public Building and Works in 1968 and met Dai Morgan Evans when visiting the Welsh regional office of the Ministry in 1969. They married in 1973, by which time she was working for the Welsh Office. She moved to the English education department in 1979, and spent the rest of her career working for that department in London. In retirement, she is working on a biography of an eminent woman scientist and social reformer.

'This is the third volume of the new journal devoted to dissemination and debate of linear earthworks. The previous two volumes have been reviewed in earlier editions of Archaeologia Cambrensis, and the rapid production of the next volume is testament to the industry of the editors and the success of the series so far. Although this volume appears to be dominated by articles authored by one or other of the editors (four by Howard Williams and one by Liam Delaney) the content of the book has much to recommend it.' – Tim Malim (2023): Archaeologia Cambrensis Vol. 172

• Dai Morgan Evans: A life in archaeology – Howard Williams, Chris Musson, Christopher Young, Rosemary Cramp, Adrian James and Sheena Evans ; The origins of Powys – Christian, heretic or pagan? ; Irish influence in post-Roman mid-Wales ; An early Christian monument from Llanwyddelan, Montgomeryshire ; Legacy hunting and Welsh identities ; ‘King Arthur’ and Cadbury Castle, Somerset ; Eighteenth-century descriptions of the Cerne Abbas Giant ; Et in Arcadia? The problem with ruins ; The Society of Antiquaries, 1707–18: Meeting places and origin stories ; ‘Banks is the villain!’? Sir Joseph Banks and the governance of the Society of Antiquaries ; Octavius Morgan: Journal of a tour through North Wales in 1821 ; Llangar – Church and community in the early eighteenth century ; Part I: The fabric of the church ; Part II: The poor, vermin and other matters ; Part III: christmas, holy communion, ale and the wardens ; Part IV: Hierarchy, liturgy, fixtures and fittings