We are thrilled to announce that the ADS have just surpassed 5,000 archive collections!
This significant milestone reflects all the hard work our team has provided throughout the years. Since its founding in 1996, the ADS has worked hard to ensure all the archives in our care are accessible, meaning all 5000 archives are Open Access and available through our website to facilitate re-use by the heritage sector and wider community.
To mark this achievement we want to highlight some of our collections from just this past year!
Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi Digital Archive
Founded in 1949, The Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi (CVMA) is the international research project dedicated to recording medieval stained glass. Digitised between 1999 and 2004, the CVMA Picture Archive hosts over 28,000 images from both national collections and CVMA print projects. In addition to medieval stained glass, the database includes the Birkin Haward collection of Victorian stained glass and ground-plans of nearly 200 churches. This archive includes an advanced search interface, as well as an interactive map that displays the number and location of stained glass windows images within the database.
The Downloads page features rare and out-of-print works, including detailed documentation for major windows at Gloucester, Lincoln, and Winchester Cathedrals. It also offers theses such as studies on 19th-century paint loss and influential work on Midlands glass painting.
Key conservation literature is also available, including English translations of foundational German texts and CVMA international guidelines. Additional documents cover CVMA history, archives of G. King & Son, and digital publications on Norfolk stained glass.
Digital Archive from Ghirza: A Libyan Settlement in the Roman Period, 1953-1984
This collection, held by the British Institute for Libyan and Northern African Studies (BILNAS), features a selection of digitised materials from the archaeological work of David J. Smith and Olwen Brogan at Ghirza, a Romano-Libyan settlement.
It includes correspondence, notes, drawings, photos, and reports from fieldwork conducted between 1953 and 1957, and then published in 1984. The survey covered a large settlement along the Wadi Ghirza with around forty buildings, cemeteries, agricultural installations, and fourteen monumental tombs adorned with reliefs combining local and classical motifs.
With suggested occupation from the late 3rd to early 6th centuries A.D., notable discoveries include a 4th–5th century temple containing altars and offering tables, later reused in the medieval period. Artifacts such as Fatimid and Zirid coins and North African ceramics highlight this phase. The collection also contains material from nearby sites in pre-desert Tripolitania gathered during the same excavation.
Silchester: The Landscape Setting of the Iron Age Oppidum and Roman City
This archive includes reports and spreadsheets from environmental sampling and analysis conducted between 2015 and 2020 . The study examined the landscape around Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester), initially through aerial photography and Lidar across 1000 km², focusing more intensively on a 50 km² area. Six key sites with suspected prehistoric enclosures were sampled using coring and excavation, accompanied by radiocarbon dating and pollen analysis.
Findings revealed cycles of settlement and abandonment, with woodland regeneration following each phase. While early Neolithic and Bronze Age activity was present, the first permanent settlements date to the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age. The Middle Iron Age saw the greatest settlement density, followed by abandonment. Around the end of the 1st century BCE, new settlements emerged, including a 38-hectare oppidum. A surrounding 2 km territory—corresponding to present-day Mortimer West End and Silchester—was reserved for agriculture and grazing, maintained into the Roman period. Charcoal evidence indicates continued woodland management and activity from the Late Iron Age through to the medieval period, including post-Roman reoccupation of sites like Pond Farm.
