Recent Nordic archaeological discoveries in Great Britain have sparked a new interest in all things Viking. In an article for the Guardian, arts and media correspondent Vanessa Thorpe looks at new trends, based on old tales that are driving current British culture.

Builders of a new office block in the Southwark district of London will not see their dreams realized until they have determined what to do with the remains of a Roman bath house, complete with cold plunge bath and hypocaust heating system. (photo)

The Guardian website offers an interactive history of the British house in its "British architecture guides" section. The site includes homes from the Saxon era to contemporary, with options to zoom in for more detail and description.

A team of archaeologists has discovered the remains of a Roman amphitheatre, on par with the Colosseum in Rome, near Vienna, Austria. The site, they believe, was also a training school for gladiators.

Damaged by years of exposure to the weather, four of the most seriously deteriorated Hampton Court roundels have been restored and will be shown to the public.

The British Museum acts as a backdrop for a new manga publication by Hoshino Yukinobu. Professor Munakata's British Museum Adventure stars "a portly ethnographer-cum-archaeologist who solves crimes and explains civilisations."

A lack of "great heaps of dead rats in all the waterfront sites" has led The Black Death in London author Barney Sloane to conclude that the rodents were not the cause of plague in 14th century England. "The evidence just isn't there to support it," he said.

Re-enacting can be a lot of fun, but it can also be lucrative if you happen to live near the Colosseum or other prominent Roman tourist attractions. Unfortunately, not all of the costumed characters are upstanding in their dealings.

Sports enthusiasts flocked to London to cheer for the latest specticle of athletic prowess recently when the Museum of London hosted a face off between Londinium and Camulodunum - their gladiators, that is. The competition took place at the city's Guildhall, site of the Roman amphitheatre. (photo)

Long before grills and gold caps, Vikings used tooth decoration as a way to intimidate their enemies. Evidence can be seen in the intricate horizontal patterns filed into the teeth of Viking warriors found buried in Dorset.

European academics are concerned about the amount of violent brain traumas in the popular Asterix comics series, most dealt out by Asterix and Obelix themselves.

In 2012, England will celebrate hosting the Olympic Games, but the year will also include a huge celebration of the works of William Shakespeare. Vanessa Thorpe of the Guardian offers a rundown of cultural events involving Shakespeare.

On a recent tour of English Heritage sites, Charlotte Higgins of the Guardian visited the newly revamped Roman Baths Museum in Bath, England. She blogged her impressions.

Grants from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund charity, as well as public donations, will keep recent archaeological treasures in the United Kingdom. Funds of over UK£1 million will allow such items as a hoard of Roman coins and four gold Iron Age torcs to be acquired by local museums.

On March 30, 2011, the world's oldest printed star charts, created by German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer, were auctioned by Sotheby's auction house in London. The woodcuts were first printed in 1515. (photo)

In an article for the Guardian, culture reporter Charlotte Higgins explores mistakes made in the recent film, The Eagle, based on the book The Eagle of the Ninth, about the search for the lost legionary standard of the Roman Ninth Legion.

A new reconstruction of a Roman house at Wroxeter, England has raised more than a few eyebrows, especially when the bright red and yellow building can be seen from a mile away. (photo)

During the Middle Ages, Edward I built his "iron ring" of fortresses to protect his kingdom from unrest in Wales. Now, these castles are bringing tourists to the country in record numbers.

Research by Carla Glori seems to point to the norhtern Italian town of Bobbio as the backdrop for Leonard da Vinci's painting of Mona Lisa. Glori also believes that Bianca Giovanna Sforza is the real subject of the painting.

In 1944, a Luftwaffe cameraman photographed a ruined house in Northamptonshire, but what was revealed in the photo was much more important. The house was surrounded by an elaborate garden containing a Tudor labyrinth, a symbol of the owner's Catholic faith. (photo)

Anyone who has tried to assemble a piece of furniture from Ikea or Wal-Mart knows that describing the instruction manual as "medieval" is far too kind. However, a researcher at the University of Warwick in England thinks medieval builders had a superior system for conveying construction information on everything from Gothic churches to Tudor houses.

Writer and science teacher Andy Connelly finds inspiration in the stained glass of medieval cathedral. He discusses the science of stained glass in an article for The Guardian.

For centuries, a 14th century, painted cross, housed at the Ognissanti church in Florence, was considered to have been produced in a workshop, but prolonged restoration efforts have proven that the five-metre-high cross is a genuine Giotto. (photo)

The discovery of medieval frescoes during repairs to a crumbling English country church has given experts a glimpse in the village's medieval past. The wall paintings at St Mary's at Houghton-on-the-Hill date to around the 12th century.

Each year, re-enactors gather on the fields of Hastings, England to re-create the 1066 Battle of Hastings in Battle where King Harold was defeated by William, Duke of Normandy. (slideshow)

A tiny fragment of the grandeur that was medieval London has been discovered on the bank of the Thames. A medieval terracotta roof finial, in the shape of an animal, dating to the 13th century, was found by an amateur archaeologist.

Archaeologists working near the ancient site of Vindunum  (now Le Mans, France) have found an "exceptional discovery," a vast complex of temples dating to the first through third centuries C.E.

While in power, Saddam Hussein drained the vast marshes of southern Iraq, destroying the ancient way of life of the people there and removing the habitat of many wild species. Now, the land and its culture have partially recovered, thanks to the efforts of both local people and Iraqi conservationists.

When the National Trust took over the Kingston Lacy mansion, the filthy old painting on the wall could not be identified. Now, after cleaning, the painting is confirmed as the work of Renaissance master Tintoretto, but art historians aren't sure who the allegorical figures in the picture are meant to represent.

Peace-loving, religiously tolerant, a ladies' man and the coiner of the phrase "a chicken in every pot" -- 400 years later, France still thinks Henri IV is le Grand.