Archaeologist Flummoxed By Roman Burial Site (from Oxford Mail)

(from Oxford Mail): "Oxford archaeologists have discovered a large and significant Roman burial ground on the site of a gravel quarry.

Stunned experts had hoped to find a small farmstead at the site near Fairford, Gloucestershire, but instead discovered more than 100 graves.

Dr Alex Smith, of Oxford Archaeology, who is leading the excavation of the site, said it was a "very significant" discovery.

The burial ground is divided into two, with separate sections for adults and children a common practice in late Roman times. He said the site believed to date back 1,700 years was one of the biggest in the region and was exciting because of its sheer volume."

"

Archaeologist Flummoxed By Roman Burial Site (from Oxford Mail)

(from Oxford Mail): "Oxford archaeologists have discovered a large and significant Roman burial ground on the site of a gravel quarry.

Stunned experts had hoped to find a small farmstead at the site near Fairford, Gloucestershire, but instead discovered more than 100 graves.

Dr Alex Smith, of Oxford Archaeology, who is leading the excavation of the site, said it was a "very significant" discovery.

continued...

The burial ground is divided into two, with separate sections for adults and children a common practice in late Roman times. He said the site believed to date back 1,700 years was one of the biggest in the region and was exciting because of its sheer volume."

"

Sabine chariot rewrites history

ANSA.it: "An ancient king's war chariot found in a tomb near Rome has helped rewrite the history of the Romans and their Sabine rivals .

"This chariot is an exceptional find," said archaeologist Paola Santoro .

"It shows that the city of Ereteum remained independent long after the Sixth Century BC." "In other Sabine cities like Custumerium, conquered by the Romans, the custom of putting regal objects in king's tombs had died out by that time" .

"We can say that Eretum kept its independence until the Fourth Century BC." Santoro said her team had recovered all the metal parts of the bronze-and-iron decorated chariot and had used echo-soundings to trace the imprints of the long-decayed wooden parts .

"This will enable us to reconstruct the whole chariot," she said .

The chariot, which accompanied the king on his last journey, was placed at the entrance to the tomb, the largest chamber tomb ever found in Italy .

Santoro's team have also found an Etruscan-style terracotta throne - "a metre high, worthy of the king's stature" - and four large bronze cauldrons with bull-hoof supports .

Less than a dozen of this type of cauldron had been discovered before, Santoro said .

The tomb was found in the main room in the three-room complex, next to a wall recess where a wooden coffin containing the king's ashes would have been placed .

The horses that had drawn the chariot would have been sacrificed at the entrance to this room, Santoro said . "

Ancient Burial Chambers Unearthed in Rome

Ancient Burial Chambers Unearthed in Rome: "An unusual network of burial chambers was recently excavated and more than 1000 elegantly dressed corpses were uncovered. The chambers were found in 2003 when archaeologists were repairing one of Rome's catacombs that is closed to the public, the Catacomb of Sts. Peter and Marcellinus. The chambers, a series of large rooms, are believed to be from the second century and may be an early Christian burial place. Experts also think that the deaths may have been caused by an epidemic or natural disaster because of the large number of bodies buried during a short period of time. The bodies were dressed in nice clothing with gold threads and were neatly wrapped in sheets."

These burials sound verty intriguing. I don't remember reading anything about them in 2003. I wish there had been a link to earlier related articles.

Further searching brought me to another article in Catholic online. It added:

"Balsamic fragrances were also applied, according to Raffaella Giuliani, chief inspector of the Roman catacombs, who spoke with Vatican Radio May 1.

The archaeologists discovered a large room behind one of the painted walls of the catacombs, then a series of similar rooms.

"These were not galleries or cubicles, but big rooms completely full of skeletons. We had to work very carefully to excavate them without destroying them," Giuliani said.

"We were amazed at the high number of individual corpses found in these rooms," she said. The rooms appear to predate the catacombs, which were built in the third century.

Giuliani said the experts believe they were Christian burial places, in part because Christians of that time dedicated great care to burial. Early Christians buried rich and poor with great dignity, in expectation of the resurrection of the dead..."

Exquisite Treasures of Roman York unearthed

Yorkshire Post Today: "A gold ring and a carved jet pendant were found together as staff from York Archaeological Trust investigated a city centre site before it was redeveloped.
Both are thought to date from the fourth century and archaeologists were delighted to find two such pieces in the same place.
The gold ring is set with an oval stone, probably a carnelian, and is decorated with beaded wires, with decorative pellets in the bezel in which the stone is set.
'Carnelians were favoured by the Romans because of their blood-red colour,' said the trust's finds researcher Nicola Rogers.
'This ring is thought to be late Roman, probably from the fourth century.'
The jet pendant is an animal, possibly a bear, about one inch tall and standing on a small platform.
'He is almost identical to a find made in 1845 in Bootham where a group of Roman graves were uncovered,' said Ms Rogers."

Augustan head found in villa well in Italy

United Press International : "A marble, bas-relief, head of the Emperor Augustus has been found at a large and well-appointed Roman villa site near Rome.

The head, showing the emperor in profile in his middle years, is to be displayed at the Roman Antiquities Museum at Palazzo Massimo,"

Archeologists excavate 2,000-year-old road - Science - MSNBC.com

MSNBC.com: "Deep beneath pavement pounded by tourists on Paris? Left Bank lies an ancient path ? a 2,000-year-old Roman road recently excavated during construction work.

Remnants of private houses rigged with baths and ingeniously heated floors were among the findings, now on view in a stunning dig. Over the next few weeks, however, archaeologists will rip up the ruins to make way for a research center.

Archaeologists said it was the first such site discovered in the city ? known as Lutetia in pre-Roman and Roman Gaul ? from the reign of Roman emperor Augustus (63 B.C.-14 A.D.).

Items from daily life such as flowerpots, ceramics, bronze chains and drawer handles were dug out and will soon be exhibited in museums.

?We are trying to find out about the foundation and founders of the city,? Busson said, adding, ?It is exceptional that a Parisian site be so well-preserved.?

Archeologists are divided over the background of this neighborhood?s builders. Most contend that a Gallic aristocracy, recruited by the Roman army to fight in their civil wars, probably came back from the battlefield and settled in the area.

The Romanized returnees built the city according to Roman norms, but used local materials. They were wealthy enough to own a private Roman bath ? the jacuzzi of the era ? found in one of the houses discovered beneath the university.

The neighborhood stands on the old ?cardo maximus,? the Roman main street, which was originally paved for the Romans to cross the nearby Seine River and is today the Rue St. Jacques in Paris? chic 5th arrondissement, or district."

UK museums, treasure hunters agree code of conduct | Reuters.com

UK museums, treasure hunters agree code of conduct | Reuters.com: "Museums, metal detectorists and archaeologists in England and Wales on Tuesday agreed a code of conduct to try to protect the country's buried treasures from being plundered by the unscrupulous or the unaware.

The voluntary code follows the massive looting of the Roman-Celtic temple at Wanborough in Surrey in the mid-1980s and with customs officers seizing increasing numbers of undeclared historical artefacts being smuggled out of the country.

'This code represents a major step forward,' Mike Heyworth of the Council for British Archaeology told reporters at the British Museum.

'Most detectorists are only interested in finding and preserving local antiquity ... and make a positive contribution to our historical knowledge,' he said. ' There are just a few illicit detectorists motivated solely by profit.'

In recent years amateur metal detectorists have unearthed, declared and been rewarded for some invaluable ancient artefacts like the Ringlemere Gold Cup, the Winchester Hoard of Iron Age jewelry and the bronze Roman Staffordshire Moorlands Pan.

Under the code, detectorists must get permission to search, join a recognized detectorists club, log the precise location of any find and report it to the landowner -- who has a share in any valuation -- and the portable antiquities scheme."

I hope this code of conduct works. I know when I was in Britain recently I purchased a certified 4th century Roman military cloak brooch from an established antiques center in York so I hope it was properly recorded and offered for sale legally.

A large Roman-era villa is discovered

A large Roman-era villa is discovered: "Italian archeologists have reportedly discovered the remains of a huge Roman villa near Florence -- the first ever in the popular tourist area.

'Villas like these were fully fledged factories for the production of wine, olive oil, meat, corn and other products,' said archaeologist Fausto Berti, who led the dig at Montelupo Fiorentino.

'We`ve found big animal pens, warehouses and even a workshop for making ceramic vases. The owners were self-sufficient,' he told the Italian news service ANSA.

The 500-meter-square villa has fully equipped baths with all the areas Romans used to produce various levels of heat, warm water and steam -- and a cooling area.

The Montelupo villa is open to the public during weekends but reservations are required."

Archaeologists dig Roman dogs

icSurreyOnline : "BONES of dozens of dogs offered to the gods in Roman times and unearthed in Ewell 30 years ago is an archeological find that has triggered further investigation.

Leading archaeologists are in the village recovering the secrets of lost Roman shrines.

The team of excavators, digging at Hatch Furlong on the Ewell bypass, is being led by Harvey Sheldon of Birkbeck College, University of London, and Jon Cotton of the Museum of London and president of the Epsom and Ewell Local History and Archaeology Society.

The first finds were made in the 1840s in a series of deep ritual shafts cut down into the chalk.

But today's archaeologists will be seeking to uncover more of a stone building and a further deep shaft found in 1977. Shafts like these have been found containing pottery vessels, coins and the bones of many dogs.

Ewell lies on Stane Street - the main Roman road from London to Chichester - and the discoveries in and around Hatch Furlong suggest that a religious complex once existed on the higher ground over-looking the settlement."

Archaeologists uncover Iberian shrine and necropolis near La Vila Joiosa

Typically Spanish Spain News: "Archaeologists have found the remains of a 1st century BC Iberian shrine and necropolis on the outskirts of La Vila Joiosa.

The find is near the 19th century cliff-top Torreón Doctor José María Esquerdo, where a team of Spanish and French archaeologists are working together on the investigations. The dig is led by Pierre Ronillard, the director of the Maison René Gionouves Institute for Archaeological Investigation in France, and Jesús Moratalla, archaeology professor at Alicante University.

Archaeologists from the Casa de Velázquez and the Centre for Scientific Investigation in France are also involved, as is the Town Hall archaeologist, professor Antonio Espinosa, who said ?the fact that there are at least two large cemeteries here means that this Iberian city must have been very important in its time.?"

New Home for the Ara Pacis Opens in Rome

New York Times: "Since Rome was not built in a day, it is perhaps unsurprising that a plan to house Caesar Augustus's Ara Pacis, or altar of peace, in a new museum has taken 10 years to be realized. But even now, as work continues on the $24 million glass and travertine marble structure, which stands between a busy highway overlooking the River Tiber and the Mausoleum of Augustus, Rome's mayor, Walter Veltroni, went ahead with its scheduled inauguration on Friday because April 21 was, at least in theory, the city's 2,759th birthday.

The Ara Pacis was commissioned by the Roman Senate in 13 B.C. and inaugurated in 9 B.C. to honor Augustus for "pacifying" Gaul and Spain. In one frieze, the emperor appears in a procession with priests, loyal aides and family members. Other reliefs identify him with the heroic Aeneas and with Romulus and Remus, the city's mythical founders. Carvings of cattle, swans, insects, flowers and fruit underline the message that, under Augustus, Romans enjoyed peace and prosperity.

The altar, which was placed in the Campus Martius, or the field of war, was probably destroyed after Rome fell to the Barbarians. But early last century, parts were traced to museums in Florence and Rome (as well as the Louvre in Paris) and other pieces were found in excavations. In the late 1930's, Mussolini ordered the altar's reconstruction and installed it in a building designed by Vittorio Ballio Morpurgo beside the Tiber. However, few people ever visited the Ara Pacis in its previous crumbling home."

I look forward to seeing the altar in its new naturally lighted enclosure when I next visit Rome.

Ancient Roman holiday villa found

ANSA.it: "Archaeologists have discovered a 2nd-century seaside villa where two important senators of ancient Rome are believed to have passed their summers .

The remains of the luxury residence turned up recently in Torvaianica, a coastal resort south of Rome, when the local council started digging trenches for a new sewerage system .

Historians knew from written sources that the villa of Titus Flavius Claudanius and Titus Flavius Sallustius was somewhere in the area but the precise location had long been forgotten .

The two senators belonged to an imperial dynasty and, as befitted their rank, the villa was constructed on a grand scale. It covers about a hectare and includes a large area given over to relaxation, including a gymnasium, hot and cold baths and various swimming pools .

'We're uncovering a vast complex, in which we've found all sorts of vessels and ceramics which have been taken away to be catalogued,' said head archaeologist Filippo Avilia ."

Statue reveals Roman lady with her make-up still on - World - Times Online

Times Online: "BRITISH and Italian archaeologists have recovered for the first time a painted Roman statue with its colours preserved.

The head of a female Amazon warrior, shown exclusively to The Times, was retrieved this week from the debris of a collapsed escarpment at Herculaneum, the seaside resort for the rich and powerful of ancient Rome that was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79.

Domenico Camardo, the archaeologist who dug the head from the volcanic rock, said that when a workman first alerted him to the discovery, he ?hardly dared hope? that the bust would be intact. ?Only the back of the head was visible, and I was afraid the face would have crumbled,? he said.

The nose and mouth were missing, but the hair, pupils and eyelashes were ?as pristine as they were when Herculaneum was overwhelmed by the eruption?, Monica Martelli Castaldi, the restorer of the team, said.

?Those eyes are alive, looking at us from 2,000 years ago,? she said. ?To find this much pigment is very, very special.? Although it had been known that Roman statues were painted, only faint traces of pigment had been found before now. It had also been assumed that classical statues were painted brightly. In fact, the colouring on the head is a delicate shade of orange-red, which, although faded, indicates that classical colouring was subtle and sophisticated, Jane Thompson, the project manager, said."

Isotope studies of Roman coins will be used to map origins

An archaeologist at the University of Liverpool is examining more than 1,000 Roman silver coins from museums around the world in order to establish their true economic value.

An archaeologist at the University of Liverpool is examining more than 1,000 Roman silver coins from museums around the world in order to establish their true economic value. (Image courtesy of University of Liverpool)

Dr Matthew Ponting, from the University's School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, is investigating the chemical composition of the coins to further understanding of how and where they were made. Dr Ponting believes that analysis of the coins will also shed more light on the political and economic issues of the Roman Empire.

Dr Ponting and his colleague Professor Kevin Butcher from the American University of Beirut, are using unique analysis techniques to examine the make-up of the coins and establish their silver content. The analysis will also identify particular chemical elements which will help the archaeologists establish where and how the coins were made.

Dr Ponting said: "For the first time we are able to use a combination of chemical and isotopic analysis on these coins. Chemical analysis will give useful trace element 'finger prints' telling us about the type of ores exploited and the technology used in smelting and refining the metal."

The team is analysing the coins by drilling a small hole in their outer edge to get beneath the treated surface and investigate their different layers.

Dr Ponting added: "By measuring the isotopes of lead in the coins it is often possible to ascertain where that metal came from. This is done by comparing the isotopic 'signature' of the silver coin, with isotopic 'signatures' of known Roman silver mining regions. In this way I hope to be able to investigate where Rome was getting its silver from."

Carving of 'northern god' found

BBC NEWS | UK | England | Tyne : "A 2000-year-old carving of a so-called 'northern god', adopted by the Romans for protection and good luck, has been uncovered in Northumberland.

The 40cm high figure, holding a shield in one hand and spear or sword in the other, was discovered near Chesters Fort on Hadrian's Wall.

Experts say the find is exciting as it helps shed light on how people used local idols for protection.

The carving is thought to be that of Cocidius, a Romano-British warrior god."

Rare pre-Greek site to be explored

ANSA.it : "A very rare example of surviving pre-Greek settlement in southern Italy is to be excavated and explored. The site, at Molpa in the hills above Palinuro south of Naples, is believed to contain the remains of a large village of the Enotrians, the earliest known inhabitants of Calabria and southern Campania. The Greeks who settled across southern Italy from 700BC to create Magna Graecia had an idealised vision of the Enotrians ('wine lovers') as coming from the Eden-like land of Arcadia .

In reality, they probably came from eastern Europe and moved down into a large swathe of southern Italy from 1000 BC .

Most histories of Italy, based on ancient Greek texts, portray southern Italy as virgin territory .

Recent discoveries about the Enotrians have exploded this myth .

A dig at another Enotrian site, in Campania, has uncovered evidence that the Greek colonists owed their wealth to exploiting prosperous native villages. The settlement, on a hill called Timpone della Motta, had a large necropolis and a monumental sanctuary .

The finds from huts, graves and the sanctuary of the Enotrians point to the organized production of bronze cauldrons, decorated pots made on the potter's wheel, olive oil and wine long before the arrival of the Greeks. The Greek colony that came later, Sybaris, became a byword for sensual excess and has given us the word sybaritic. One of the last kings of the Enotrians, Italo or Italos, is said to have changed his kingdom's name from Enotria to Italia - the name eventually adopted for the whole peninsula ."

Bangladesh discovers ancient fort city that may have linked India and Rome

Bangladesh discovers ancient fort city: "Archaeologists in Bangladesh say they have uncovered part of a fortified citadel dating back to 450 B.C. that could have been a stopping off point along an ancient trade route.

So far, a moat round the citadel has been uncovered along with parts of an ancient road at Wari, 85 km (53 miles) northeast of the capital Dhaka.

'The citadel and a raft of artifacts may help redefine history of India,' said Sufi Mostafizur Rahman, head of the department of archaeology at Jahangirnagar University, near Dhaka.

'The well-planned road with even manholes proves that the citadel was managed by a very efficient administration,' Mostafizur added.

'I am confident further excavation will lead us to residue of a palace,' he said.

Archaeologists have been excavating the ancient roads and unearthing artifacts for several years. Tests by a Dutch university revealed the objects dated to around 450 B.C.

Artefacts found in the 600 x 600 meter (1,800 x 1,800 ft) include metal coins, metallic chisels, terracotta missiles, rouletted and knobbed pottery, stone hammers and bangles. Ornaments suggested Buddhism dominated life in the urban centers. Mostafizur said the citadel was believed to be a part of Harappan civilization and a prime trade center might have flourished there, possibly serving as a link between contemporary South Asian and Roman civilizations."

Tracing an ancient India-Rome trading route

The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News: 'Even though archaeological excavations at two Roman-era ports in Egypt and at Pattanam on the Malabar coast have yielded strong evidence of sustained trade between India and the Roman empire, further research is required before it can be stated with finality that Pattanam is indeed the port of `Muziris' described in the `Periplus Maris Erythraei' written in the first century by a sea-faring, Greek-speaking Egyptian merchant,' said classical archaeologist and visiting fellow of Southampton University, Roberta Tambor in her paper`From Egypt to the Malabar Coast: Rome's Oriental Trade' presented to the Kerala Council for Historical Research.

Excavations at Myos Hormos and Berenike two ancient ports on the Red Sea have yielded fragments of Indian-made pottery. At one of these sites, a large vessel found intact even contained 7.5 kg of black pepper; the variety grown along the Malabar coast.

Teak planks that could have been part of ships, pieces of Indian-made cotton that could have been part of a sail and even pieces of embroidered cloth were found at these sites. Moreover, the excavations also yielded coins -- one of King Rudrasena the third, that has been dated to the fourth century -- and pots with Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions, she said.

Pattanam, on the other hand, has yielded amphora (holding vessels) of Roman make and those made elsewhere in the Persian Gulf."

Phoenician temple found in Sicily

ANSA.it : "An ancient Phoenician temple unearthed in Sicily is 'unique' in the West, the head of the Italian dig team claims .

'You have to go all the way to Amrit in Syria to find a similar one,' said Lorenzo Nigro of the Rome University team .

The temple came to light last year after a portion of a lagoon surrounding the Phoenician city of Motya (present-day Mozia) was drained .

The pool began to fill up again and a fresh-water spring was found - a fact Nigro believes proves it was used as a holy place.

'The Phoenicians placed their cities on the coast near water springs, which for them meant that there was a divine presence there.' Digs at the site, on the westernmost tip of Sicily near Marsala, have brought to light the ruins of a 'monumental' temple including columns of a type used by the Phoenicians on Cyprus - as well as fragments of an obelisk .

'The similarity with the Temple of the Obelisks at Byblos, Lebanon, is clear,' Nigro said .

Nigro believes the pool flanking the temple was used for water rituals and offerings to Baal, the Phoenician god of the sea and the underworld .

However, other Italian archaeologists do not agree with him .

'The pool is without doubt merely a dock used for repairing ships,' said Sebastiano Tusa of Naples University, head of marine archaeology for the Sicilian regional government .

Motya - whose name means 'wool-spinning centre' - was founded in the 8th century BC, about a century after the foundation of the most famous Phoenician colony in the ancient world, Carthage in Tunisia ."

G-String-Clad Gladiator Found

Somehow I missed this interesting little tidbit a couple of months ago.

Discovery Channel: "Divers exploring a river near a former Roman Empire fort and settlement in Britain have found a piece of pottery that depicts the backside of a rather buff gladiator wielding a whip and wearing nothing but a G-string, according to British researchers.

The image represents the first known depiction of a gladiator in such revealing attire. It adds to the evidence that ancient Romans viewed gladiators not only as fearless warriors, but also as sex symbols.

Philippa Walton, who analyzed the object and is a finds liaison officer for the Cambridgeshire County Council, described the artifact to Discovery News. 'The find is a small shard of pottery possibly from a drinking beaker made in Britain in the 3rd century A.D.,' Walton said. 'It depicts a man wearing a G-string and possibly holding a whip and is likely therefore to represent a gladiator.'

"A lot of film stars and celebrities like to show a bit of bum, so the Romans were no doubt the same or worse," Rolfe Hutchinson told Discovery News. He discovered the object with diving partner Bob Middlemass. "After all, they were the celebrities of the day."

The ancient Romans may have relished such dramatic displays of beefcake and power, but they also could be quite practical.

Near the site of the pottery shard, Hutchinson and Middlemass also found a copper razor handle, dating to approximately the same period. The handle was modeled into the shape of a Roman soldier leg and foot, the two-inch-high foot wearing a heavy wool sock stuffed into a sandal."

Fair fight: research shows gladiators played by rules

World - smh.com.au: "GLADIATORS of the Roman arena fought according to their own brutal version of the Queensberry Rules, new research suggests.

Forensic tests on the remains of 67 gladiators from a cemetery in Turkey show the fighters stuck to strict rules of combat, just as modern boxers must follow the Queensberry guidelines, introduced in 1867.

Savage violence and mutilation, typical of battlefields at the time, was not the order of the day in the arena. Death for the vanquished was relatively swift and merciful.

The research also challenges the view of some experts that gladiatorial combat was a form of spectacular martial art that only rarely ended in death, as the fighters seldom fought until one of them died.

The latest evidence shows wounded participants were often given the coup-de-grace by a backstage executioner, delivered with a hammer blow to the head.

Although most gladiators wore helmets, 10 had died of a squarish hammer-like injury to the side of the head.

It is likely these injuries were inflicted after the fight - possibly by a backstage executioner who struck the doomed victim's head, as has been suggested in artworks and literature."

I found this latest conclusion a bit puzzling. The Discovery Channel produced a program about the excavation at Ephesus and the scientist interviewed attributed the small square head wounds apparently delivered when the victim was not wearing a helmet to a trident used on a hapless retiarius whose opponent had killed him with his own weapon. They even showed how the holes matched the penetration pattern of an ancient trident. Of course, it does make one wonder when they find ten of such victims in one dig. Maybe that ludus had a very poor retiarius trainer!

Hadrian's Villa yields Staircase and Sphinx in Tivoli

Having just visited Hadrian's Villa last spring, I found this article particularly interesting. Hadrian's sprawling complex covers at least 250 acres and may encompass over 650 acres, much of it as yet unexcavated. I wonder what other fantastic discoveries await?

ABC News: "A theatrical mask is seen during a presentation to the press of new findings from a dig at Hadrian's Villa in Tivoli, near Rome, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2006. Archeologist who have been digging for more than a year at the villa got their reward, unearthing a monumental staircase, a statue of an athlete and what appears to be a headless sphinx. The findings were presented Tuesday by government officials, who described them as extremely important for understanding the layout of the ruins. The staircase is believed to be the original entrance to the villa, which was build for the Roman emperor in the 2nd century A.D. So far, 15 steps, each 27 feet wide, have been identified and archaeologists did not rule out uncovering more." (AP Photo/Riccardo De Luca)

For more on Hadrian's Villa see this article.

Trove of Teutonic weapons uncovered in Krusne Hory region

Trove of Teutonic weapons uncovered in Krusne Hory region - 09-02-2006 - Radio Prague: "It's not unusual in this country [Czechoslovakia] to come across weapons caches dating back to the Second World War. But, finding a pile of javelin tips, parts of shields and a sword dating back to the 2nd century A.D., doesn't happen every day.

'It is a remarkable find but not because of individual items but because of the number of items found,' archaeologist Lenka Onderkova explained. 'Germanic tribes regularly buried important warriors together with their swords, or spears, or bits of broken shield, but in this case what's unusual is the high number of items found at a single site. The number of objects found - and their variety in this case - is what makes this find important.'

'The only similar such find took place in Eastern Bohemia in the 1950s. But, it was not without controversy. To this day it has been a matter of debate whether that find was a destroyed burial site, or a place for sacrifice. There they found far less: for example just four spears compared to the eleven at Krusne Hory. The latest find could be truly unique.'

The Krusne Hory find certainly includes more items: twenty-two separate pieces including shield handles, pike tips, and an iron sword of typical Teutonic design. But, the find could have revealed more: archaeologists were reportedly upset - understandably- by the fact that the local who made the discovery not only removed the items from the area, but waited so ong to report his find. That complicated matters. Viewing the site and seeing the original positioning of the items, could have been invaluable, likely revealing more about the items' long-dead owners and the circumstances of their burial, than the weapons do on their own. Given the delay, archaeologists were no longer able to decipher, for example, why the items were originally placed in such a shallow grave.

On one thing specialists do agree: found at high altitude, far from the nearest settlement or the nearest river, this must have been a ritual burial site. A final, quiet resting place for Teutonic warriors."

Unfinished Maxentius Villa Puzzles Archaeologists

"Historians have long assumed that the reviled Roman emperor Maxentius lived part-time at an 80-acre suburban villa complex until he was killed by his rival Constantine at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in A.D. 312.

But a University of Colorado-led archaeology team has uncovered evidence that the villa's main hall was never occupied.

Instead, it appears to have been abandoned before completion, said CU archaeologist Diane Conlin, co-director of the Maxentius project, a five-year excavation that began last summer.

'Maxentius builds a lot in Rome during his extremely short reign,' Conlin said. 'And the pattern - up to our project - is that Constantine either finishes the buildings and takes them over, or he demolishes them and builds something new.

'But this (villa) stands outside that pattern of behavior,' she said. 'Instead of being finished or demolished, it was abandoned.'

Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maxentius ruled Rome from A.D. 306 to 312, a time when the empire was in 'a holding pattern at the end of its period of greatness,' said CU historian Noel Lenski. Maxentius, son of the emperor Maximian, was in his 20s when he took power.

At the villa complex about two miles south of Rome's center and just outside the city's defensive walls, Maxentius built a chariot course with grandstand seating for 30,000 and monuments to his only son, Romulus. The boy was 9 when he drowned in the Tiber River, the same fate Maxentius met at the Milvian Bridge.

The day after that battle, Maxentius' armor-clad body was fished from the Tiber mud by Constantine's troops. His head was lopped off and displayed as 'an emblem of victory and conquest,' Conlin said.

Constantine reportedly had a vision of God the night before the battle and converted to Christianity on the spot.

But Maxentius was a pagan. Archaeologists wonder if his villa project on the Via Appia - the first and most well-known ancient Roman road - was an attempt to strengthen ties with Christians, Conlin said.

"One major question that we hope to answer is why Maxentius built this grand villa complex outside the defensive walls of the city when he had full control of pre-existing imperial palaces located in the heart of the capital," she said.

Limited investigations of the villa site were conducted in 1825 and again in the 1960s. Italian archaeologists exposed exterior walls but didn't dig into the interior of the large main hall, or basilica, Conlin said.

CU archaeologists and their colleagues sank two trenches in the main hall during a five-week field season last summer. Two more trenches will be opened in the basilica this summer. Twenty students from CU and Kalamazoo College in Michigan joined in the 2005 work.

After digging through modern garbage deposits and cemented chunks of architectural debris, the team reached the ancient basilica and found "a bare skeleton of brick and concrete," Conlin said.

A finished basilica from the period would feature stone mosaics on the floor and decorative marble slabs on the walls. The researchers found 800 pounds of marble fragments, but no piece was bigger than 12 inches by 6 inches. Instead of mosaic floors, they found only a brick subfloor.

"It seems like no one ever lived there," Lenski said. "It was 85 to 90 percent completed. It was the finishing touches that were left off."

The marble fragments suggest that bigger slabs had been installed but were later hauled away."

Met to return antiquities looted from Etruscan tomb

"New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art today offered to return 20 artifacts in its collection to Italy, which says the ancient art was looted.

The disputed items include a 2,500-year-old vase painted by the Greek artist Euphronios, a 15-piece set of Hellenistic silver and four ancient pots.

The Euphronios vase is ``one of the finest existing examples of an Attic krater,'' a vessel used to mix wine with water, the Met's Web site says, referring to the museum's vase from Athens. It depicts a Trojan War scene from the Iliad in which Zeus's dead son, Sarpedon, is carried off the battlefield.

The talks with the Met are part of a broader push by Italian authorities to seize antiquities they say were illegally excavated or exported, including items at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Princeton University Art Museum in New Jersey, the Cleveland Museum of Art and others.

The Italian evidence for the Met's allegedly looted pots comes largely from the trial of Roman art dealer Giacomo Medici, who was convicted in December 2004 of smuggling objects that are now at the Met, Getty and other museums, Fiorilli said. Medici, 67, denies the charges and is free while appealing his conviction and 10-year prison sentence.

Prosecutors charge that Medici bought the Euphronios krater from tomb robbers who had excavated the pot in Cerveteri, near Rome."

Archaeologists unearth ancient Cretan tomb - Feb 2, 2006

CNN.com:A well-preserved underground tomb belonging to a prominent Roman-era family has been unearthed on the island of Crete, archaeologists said Wednesday.

The large first or second century A.D. structure beside one of the main gates to the walled city of Aptera was looted during Christian times, archaeologist Vanna Niniou-Kindeli said.

It still yielded a wealth of finds, including 10-inch pottery statuettes of the ancient Greek love deity Eros, glass and pottery vases and lamps.

Built of large stone blocks, the grave is reached by a flight of steps. It has an antechamber and a main room measuring three by two yards that was the site of four burials.

'These must have been highly important citizens, probably among the city's wealthiest, who had contributed to the common good of the city,' Niniou-Kindeli said. 'In return, they were buried in a prominent position so that whoever entered the city saw the grave.'

Archaeologists also discovered a small burial ground of newborns dating to the 4th century B.C., just outside the city walls."

Unearthing history in the heart of ancient Rome. by Derek Wilson. Wanted in Rome

Unearthing history in the heart of ancient Rome. by Derek Wilson. Wanted in Rome: A cremation tomb that has been identified as going back to the 11th or 10th century BC, long before Romulus and Remus appeared on the scene has been uncovered in the Roman forum.

"Looking down into the forums from Via dei Fori Imperiali on the way to Piazza Venezia, the well-tomb, a perfectly circular hole in the ground, lies just to the right of the senate house in the Forum of Caesar. This forum was the first to be built, carved out of a former saddle between the Quirinale and Capitoline hills in 46 BC, and is thus on top of the tomb, which is suspected to be the first trace of a whole yet undiscovered ancient necropolis in the area.
Speaking to reporters, a jubilant Eugenio La Rocca, head of the Rome council?s cultural heritage department, dated the tomb to somewhere between the Bronze Age and the early Iron Age. ?It was a real surprise to find rich furnishings inside it,? he exclaimed. The findings included a funeral urn and eight hand-worked, patterned vases in terracotta. They contained tiny bronze miniatures of weapons, and elsewhere what seemed t o be the bones of a bird, placed there, La Rocca presumed, to accompany the deceased on his journey to the beyond, as was the custom. The riches were found after first rolling back the tomb?s cover, a weighty round slab of tufa, and then removing its seal, a container in the stylised shape of a hut, a model akin to real huts found much later on the Palatine Hill.
La Rocca and the director of the dig, Roberto Meneghini, both deduced that such a rich tomb must have been that of the head of a clan, a patriarch ruling over one of the scattered groups of families, or settlements, that had gathered around a fording point on the Tiber when the future Rome was still only a wild place of heavily wooded, isolated hills interspersed by tricky marshes."

Roman artifacts thought to come from 1929 dig

"The discovery of Roman artifacts, possibly from JRR Tolkien's dig at the Lydney Park Estate, is proving far from an open and shut case. An early 20th century suitcase containing ancient pottery has been handed to the county council after it was found at a quarry near the Severnside town.

County archaeologist Jan Wills said the finds were a mystery. She said: 'It looks as if it could belong to Lydney Park. I'm in contact with them as we believe it was found on estate land.'

It is thought the case could relate to the dig around the Roman temple site on the estate in 1929 by eminent archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler. One of his assistants was The Lord of the Rings writer Tolkien."

Ancient 'Cyclops' wall collapses

ANSA.it: "Part of a massive wall started in around 600 BC around the central Italian town of Amelia collapsed on Wednesday morning for reasons still unclear .

The so-called Polygonal walls around Amelia are famous not only for their age but also their size. Built out of huge polygonal stones, they are 8-10 metres high and about 3.5 metres thick .

The 800-metre long wall, which now has a breach in the section to the right of the old city gate, has always impressed archaeologists for the skill with which it was built .

According to local legend, it was constructed by the Cyclops, the one-eyed monster encountered by Greek hero Ulysses .

Amelia was founded by Umbri king Amero who gave it his name ."

Roman era rock tombs unearthed near Develi in Turkey

An archaeological exploration of the Adana region in Turkey originally launched by Cukurova University in 2002, has uncovered a wealth of ancient settlements in the area once known as Cappadocia.

"Among the archaeological finds in Develi are numerous tumuli, ancient settlements, wine production facilities where famous Cappadocia wines were produced, underground cities, sacred places and Roman-era rock tombs."

Alexander, Piece by Piece

I was so excited to read about the effort to recreate the famous Alexander and Darius mosaic. It is one of my favorite mosaics and I would have loved to have seen it in situ in the House of the Faun when I was in Pompeii this Spring. I hope it won't be too many years before I get a chance to return to Pompeii and see both the original in the Archaeological Museum of Naples as well as this new one.

Alexander, Piece by Piece: "In 2003, a team of artists from the International Center for the Study and Teaching of Mosaic (CISIM) in Ravenna, Italy, made an ambitious proposal to the archaeological superintendent of Pompeii: create an exact copy of the Alexander Mosaic and install it in its original home. More than two years, 16,000 hours of work, and $216,000 later, the most famous mosaic to survive from the ancient Roman world once again adorns Pompeii's House of the Faun.

One of the iconic images of the great Macedonian leader, the mosaic depicts a confrontation between Alexander and the Persian king Darius in the fourth century B.C. Since 1843, the mosaic has hung on the wall of the National Archaeological Museum in Naples, safe from the feet of Pompeii's two million plus yearly visitors, as well as from the rain and sun that have damaged the whole site. So why bring Alexander back to Pompeii? The House of the Faun was once Pompeii's biggest and most impressive urban villa, filled with simple but elegant decorations designed to demonstrate the vast wealth of the house's owners. But today, although the sheer size of the house is still clear, the brightly colored paintings and mosaics, the gleaming marble and bronze statues, the fountains, and the hustle and bustle of a palatial villa are gone. Superintendent Pietro Giovanni Guzzo wants to change that. 'I want visitors to have the impression that they are entering the same luxurious house in which the ancient Pompeian owners lived before it was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79.'"

Ancient Roman Lighthouse May Have Been Destroyed by Tsunami

Turkish Daily News - Traces of tsunami in ancient city of Patara - Dec 27, 2005: "Archaeologists claim that an ancient lighthouse located in the ancient city of Patara on Antalya's Mediterranean coast might have been destroyed by a tsunami that hit the region in ancient times.

The ruins of the lighthouse were discovered two years ago during excavations that are still under way in Patara.

Professor Havva ??kan I??k, head of Akdeniz University's archaeology department, which is conducting studies in the ancient city, said they believed the lighthouse was destroyed by a tsunami since a human skeleton was found among the ruins.

I?ek said the skeleton could belong to a lighthouse keeper who was trying to escape a tsunami but was crushed under the lighthouse's stone blocks.

A bronze inscription the team discovered indicated that the lighthouse was built by the Roman Emperor Nero between A.D. 64 and 65."

Roman arrowhead among artifacts found in Temple Mount rubble

Arutz Sheva - Israel National News: "Archaeologists have discovered hundreds of coins and artifacts in Temple Mount rubble removed by Arabs who are building a huge underground mosque. Among the finds are a seal that was used to close sacks of silver at the time of the prophet Jeremiah, shortly before the destruction of the First Temple. The seal bears a name that suggest the owner may have been a brother of a priest named in Jeremiah's writings, according to Bar Ilan University Prof. Gabriel Barkai.

Also found was an iron arrowhead with a shaft used by the Romans in their attack on the Second Temple almost 2,000 years ago. Other finds date back to the Middle Ages and 'testify to large attendance at the Temple Mount during the Christian conquest and rule during the 11th to 15th centuries,' Prof. Barkai added."

Cache of Bronze Age Tools uncovered near Somerset

Edinburgh Evening News - UK - Legal history as mum faces killing charge: "Archaeologists have uncovered hundreds of Bronze Age tools at a construction site in Somerset. Some 800 pieces were found at the former hunting site that was in use 4000 years ago."

Mole family uncovers Roman villa

CBBC Newsround | UK | Mole family uncovers Roman villa: "A group of busy moles has been credited with helping archaeologists find a Roman villa in Gloucestershire.

Fragments of ancient tiles from the villa were found in molehills and are believed to have been pushed above ground by the creatures' burrowing.

The discovery was made in the Cotswold village of Withington where several other Roman villas have recently been uncovered."

'Paradise' found in Brooklyn Museum

'Paradise' found in Brooklyn Museum: During the reign of the first Roman emperor Augustus, Carthage, once Rome's greatest enemy, became the capital of the Roman African Proconsularis. Important as a port and an invaluable source of grain and trade goods, Carthage became the home of very wealthy Roman citizens, including a large population of wealthy Roman Jews.

In the late 19th century, a captain in the occupying French army, Ernest de Prudhomme built a villa in the town of Hammam-Lif, a small town on the peninsula about 50 kilometers from Tunis. Wishing to add a new garden to his villa, Prudhomme instead discovered the remains of a Jewish synagogue of the Roman period, with beautiful mosaics of natural, personal, and religious themes inlaid in the floors, perfectly preserved beneath the villa?s yard.

This synagogue must have been a lovely place, if the mosaics in 'Tree of Paradise: Jewish Mosaics from the Roman Empire' are any indication. The floor of the main sanctuary must have looked like a Garden of Eden with menorahs. The mosaic panels overflow with roosters, partridges, ducks, lions, hyenas, fish, vines, flowers and date palms (the Tree of Paradise).

"In 1905, the Brooklyn Museum received 21 of these mosaics excavated in the North African ruins of the first Roman-era synagogue to be uncovered in modern times.

Now on exhibit until June 4, 2006, these mosaics are as fresh-looking as the day they were made -- mosaics keep well -- about 1,500 years ago in the city of Naro, not terribly far from the ancient stronghold of Carthage, in Tunisia. An inscription on one in Latin indicates they were donated to the synagogue by Julia of Naro. These mosaics are evidence that, although the Roman empire continued a policy of non-tolerance towards Jews throughout this period, in some places around the Mediterranean, Jewish people prospered.

Italy Offering "Loans" of Antiquities to Replace Works Without Provenance in American Museums

New York Times: "When Italian cultural officials faced off in Rome last month with Philippe de Montebello, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, they were gambling that they could make headway on a cause that had stymied them for three decades: getting the Met to give up a krater, or vase, by the fifth-century artist Euphronios, that they say was looted from an Etruscan tomb north of Rome.

On the face of things, it hardly seemed likely that the Met would suddenly consider returning an object that had been a prized mainstay of its Greek and Roman galleries for so many years.

But the Italians had seized on a new strategy: an offer to replace that work - and others they hope to get back from the museum - with loans of equal or similar value. The museum might even be able to hold on to some of the disputed objects as long-term loans, they suggested.

The strategy is part of a broader offensive to crack down on stolen antiquities. Italy has gained additional clout - at least in terms of public awareness - from the current criminal trial of Marion True, a former curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and of antiquities dealers with ties to top American museums."

The article goes on to say that several years ago Italy denied a Getty Museum request for the loan of a group of bronzes from the Naples Archaeological Museum that would have been featured when the newly expanded Getty Villa reopens January 28. I was sad to read this as I am anticipating a visit to the Getty Villa and I would have been thrilled to see the bronzes from the Naples Archaeological Museum since I didn't have time to visit that museum when I explored Pompeii last spring.

Romans may have learned from Chinese Great Wall

The construction of the Roman Limes was quite possibly influenced by the concept of the Great Wall in China, though the two great buildings of the world are far away from each other, said archaeologists and historians.

Although there is no evidence that the two constructions had any direct connections, indirect influence from the Great Wall on the Roman Limes is certain, said Visy Zsolt, a professor with the Department of Ancient History and Archaeology of the University of Pecs in Hungary.

The Roman Limes are Europe's largest archaeological monument, consisting of sections of the border line of the Roman Empire at its greatest extent in the 2nd century AD.

All together, the Limes stretch over 5,000 kilometers from the Atlantic coast of northern Britain, through Europe to the Black Sea, and from there to the Red Sea and across North Africa to the Atlantic coast.

Vestiges include the remains of the ramparts, walls and ditches, close to 900 watchtowers, 60 forts, and civilian settlements which accommodated tradesmen, craftsmen and others who served in the military.

Visy noted that there are a lot of similarities between the Roman Limes and the Great Wall. Both empires wanted to launch a strong barrier against "barbarians" and to prevent their invasions. In doing so, the Han Dynasty (226 BC-220 AD) built a continuous wall, but Rome built a wall only in special cases.

"It was an important point in both systems to build a military road along the limes, as well as a row of beacon towers in a strict sequence. Also the military centers and bigger forts are similar in the Roman and in the Chinese constructions," Visy said.

Archaeologists have found almost the same methods were used for providing signs at the Great Wall and the Roman Limes.

Visy said another factor that should not be neglected is that the western most sector of the Great Wall was built in the last decades of the 2nd century BC, during the strong rule of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.

The trade connections between the two empires were quite intensive in the first century and at least in the first half of the second one. "It is worth noting that the north line of the Silk Road was opened also at the beginning of the 1st century AD," Visy said.

Hill near Evros holds story of Plotinopolis

ekathimerini.com | Hill near Evros holds story of Plotinopolis: "Ever since the 1960s, the site where the hill of Aghia Petra rises between the Evros and Erythrpotamos rivers has been identified with the city of Plotinopolis. The Roman Emperor Trajan (AD 98-117) founded the city 2 kilometers from the Evros in honor of his wife Plotina.

In 1965, soldiers digging a trench in the area discovered a beaten gold bust of Septimus Severus, the Roman emperor who reigned from AD 193 to 211. That find is now in the Komotini Museum. In 1977, Georgios Bakalis and Dimantis Triantofyllos began systematic excavations, bringing to light new finds including mosaic floors.

Since Mathaios Koutsoumanis undertook the dig in 1996, he has unearthed many impressive finds, including the remains of mosaics from a large building complex, ceramics, coins (the most remarkable of which depicts Antiochus II of Syria), and inscriptions which show that the site was in use from the second to the sixth century AD."

Roman forts had a woman's touch.

Roman forts had a woman's touch. 13/12/2005. ABC News Online: "In a unique study, Dr Penelope Allison of the Australian National University has been analysing patterns of objects found throughout the forts that support the presence of women.

'The distribution of lost and abandoned objects, tells us quite a lot of about where people go and how they use a space,' she says.

Using computer software, she has mapped the distribution of over 30,000 artefacts.

She found objects used by women, such as hairpins, beads, perfume bottles and spindle wheels scattered in buildings and along the streets of the forts.

'They all tend to group together in different parts of the fort,' she says.

The location of these objects suggest women often played an active life in the fort, says Allison, which might be better described as a functioning town with a market rather than a sterile male-only province.

She says women were well and truly integrated into the forts, playing 'helpful' non-combatant roles of wives, mothers, craftspeople and traders."

Prison cells unearthed in Tiberias

Haaretz : "A bit of what prisoners suffered in ancient times can be seen as of yesterday at the archaeological dig in the old city of Tiberias. Excavations of the basilica compound in the eastern part of the old city recently unearthed two small chambers believed to have served as holding cells for prisoners awaiting trial.

The cells are located below the level of the main administrative building, the basilica. That fact bolsters the theory that they served as holding cells, where crowded prisoners waited to be called for trial. Each cell measures 1.8 by 2.7 meters, and is 2.07 meters high. Its walls are extremely thick, with the outer wall (1.1 meters thick) containing two narrow openings onto the city square. The slits presumably provided ventilation, and one also served as a food portal.

Narrow benches run along the length of the cells uncovered. One can only imagine what the prisoners experienced as they waited in the blazing heat of the Tiberias' summer. Some might have languished there for months, waiting for the governor to arrive, in the event of a complicated trial."

Five Untouched Sarcophagi Found Near Rome

"Italian archaeologists have found a remarkable trove of five untouched Roman sarcophagi in a burial vault outside Rome .

"It's really rare to find so many sarcophagi that have never been profaned or even opened - as can be seen by the intact lead clasps on their edges," said the head of the dig, Stefano Musco .

He said the sarcophagi dated from the II century AD and probably contained the remains of the wealthy residents of a villa that once stood in the area - now a building site on Rome's north-eastern outskirts .

All the sarcophagi are marble and all decorated, leading archaeologists to suppose they could have been made for a prominent aristocratic family .

One of them is much smaller than the others and believed to contain the remains of a small child.

The largest sarcophagus is decorated with lion's head masks and a central relief showing a reclining couple - a motif that dates back to Etruscan times .

Rome anthropologist Paola Catalano said she hoped the skeletons and funerary objects would provide information on burial rites and the lifestyles and social position of the dead, "even though the acidity of the terrain and rainwater has already corroded the marble."

Ancient Roman brickworks uncovered near Ronta

ANSA.it : "An Ancient Roman brickworks in near perfect condition has been discovered in Emilia Romagna .

The complex, the largest anywhere in the region and one of the biggest in Italy, was unearthed near a canal in the central Italian town of Ronta .

'This is a truly extraordinary find,' said a culture ministry spokesman. 'It is so well preserved that with minimal restoration it would still work perfectly today.'"

So far, archaeologists have uncovered two large rectangular ovens for baking bricks, a tiled floor that was once part of a production vat, a large terracotta tub and the remains of the walls .

The largest oven-room is 4.2 by 5 metres and has a hole in the centre showing the cavern underneath for lighting the fires. This had two-metre-high walls supporting a layer where the bricks were laid to bake .

Experts say that the room was extended on three occasions, presumably coinciding with a period of general expansion for the brickworks .

The brazier in the second oven-room, which is 3.8 by 3 metres, is constructed from a series of arches and small walls, allowing larger pieces to be placed directly over the flames .

The walls of the room are made of soft clay tiles that were gradually baked solid by the heat .

The complex, which dates back to the 2nd century BC, is the second oldest brickworks uncovered in Emilia Romagna. An earlier structure in Ca Turci Cesenatico has been dated back to the end of the 3rd century BC, which was when the Roman first occupied the area."

Ancient Roman Anchors Found in Israel

Newsday.com: "Ancient wooden anchors preserved by natural salt for more than 2,000 years have been discovered on the receding shores of the Dead Sea, Israel TV reported Monday.

Archaeologist David Mevorach told the TV station that one anchor dated back 2,500 years -- the oldest ever found. Another anchor was 2,000 years old, he said. They were built from acacia wood for Roman ships, he said. "

Archaeologists find western world's oldest map

"The oldest map of anywhere in the western world, dating from about 500 BC, has been unearthed in southern Italy. Known as the Soleto Map, the depiction of Apulia, the heel of Italy's 'boot', is on a piece of black-glazed terracotta vase about the size of a postage stamp.

It was found in a dig led by the Belgian archaeologist Thierry van Compernolle, of Montpellier University, two years ago. But its existence was kept secret until more research was carried out.

'The map offers, to date, for the Mediterranean, and more generally for western civilisation, the oldest map of a real space,' the university said recently.

Its engraved place names are indicated by points, just as on maps today, and are written in ancient Greek.

The sea on the western side, Taras (Taranto), today's Gulf of Taranto, is named in Greek. But the rest of the map is in Messapian, the ancient tongue of the local tribes, although the script is ancient Greek."

A Roman soldier?s story

"His name was Papas the Son of Cillis. He lived nearly 2,000 years ago, and it?s likely he would be mighty surprised at what James Russell has learned about his life.

Mr. Russell knows that Papas was an Anatolian who enlisted as an auxiliary in the Roman legions, serving in outposts of the empire for 25 mostly peaceful years. The auxiliaries were second-class soldiers who were natives of distant provinces that the Romans had conquered; Roman citizens served as prestigious legionaries.

Toward the end of his enlistment, Papas? regiment was sent to Judaea to help put down an uprising by the Jews. When he was honorably discharged, he was given Roman citizenship, as were all auxiliaries.

Papas returned home to his province to live out his life with his four children, who also were granted Roman citizenship, which would have set them on the path of upward social and political mobility.

Mr. Russell, an archaeologist and professor emeritus in the department of classics at the University of British Columbia, speaks about Papas as if he were an old friend. And, indeed, it must seem that way. The scholar has spent perhaps a decade tracing the life of the ancient Anatolian from information inscribed in Latin on a fragment of a bronze tablet, which was found in the rugged hills of Southern Turkey. Mr. Russell was given the fragment by farmers who uncovered it not far from his main archaeological site, the coastal Romano-Byzantine city of Anemurium.

The archaeologist worked backward from the substantial number of facts recorded on the tablet, including the date it was issued and the names of the emperor and the consuls for that year.

Also inscribed are Papas? native province and the names of the commanding officers of his regiment, as well as the names of members of his family, including his children.

?Emperor Trajan was mounting a campaign in the East. We know from stone inscriptions where his regiment was. We can trace its movements from Syria to Egypt to Judaea," Mr. Russell said.

It seemed straightforward enough until Mr. Russell remarked that he had discovered the regiment had been in Egypt from hieroglyphics on two papyri. ?Our kind of scholarship is sort of serendipitous,? he remarked.

Becoming an auxiliary in the Roman legions was a good job for a young man with wanderlust; the auxiliaries were shipped out to defend the empire?s frontiers. They quickly learned to speak ? and even read and write ? Latin. With those skills, an auxiliary could rise to the rank of sergeant. Papas gave at least two of his children Roman names, probably in honor of favorite centurions."

Cardiff Professor questions the reason for late Roman Britain gold hoards

MORE Roman gold is found in Britain than anywhere else - and now a Welsh academic has come up with an intriguing theory explaining why.

Thousands of gold and silver artifacts from the Roman period, especially when the conquerors finally left these islands in the 4th and 5th centuries.

Dr Peter Guest, of Cardiff University's School of History and Archaeology, is the leading expert on the biggest ever Roman gold treasure discovered in Britain. In 1992, 15,000 gold and silver coins were found at Hoxne in Suffolk in 1992.

Dr Guest explained that the gold mostly comes from a 50-year period towards the end of Roman occupation.

He said, "Before then, Britain is not very special, but in that 50-year phase, which coincides with the end of Roman control, lots of stuff is found.

"It normally consists of gold jewellery, spoons, toothpicks, thousands of coins and other items. I think connected to the fact that the Roman administration in Britain stops around 400 to 410 and the fact that the separation Britain experienced from the Roman Empire would have been so sudden.

"We had been part of the Empire for 350 years by that time, which is a very long time.

"It happened very suddenly and it might have been quite violent and one of the reasons for the huge amount of gold and silver is related to this separation.

"People weren't able to leave Britain and move somewhere else or weren't able to reuse it and recycle it and for some reason it has just stayed there." A theory already exists that people buried the treasure because of invasion from the Angles and Saxons of northern Germany.

Dr Guest said, " It is based on the Angles, Saxons and German groups coming over via the North Sea conquering eastern England, forcing all this gold and silver to be buried .

"The reason for that would have been people were being forced into slavery or killed.

"I think there is an element of truth in that but to blame the collapse of Roman gold on the Saxons is unfair. They wanted to come over here and live like the Romans, there was no point in them destroying everything.

"We need to be more careful and sophisticated in the way we approach this. The period we are looking at was known as the Dark Ages, there is very little archeological or historical evidence from the time."

Divers find image of Gladiator in G-String

The Teesdale Mercury: "AN image of a Roman gladiator wearing only a G-string has been dug from the bed of the River Tees.

Broken Roman pottery, decorated with the picture, was recovered from the river at Piercebridge.
Archaeologists believe the figure of a gladiator, who also appears to be holding a whip, may be the first of its kind ever discovered."

Remanants still remain of the battle of Mons Graupius

Sunday Herald: "THE dawn of Scottish history began with a battle on an Aberdeenshire hill in 84AD. On one side of the field were the vast legions of the mighty Roman Empire. On the other, a 30,000-strong confederate army of Caledonians ? our Scottish ancestors. This encounter, which became known as Mons Graupius, was a key moment for the Romans in their almighty struggle to conquer the whole of Britain. For the Scots, it was a battle for survival against a brutal occupation.


?Robbery, butchery, rape: the liars call it Empire,? roared Calgacus, leader of the Caledonians, at the men gathered before him. ?They create a desolation and call it peace. Whether you are to endure slavery forever or take summary vengeance, this field must decide.?

In the event, Calgacus and his brave warriors marched into a defeat at the hands of General Agricola, the Roman leader. The legions forced their adversaries to melt away into the great forest . But the Caledonians? fate would not be decided that day, as Calgacus had believed. Although the Romans won at Mons Graupius, they would never win the war against Scotland.

We should, nonetheless, be grateful that Rome decided to invade this remote corner of Europe. Had the Empire failed to penetrate so far north following the initial conquest of south Britain in around 43AD, we would know next to nothing about the natives. Calgacus ? whose name means ?swordsman? ? is, after all, the first Scot in recorded history.

His identity, and virtually all that we know about our early forebears, was recorded for us by Tacitus ? historian of the Roman campaign in Britain (and Agricola?s son-in-law). What Tacitus tells us should not be taken at face value. He aimed to write a glowing biography of Agricola and use his talents as a rhetorician to criticise Rome. He put noble words in Calgacus?s mouth to contrast the freedom-loving, uncorrupted Caledonians with the slavery of the south Britons, tainted by the vice, greed and arrogance of an autocratic empire, which Tacitus considered to have fallen after the golden age of the republic.

Mons Graupius should have been the beginning of a long haul to conquer the Caledonians. But instead, Agricola marched south to winter quarters. With reinforcements required on the Rhine and Danube, the Romans were obliged to give up on Scotland and withdraw to bases in safer southern territory. "


The remnants of the mightiest marching-camp in the northeast ? with space for 30,000 men ? can be found at Logie Durno, adjacent to Bennachie hill, near the field where Mons Graupius was probably fought. Enduring as their ghostly outlines are, however, these were not permanent garrisons and attempts to build such had to be aborted.

For more information about Calgacus, see Famous Scots

Ancient Roman town of Claterna uncovered near Bologna

ANSA.it : "The once bustling Roman town of Claterna is slowly re-emerging from the soil 15 centuries after it was abandoned and then vanished beneath farmland .

As a result of haphazard excavations in the past, the remains of a few patrician homes have been uncovered at the site near Bologna, along with mosaics and some pottery shards .

But a methodical, long-term research project is now getting under way for the first time ever, with funding from regional and provincial authorities, which have acquired the site .

So far digs have uncovered small portions of the town, revealing the street layout and mosaic paving from homes. Archaeologists have also found pottery, coins, metalwork and decorated bone .

An Etruscan-Celtic settlement stood in the area prior to the arrival of the Romans, who founded Bononia (Bologna) in 189 BC before spreading out to the surrounding area .

Claterna took its name from the river that still runs in the area today, the Quaderna, a clue that helped archaeologists identify the Roman ruins .

In fact, while Claterna's precise location was a mystery, historians had long known of its existence from various documents and maps .

A careful study of local place names, combined with the large number of Roman finds being unearthed by farmers, led experts to place Claterna between Bologna and Imola .

The town's prominence in ancient times was partly due to its location, at a crossroads between the ancient Roman highway of Via Aemelia, now the Via Emilia, and an important route across the Apennines, which archaeologists believe was probably the Via Flaminia Minor .

Both roads, constructed as consular routes in 187 BC, were major highways in Roman times, ensuring Claterna a constant flow of visitors, who brought with them trade, business and cash."

Associations appeal for new archaeological site in Morocco to be saved

Archeology : Associations appeal for new archaeological site to be saved :: moroccoTimes.com: "

When founded by the Phoenicians in the 6th century BC, Dhar Asekfane in Morocco overlooked a marshy zone near a river leading to the nearby coast. This is a typical choice of the Phoenicians, who looked for dominant locations with easy access to the interior for their agricultural and trading contacts with the local people combined with a navigable river, explained the archaeologists working on an excavation of the site.

The local Mauretanians followed the Phoenicians from the 5th-2nd century BC. Towards 40 BC, the Romans took over, staying until the 5th century AD. Coins and ceramics indicate a Moslem presence from the 12th-13th century AD.

The excavations, going down 60 cm, have brought to light well-preserved Roman remains: pottery, coins, large jars, thermal baths with changing room and cold, tepid and hot rooms. Also revealed was a group of fish-salting basins, supplied by large water reservoirs.

During the Roman occupation, the site was fortified by an impressively wide rampart. The main entry to the city was on the south face of the rampart, which contained several towers. "

Berlin Museum to Restore Famed Roman Gate

ABC News: "Officials from Berlin's Pergamon Museum announced plans Wednesday to dismantle and remove much of its famed Market Gate of Miletus over the next year and a half and to spend the next 10 years restoring it.

The towering Roman gate, built around 120 A.D. as the entrance to the market square in the Aegean coastal city of Miletus in what is now Turkey, is one of the museum's chief attractions. But metal supports built decades ago are sagging dangerously.

In the next three weeks, workers will cut a hole in the 75-year-old museum's southern exterior wall. Through it, they will pass 58 of the gate's marble blocks weighing about 110 tons to load them onto flatbed trucks and take them to an offsite facility for restoration.

The entire project is expected to take about 10 years and cost about $60 million, according to Gisela Holan, who oversees reconstruction work on the Pergamon and the four other museums that collectively make up Berlin's Museum Island.

The museum plans to put up a transparent wall that will contain dust and noise but let visitors continue to view the gate. Peter-Klaus Schuster, city museum director, said the unique setup will help make the Pergamon an 'academy of restoration work.'"

An ancient map of Rome that's surprisingly up to date

Glad to see my own University's Nolli Map Project is finally getting a little more press. I met with Dr. Tice and offered to provide images for the project.

"In 1748, architect and surveyor Giambattista Nolli completed a map of his hometown. The Pianta Grande di Roma ("Great Plan of Rome") was built from 12 minutely detailed copper plates, covered six by seven feet in its assembled state, and was so accurate that it continued to be used as the basis for government maps of the city until the 1970s. In 2005, a team at the University of Oregon brought the map online in order to "create and implement an innovative and highly interactive website and teaching tool for the study of the city of Rome." It may be a wordy mission statement, but the University of Oregon team certainly met its goals - The Interactive Nolli Map Website offers a good deal more than just a new look at an old map.

When created, the "Great Plan" was not only an impressive scientific and artistic achievement, it also set some cartographic precedents that are still followed today - such as Nolli's choice of the ichnographic, or plan, style of illustration rather than the more popular "bird's eye view." Nolli's was also the first map to use dark shades to mark buildings and private spaces and light shades for streets and public spaces, and the first such chart oriented so that North, rather than East, was at the top of the page. (In fact, the phrase, 'to orient' oneself, comes down from the earlier practice of placing the East at the top of maps.) Now, in its interactive incarnation, the map continues to set new precedents, as it folds history, cartography, urban design, and even architecture into a single presentation."

Carnegie Mellon Grant funds Roman and Medieval Research

Two years ago, Harvard's Goelet Professor of Medieval History Michael McCormick was awarded $1.5 million as part of a grant from the Mellon Foundation in New York.

McCormick asked for a two-year deferment and has since been planning a series of interdisciplinary projects?including researching isotopes and teeth, making old Latin texts accessible, and starting a summer internship program?which he will begin to execute this year.

McCormick said. ?The other things the grant will fund include launching a program to study isotopes and DNA of my Roman and medieval skeletons....I?m also trying to convince the University to help me create an undergraduate internship in medieval archaeology in Oxford, starting next summer.?

McCormick said he wants to make research into medieval life an interdisciplinary project. Speaking of a project involving the study of ancient Roman teeth, McCormick said, ?We?re planning on bringing together historians, economists, archaeologists, natural scientists, and bone specialists.?

He said they plan on studying the ancient Romans? diet, health, DNA, and the diseases they may have suffered.

Darryl J. Campbell ?06, one student already working with McCormick, said he is focusing on the Computative Philology Initiative, for which he helps scan old Latin texts and makes them legible. Campbell said his group hopes to compile Latin texts that are not available to the public and build a library that would be freely accessible to all.


A recent lecture led by Thomas Calligaro, the head physicist of the world-renowned Louvre Museum, and Peter Perin, the director of the French Musee d?Archeologie Nationale, also funded by the grant?focused on the duo?s discoveries of a link between India and France in the 6th century.

Calligaro and Perin said that by using a fusion of physics and history, they were able to determine that garnets with which a French queen was laid to rest had Indian origins. The garnets were set in cloisonne, and French garnets rarely are set that way. Perin traced its origins and Calligaro employed particle induced x-ray emission, or PIXE, a technique that accelerates particles, to discern the elements in the different garnets by their movement. Because garnets of different elements are found in different locations, the researchers were able to conclude that they, indeed, were of Indian origin.

The Solarium of Augustus to be Recreated in Eugene Oregon

Physorg.com: "Historian John Nicols and physicist Robert Zimmerman have joined with architects James Tice and Virginia Cartwright to lead a group of scholars and students seeking to create a replica of the Horologium / Solarium of Augustus, a 60-foot granite obelisk erected at Heliopolis in the seventh century B.C. by Psammetichus II and brought to Rome by Augustus in 10 B.C. The obelisk was to be used as the 'gnomon' (the staff against which the shadow is projected from the sun to the ground) of a new solar calendar and 'clock.'

'It was a momentous event in the history of time, for it marks the revolutionary shift in time-keeping from the lunar to a solar-based system we now use,' said Nichols, who specializes in ancient history and the history of science.

'What makes the Augusti solarium so significant is that it was the first attempt in the West to display the hours of the day and the days of the month - as well as the months and the seasons - in an astronomically correct way. Previous calendars were based primarily on the lunar cycle which created a 355-day year.'

The obelisk was toppled in late antiquity, rediscovered in the Renaissance, and set up again - without the face of the dial - in front of the Italian Parliament in Rome. About 20 years ago, a team of German archaeologists located the 'face' of the sun, which measures roughly 300 by 200 feet, 18 feet below the current street level of Rome. Nicols said the scholars and students hope to lay out the gnomon, or obelisk, for the solarium on a half-scale model. Hours of the day, days of the month, and the seasons will all be clearly marked."

I met with Professor Tice about participating in the Nolli Map Project. I didn't realize he was also working on this endeavor. When it is completed, I'll have to grab my digital camera and go have a look!

See the project website: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~klio/solarium/images.htm

Lavish Byzantine Mansion unearthed near Caesarea

The remains of a lavish Byzantine mansion with pictorial mosaic flooring and a rare table with gold-encrusted glass platelets have been uncovered in the coastal city of Caesarea during an archaeological excavation, Israel's Antiquities Authority announced Monday.

The 16 X 14.5 meter rectangular colorful mosaic -- part of the main central courtyard of the palace -- located just off the shorelines of the Mediterranean Sea, had been buried under sand dunes for the past 50 years, since 1950, when an Israeli army unit undergoing
training in the area accidentally stumbled on a section of the impressive mosaic flooring when digging trenches, excavation director Dr. Yosef Porat said.

According to the director of the excavations, the 6th century mansion likely belonged to one of the richest Christian families in Caesarea, possibly the aristocracy, although no inscriptions have been found
at the site to date.

The palace was destroyed by fire near the end of the Byzantine Period (324-638 CE) when the Arabs conquered the strategic harbor city, and set fire to any building outside the city walls, he said.

The mosaic-lined courtyard is composed of a series of animals, including lions, panthers, wild boars, dogs elephants, antelopes, and bulls, all enclosing 120 medallions, each of which contains a single bird, causing archaeologists to dub it "the bird mosaic."

During the excavations surrounding the central courtyard, archaeologists uncovered a unique table inlaid with a checkerboard pattern of gold-encrusted glass platelets in various shapes. Each square glass platelet in the table, which was found lying
upside-down on the pavement, bears a flower or cross stamped into the platelet after its production was completed, an unusual process that required reheating the glass. "

US Army helps restore Ladenburg's ancient past

Stars & Stripes: The village of Ladenburg, just north of Heidelberg, has the allure of many charming towns in Germanyss Neckar Valley.

But it has something more: a major historical find that U.S. soldiers helped uncover.

A stroll through the town's maze of cobblestone streets brings tourists face to face with crumbling Roman walls, an ancient standing column and an excavation that continues to yield items from long ago.

While the town's known history dates to the first century, the unearthing of its past goes back only about 50 years.

Villagers in the early 1950s noticed that large portions of crops throughout Ladenburg grew unevenly. German archaeologist Dr. Berndmark Heukemes knew of recent British finds that used a technique of flying high above oddly growing crops to find outlines of old ruins.

However, during this post-World War II time, Germans were not allowed to use aircraft for any reason.

Heukemes drafted a request for help from the U.S. Army, specifically from troops stationed in Heidelberg. In a letter sent to Washington, D.C., he said he strongly believed there were ancient wonders to be found in the fields of Ladenburg if he could only get an aircraft to see them. He proposed his idea as an international scientific project.

The proposal was accepted, and from 1952 to 1958, Army officers and soldiers helped unearth the remains of a Roman society that had long been forgotten.

Now, the Lobdengau museum, located inside Ladenburg's ancient city walls and next to fenced-off outdoor Roman ruins, has cultural finds from throughout the area going back two millenniums."

Ancient Roman Seaman Portrait Found

Discovery Channel: Ancient Roman marines had a bowl haircut and delicate, child-like features ? at least according to the first image of an Imperial Roman naval officer unearthed in Italy.

Carved on a funerary stone, the portrait was found three metres (10 feet) under water near the Classe necropolis in Ravenna, the port town where Rome's Adriatic fleet was based.

Made of marble, the one-metre-long (three foot) slab dates to the first century A.D. and bears a cavity on the top which originally contained the ashes of the portrayed military sailor.

According to the partly missing inscription, the tombstone was commissioned by a man named Cocneus for Monus Capito, an officer who served aboard the liburna "Aurata" (Golden).

An important part of the Roman fleet, the liburna was an easily manouvreable, light and fast galley used to fight pirates in the Adriatic Sea, a major problem for Roman merchant ships. "

Switzerland's Augusta Raurica Museum celebrates 50 years at annual Roman Festival

Switzerland's most important archaeological site is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its museum and Roman house.

Augusta Raurica, the first Roman colony to be built on the Rhine, receives 140,000 visitors every year and offers fascinating insights into the way the Romans lived.

The adjacent Roman house is a careful reconstruction of a Roman dwelling and workshop showing life as it would have been 2,000 years ago.

Founded in 44 BC in the vicinity of modern-day Basel by Lucius Munatius Plancus, a military commander and friend of Caesar, the original purpose of the Colonia Raurica was to defend Rome's new frontier along the Rhine, following the conquest of Gaul.

The earliest evidence of Roman settlement at Augusta Raurica dates back to 15BC, when the Emperor Augustus incorporated the area which is now Switzerland into the Roman Empire.

From a military base, Augusta Raurica soon developed into a vital staging post and trading centre in a great single market which stretched from Britain in the north to Africa in the south, from the Iberian peninsula in the west to Asia in the east.

Just a few decades after its foundation, a building boom transformed the military encampment on the Rhine into one of the continent's major cities. Wooden fortifications and houses were replaced by a grid layout of broad avenues fronted by imposing constructions in bricks and mortar."

Mummy of ancient Palmyra found in Syria

RIA Novosti - World - UPDATE: "Syrian archaeologists have discovered a sarcophagus with the best-preserved mummy ever in a tower tomb in Palmyra.

The two-meter-long conical sarcophagus is made of stone. The name of Hanbal Saadi, who the scientists believe was the owner of the tomb, is engraved upon it.

The mummy is 175 centimeters (5 feet 9 inches) long.

The discovery was a surprise for the archaeologists. Ancient residents of this town are known to have buried their relatives in separate niches that lined the walls of a burial chamber.

According to scientists, the rich in ancient Palmyra could afford to build large burial chambers and tomb towers not only for their own relatives, but also to lease them to people not connected with them by family ties. Some of the tombs could become a resting place for hundreds of bodies.

It is the first time that Syrian archaeologists have discovered a tomb with so many mummies, which date back to over 2,000 years ago."