Romans in Wales
Wow … the archaeologist types in Wales keep coming up with discoveries. In the past week, I’ve read of three major finds … typically, things from Wales don’t seem to make it beyond the local papers, but the first two items are a bit different. Here’s the Telegraph coverage about a Roman villa find in [...]
Roman Shipwrecks off Zannone
This one just started filtering in this a.m. … here’s the Reuters coverage: A team of marine archaeologists using sonar scanners have discovered four ancient shipwrecks off the tiny Italian island of Zannone, with intact cargoes of wine and oil. The remains of the trading vessels, dating from the first century BC to the 5th-7th [...]
Statue of Artemis from Zajecar?
Tip o’ the pileus to Adrian Murdoch for this one: At the site of the ‘Felix Romuliana’, an imperial palace near the Town of Zajecar, German experts of the Archeology Institute in Frankfurt, together with the colleagues of the Archeology Institute in Belgrade have discovered a sensational sculpture, unique in this area of the Balkans. [...]
Odrysian Site from Bulgaria
Image via Wikipedia Ivan Hristov is characterizing this as a ‘Bulgarian Machu Picchu’ … interesting how they get a dig in at Philip II in this one: Bulgarian rchaeologists have uncovered a unique residence of the rulers of the Odrysian Kingdom, the state of the most powerful tribe of Ancient Thrace. The residence is located [...]
Pompeii Poop
Tip o’ the pileus to the fine folks over at Blogging Pompeii for bringing our attention to an article in the Discovery Channel Magazine highlighting the work of Dr Andy Fairbairn and crew who have been poking around the potties of Pompeii to learn more about what the folks were eating etc. … very interesting [...]
Latest from Silchester
The incipit of a piece in the Guardian: A battered and corroded thumb-sized piece of bronze has turned out to be a unique find, the earliest representation of an Egyptian deity from any site in Britain – and appropriately, after almost 2,000 years hidden in the ground, it is Harpocrates, the god of secrecy and [...]
York Gladiators Redux
The BBC has a very nice little slideshow of some of the skeletons from that dig at York which are claimed to be of gladiating victims. There’s actually some good stuff here, and since I can’t really embed the slideshow, I do want to make some comments (the numbers refer to the slide): 1. 60 [...]
Roman Wall Paintings from Bulgaria
Image via Wikipedia I’ve been waiting for my spiders to bring me this one … but they seemed to have stopped at Francesca Tronchin’s first (tip o’ the pileus). Brief item from Balkan Travellers: An archaeologist has discovered unique wall paintings in an ancient residence in the late Roman town of Novae, located in northern [...]
Pistillus’ Workshop Identified in Autun
Tip o’ the pileus to Franz Cumont, who is back from the dead, living on Facebook, and posting interesting things every now and then. This one comes from Le Monde: Pistillus était un grand potier. Du moins par l’abondance de sa production. Pour le goût, c’est une autre histoire. Ses céramiques auraient leur place au [...]
Roman Remains from Caistor
A late-Roman/Christian (?) cemetery … here’s some coverage: ARCHAEOLOGISTS have found what is thought to be a late-Roman cemetery in a county village. So far, a total of 46 human remains have been excavated and archaeologists say they expect to have found more than 50 by the time they finish next week. The discovery was [...]
Roman Villa + Burial from Bredon’s Norton
A potentially-interesting find due to waterworks construction: A 2,000-YEAR-OLD human skeleton has been unearthed alongside Iron Age artefacts near Tewkesbury. Archaeologists uncovered signs of the ancient Roman villa in a field on the edge of Bredon’s Norton. It is thought the finds could be of national importance. Metal detector hunts in recent years had led [...]
Chariot Burial (and more) from Borissovo
I’m often asked how I find so much stuff to post on rogueclassicism and one of the sad things is that there actually is a lot more that I seem to get, file away, and forget about and only ‘rediscover’ while poking around looking for other things. A case in point is this brief item [...]
Major Roman Canal from Portus!
The incipit of a very interesting item from the Telegraph: Scholars discovered the 100-yard-wide (90-metre-wide) canal at Portus, the ancient maritime port through which goods from all over the Empire were shipped to Rome for more than 400 years. The archaeologists, from the universities of Cambridge and Southampton and the British School at Rome, believe [...]
Vindolanda-like Archive from Fort Fectio (not Utrecht)
Richard Campbell and Lindsay Powell get the tip o’ the pileus treatment for alerting me to this one. Unfortunately the only current coverage appears to be in Dutch: In Utrecht zijn vandaag circa honderd fragmenten van houten Romeinse schrijfplankjes gepresenteerd. De plankjes maakten waarschijnlijk deel uit van het militaire archief van het Romeinse fort Fectio [...]
Sagalassos Dig Resumes
Image via Wikipedia This season’s excavations of the ancient city of Sagalassos, located in south-western Turkey, have begun, the head of archeological research project Dr. Inge Uytterhoeven announced recently. This year’s excavations will involve 51 workers and 75 Turkish and foreign technical personnel, Dr. Uytterhoeven, who is also a lecturer at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in [...]
Another Gladiator Grave Claim — This Time Female?
The BBC seems to be first off the mark with this one, and it will likely be picked up: Archaeologists in Herefordshire have uncovered the remains of what could possibly be a female gladiator. Amongst the evidence of a Roman suburb in Credenhill, they have found the grave of a massive, muscular woman. She was [...]
Christian Necropolis from Bitola?
Image via Wikipedia The headline suggests — once again — that archaeologists are a rather clumsy lot: During the reconstruction works of the Tumbe Kafe stadium and recreational zone in Macedonia’s south-western town of Bitola, archaeologists have found necropolises, most likely dating to the third century. “All construction activities have been halted in order to [...]
Roman Shipwreck near Panarea
Image via Wikipedia Starting the summer blogging season with a brief item from ANSA: The wreck of a Roman ship from the first century AD which is still whole and has over 500 wide-mouthed amphorae onboard has been discovered to the south of the island of Panarea. The discovery, which was made by the Sea [...]
Etruscan House from Grosseto: Followup
We’re getting a few more details on that Etruscan house find at Grosseto which we mentioned last week … here’s an excerpt from ANSA’s coverage: Following an initial excavation of two weeks, the archaeological team revealed details of the earliest discoveries. The building’s walls were made of blocks of dried clay, the first ever example [...]
This Week in Cleopatra News
Most of the press coverage this week comprised of variations on an AP piece on Franck Goddio’s explorations of the underwater ruins of Alexandria, with a special focus on Cleopatra’s palace (to coincide with the exhibition in Philadelphia). Here’s the incipit of a representative item: Plunging into the waters off Alexandria Tuesday, divers explored the [...]
Greek ‘Stone Crown’ from Syria
This one’s kind of confusing for me … from the Global Arab Network: Remarkable archaeological finds from the Greek and Roman eras have been found in different archaeological sites in Deir Ezzor Province during current excavation season. A Greek stone crown, the first of its kind in the region, was discovered by the Syrian-French mission [...]
That Shipwreck Full of Lead
A while ago we mentioned that lead recovered from a Roman shipwreck was going to be used to help in neutrino research. I’m sure I’m not the only one who was more interested in the shipwreck than the lead, so I’m happy to share this very interesting video/slideshow thingy by Rossella Lorenzi of Discovery News [...]
Clay Sarcophagi from Protaras
Oh, those clumsy work crews: Work crews in Cyprus have accidentally unearthed four rare clay coffins estimated to be some 2,000 years old, the country’s Antiquities Department director said Wednesday. Maria Hadjicosti said the coffins adorned with floral patterns date from the east Mediterranean island’s Hellenistic to early Roman periods, between 300 B.C. and 100 [...]
The Search for Cleopatra’s Tomb Redux
With a Cleopatra exhibition about to hit Philadelphia and plenty of hype to be associated with it (if it isn’t already), it seems like a good time to see what — if any — developments there have been in the search for Cleopatra’s tomb. To bring folks up to speed, after finds of statuary linked [...]
1600 Years B.P. Church along the Avenue of the Sphinxes
… but it seems more interesting what that church is made of: Archaeologists in Egypt have unearthed the ruins of a 1600-year-old church and a nilometer, an ancient instrument used to measure the level of the Nile River, the Ministry of Culture said on Tuesday. The discovery was made during work to restore the 2700-metre-long [...]
