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Archaeological Finds On The Roman Frontiers

Archaeologists uncover ancient helmets and temple ruins in southern Italy.


Two ancient warrior helmets, metal fragments believed to have come from weapons, and the remains of a temple have been discovered at Velia, an archaeological site in southern Italy that was once a powerful Greek colony.

Experts believe the helmets, which were found in good condition, and metal fragments date to the sixth-century BC Battle of Alalia, when a Greek force of Phocaean ships clinched victory over the Etruscans and their Carthaginian allies in a naval battle off the coast of Corsica. One of the helmets is thought to have been taken from the enemies.

The excavations at Velia, which is near Paestum, the vast archaeological park of ancient Greek ruins in the southern Campania region, also yielded the remains of walls of a temple and vases with the Greek inscription “sacred”. The relics were discovered on what would have been the acropolis, or upper part, of the ancient Greek city.

Massimo Osanna, the director general of Italian museums, said the site probably contained artefacts of offerings made to Athena, the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom, after the Battle of Alalia. After the battle, the Greek colonists set sail for southern Italy, where they bought a piece of land and founded Velia.
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(c) The Guardian '22.
 
This is more of a re-discovery than a new "find." Drought-induced receding waters have revealed a Roman military camp in Spain that's been largely submerged for decades.

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Severe drought in Spain uncovers ruins of 1st century Roman fort

An ancient Roman military camp in what is now northwestern Spain has been revealed in its entirety as reservoirs in Europe continue to shrink this month amid record-breaking drought.

Portions of columns, arches and the foundation are all that remain of Aquis Querquennis, a fort and military barracks for Roman legions that were likely stationed there to monitor the construction of roads. ...

The fort was constructed along the Lima River in what is now known as Galicia, an autonomous region in northwestern Spain, and its occupation lasted from around 75 A.D. until it was abandoned less than a century later, according to a 2018 study.

Locally, the site is known as A cidá, or "the city," though it is often submerged beneath the As Conchas Reservoir following its construction in 1949. ...

Over years past, portions of pillars and archways would break the surface as water levels dropped. Then in August 2022, as the reservoir's water levels receded to just 49% of the maximum level, the lake yielded the entirety of the camp. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2022/08/30/spain-roman-military-camp-drought/4691661855391/
DRONE VIDEO (@ Accuweather): https://www.accuweather.com/en/videos/HPZuhchM
 

'Rare' Roman mosaic found in Rastan, Syria​

A 1,600-year-old virtually intact Roman mosaic has been discovered in central Syria.

The mosaic, measuring 20 x 6m (65.5 x 20ft), was found under a building in Rastan near Homs, which was held by rebels in the civil war until 2018.
Showing mythical scenes including the Trojan and Amazon wars, it is said to be the rarest of its kind.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-63240648
 

‘Magnificent’ smiling sphinx of Roman emperor found at ancient Egypt site​


With deep sandy eyes and a wide smirk, the statue is probably modeled on the Roman emperor Claudius, the country’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said. He ruled from A.D. 41 to 54 and is credited with extending Roman rule to parts of North Africa.

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Ancient Egyptian sphinxes often represented a king or royal with the body of a lion, as a symbol of might and power.

The statue was uncovered in a two-level tomb at the archaeological site of the temple of Dendera in Qena province, north of Luxor. The area also includes a shrine to the ancient Egyptian god Horus, also dating back to the Roman era, according to Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.

During the excavation of the tomb, “a limestone statue of a Roman emperor was found,” Mamdouh Damati, a former minister of archaeology and professor of archaeology at Ain Shams University, said in the statement.

He described the statue as “magnificent” with facial features that “meticulously depicted royal features and a light smile on his lips, which have two dimples on the ends.” Traces of yellow and red color also remain on the face, Damati said.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/worl...peror-found-at-ancient-egypt-site/ar-AA18k2W4

maximus otter
 
Nemo said:
Archaeologists uncover ancient helmets and temple ruins in southern Italy.


(c) The Guardian '22.
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More significant finds at Paestum.

Excavations in southern Italy have unearthed terracotta bull heads and a figurine of the Greek god Eros riding a dolphin.

The discoveries shine new light on the religious life and rituals of an ancient city, Italian culture ministry officials said.


Terracotta bull head

A terracotta bull head found at the site (Paestum Velia Archeological Park via AP)

It is the first trove of artefacts identified from a sanctuary in the ancient Greek city of Paestum, which dates from the fifth century BC.

Paestum, famed for its three massive Doric-columned temples, is near the archaeological site of Pompeii, but further down the Almalfi coast


The dig site

The sanctuary was first identified in 2019 along the ancient city walls of Paestum, southern Italy (Paestum Velia Archeological Park via AP)

The small temple was first identified in 2019 along the ancient city walls, but excavations were halted due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Italian officials said. ...

https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/a...nearth-ancient-dolphin-statuette-1463297.html
 
Foreign Legions in the desert,

Archaeologists have used satellite images to make a "spectacular" find of Roman military camps in the Arabian desert.

University of Oxford researchers identified three new Roman fortified camps – in the typical playing card shape – across northern Arabia.

The discovery may be evidence of potential surprise attacks during a previously undiscovered Roman military campaign linked to the Roman takeover of the Nabataean Kingdom in 106 AD, a civilisation centred on the city of Petra, located in Jordan.

Dr Michael Fradley, who led the research and first identified the very well preserved camps on Google Earth, suggests there is little doubt about the date of the camps.

He said: "We are almost certain they were built by the Roman army, given the typical playing card shape of the enclosures with opposing entrances along each side.

"The only notable difference between them is that the westernmost camp is significantly larger than the two camps to the east."

Oxford’s Dr Mike Bishop, an expert on the Roman military, said: "These camps are a spectacular new find and an important new insight into Roman campaigning in Arabia.

"Roman forts and fortresses show how Rome held a province, but temporary camps reveal how they acquired it in the first place."

The researchers suggest the camps would have been built by the army as temporary defended stations when they were marching on campaign.

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Dr Fradley added: "The level of preservation of the camps is really remarkable, particularly as they may have only been used for a matter of days or weeks.

https://www.rte.ie/news/newslens/20...-military-camps-identified-in-arabian-desert/
 
Archaeologists Unearthed a Treasure Trove of Stones at the Site of an Ancient Roman Bathhouse in the UK

Recently, archaeologists in Britain discovered dozens of engraved semiprecious stones from the third century at the site of an ancient bathhouse beneath the Carlisle Cricket Club.

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Smaller than a dime, the 36 gems are made of materials like amethyst, carnelian, and jasper. Called “intaglios,” meaning they have images carved into them, the jewels likely fell out of wealthy people’s rings after they entered the baths.

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Venus holding a mirror on an amethyst gem

The water may have loosened the adhesives used in the rings—like birch bark resin—and caused the metal settings to expand and contract. So the stones probably just fell off, sinking to the bottom of the baths and ending up in the drains when the pools and saunas were cleaned.

https://news.yahoo.com/archaeologis...zR1LDT4W4JT-tLvOldHkJ1Eg-_3EuNKBZ3_QosENTJWxH

maximus otter
 
Shows how advanced Roman doctors were.

The grave of a medical man who died roughly 2,000 years ago has been unearthed in Hungary, along with needles, forceps, scalpels and other tools he used for his profession..

The medical toolset, dating from the first century A.D., is a rare find, according to a translated statemet released on April 25 by Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in Budapest. Similar finds have been made only at the Roman city of Pompeii.

"It is striking in itself that a doctor equipped with such prestigious equipment visited this area," which the Romans considered "barbarian" lands — their term for anywhere outside their territories. "The current assumption is that the well-equipped doctor, probably trained in one of the Imperial centers, may have traveled to this area to save someone," the statement said.


Here we see a pair of gloved hands carefully handling the Roman-era scalpels.



The 2,000-year-old collection of medical tools is an extremely rare find, especially in the so-called "barbarian" regions beyond the frontier of the Roman Empire at that time. (Image credit: ELTE Faculty of Humanities)

Roman-era grave​

The Roman-era grave is near the city of Jászberény, in the Jászság region of central Hungary, about 35 miles (55 kilometers) east of Budapest.

Levente Samu, an archaeologist at ELTE and a member of the team that carried out the excavation, said in the statement that the tools were found in two wooden chests at the foot of the grave; they include pliers, needles, forceps and "top-quality scalpels suitable for surgical procedures."

The scalpels are made of a copper alloy decorated with silver, and have removable steel blades. The excavators found a grinding stone that was used to sharpen the blades and possibly to mix medical herbs. Similar scalpels have been found in Roman Gaul — a region now covered mainly by France and the westernmost parts of Germany.

The archaeologists also recovered the near-complete skeleton of the "doctor" himself, which showed he was a man aged about 50 or 60 years old when he died, but who had suffered from no obvious illnesses or trauma. ...

https://www.livescience.com/archaeo...-medical-tools-including-top-quality-scalpels
 
ramonmercado said:
Shows how advanced Roman doctors were.

The grave of a medical man who died roughly 2,000 years ago has been unearthed in Hungary, along with needles, forceps, scalpels and other tools he used for his profession..

The medical toolset, dating from the first century A.D., is a rare find, according to a translated statemet released on April 25 by Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in Budapest. Similar finds have been made only at the Roman city of Pompeii.

"It is striking in itself that a doctor equipped with such prestigious equipment visited this area," which the Romans considered "barbarian" lands — their term for anywhere outside their territories. "The current assumption is that the well-equipped doctor, probably trained in one of the Imperial centers, may have traveled to this area to save someone," the statement said.


Here we see a pair of gloved hands carefully handling the Roman-era scalpels.



The 2,000-year-old collection of medical tools is an extremely rare find, especially in the so-called "barbarian" regions beyond the frontier of the Roman Empire at that time. (Image credit: ELTE Faculty of Humanities)

Roman-era grave​

The Roman-era grave is near the city of Jászberény, in the Jászság region of central Hungary, about 35 miles (55 kilometers) east of Budapest.

Levente Samu, an archaeologist at ELTE and a member of the team that carried out the excavation, said in the statement that the tools were found in two wooden chests at the foot of the grave; they include pliers, needles, forceps and "top-quality scalpels suitable for surgical procedures."

The scalpels are made of a copper alloy decorated with silver, and have removable steel blades. The excavators found a grinding stone that was used to sharpen the blades and possibly to mix medical herbs. Similar scalpels have been found in Roman Gaul — a region now covered mainly by France and the westernmost parts of Germany.

The archaeologists also recovered the near-complete skeleton of the "doctor" himself, which showed he was a man aged about 50 or 60 years old when he died, but who had suffered from no obvious illnesses or trauma. ...

https://www.livescience.com/archaeo...-medical-tools-including-top-quality-scalpels
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I don't like the thought of 'pliers' being involved....
 
An interesting find.

A young boy in Germany discovered a silver coin dating to the ancient Roman Empire.

The front and back of a silver coin from the Roman Empire.

The heavily worn coin was minted 1,800 years ago. (Image credit: Culture Department)

An 8-year-old boy playing in a sandbox at his elementary school in Germany unearthed an 1,800-year-old silver coin minted during the Roman Empire's Pax Romana.

Overwhelmed with excitement for literally finding buried treasure in the schoolyard, the fourth grader — identified only by his first name, Bjarne — rushed home to show the coin to his family in Bremen, a city in northern Germany, upon finding it in August 2022. After his parents contacted authorities, archaeologists confirmed that the coin was a Roman denarius minted during the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, who held the throne from A.D. 161 to 180, according to a translated statement released on Aug. 11.

The heavily worn coin, which weighs 0.08 ounce (2.4 grams), was minted during a "time of coin deterioration" when the Roman Empire decreased the silver content in its currency, a direct result of inflation, Uta Halle, the state archaeologist, said in the statement.

Halle called the find "something very special," since it's one of the few times a denarius has been discovered in Bremen, according to the statement. While this region of Germany was never under Roman rule, it was inhabited by the Chauci, an ancient Germanic tribe that often traded with ancient Romans. This could explain how the coin wound up buried in German soil, according to The History Blog.

Bjarne won't be able to keep the coin, as finds like this one belong to the state, per the Bremen Monument Protection Act. But state archaeologists praised him for his "alertness and curiosity" and plan to give him two archaeology books as a reward, according to the statement.

https://www.livescience.com/archaeo...arths-roman-era-silver-coin-in-school-sandbox
 
Remnants of an ancient Roman society found buried in the Alps

For the first time in almost a century, a team of archaeologists have discovered stone walls dating back to the Roman Empire in Zug, Switzerland.

While excavating a gravel pit in the city of Äbnetwald, a team uncovered the 2,000-year-old Roman walls that possibly once protected a building complex. They have also found some iron nails, pieces of plaster wall, gold fragments possibly from jewelry, millstones, glassware, crockery, bowls, and ceramic jugs called amphorae.

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Small selection of Roman finds (from top left to bottom right): An amphora base, the shard of a mortar, the rim of a small bowl of Roman tableware with a red coating (terra sigillata), four coins in as-found condition, one of which was silver from Julius Caesar, Fragment of a gold object, pieces of a square bottle and a blue glass ribbed bowl. CREDIT: ADA Zug/Res Eichenberger

Archaeologists also found evidence that some elite people lived at the site, including imported Roman tableware called terra sigillata and some detailed glass vessels. During this time, amphorae jars typically held fish sauce, wine, or olive oil and provide some evidence that the Romans in the region traded with Mediterranean countries.

The walls extended to at least 5,300 square feet and it is still unclear how the site was used.

https://www.popsci.com/science/roman-switzerland-alps-archeology/

maximus otter
 

Archaeologists Have Unearthed the Remains of a Lost Ancient Roman City in Spain's Iberian Peninsula​


Archaeologists have discovered an ancient forum, or plaza, that belonged to a mysterious Roman city that got wiped off the map by a civil war that broke out more than 2,000 years ago in Spain’s Iberian Peninsula.

The forum served as a central town square at a Roman site known as La Cabañeta, which is located near the municipality of El Burgo de Ebro in the Spanish province of Zaragoza. Archaeologists discovered the outer perimeter of this plaza a decade ago, but it wasn’t until this past summer that researchers resumed excavations and discovered the forum.

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This forum dates back to the first century BC, making it the oldest plaza of this kind in the interior Iberian Peninsula, a region that was under Roman control at the time. Similar forums do not appear to have been more common in the area until the reign of the famous emperor Augustus, at least a century later.

As a result, the forum “offers a very precise image of a Roman city in transition from the 2nd to 1st century BC.”

https://www.vice.com/en/article/4a3...thed-the-remains-of-a-lost-ancient-roman-city

maxius otter
 
Go fort and multiply.

Archaeologists have used declassified spy satellite imagery from the 1960s and 70s to reevaluate one of the first aerial archaeology surveys ever, revealing 396 previously undiscovered Roman forts in what is now Syria and Iraq.

The initial survey, published by Father Antoine Poidebard in 1934, recorded a line of 116 forts that corresponded to the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire.

As such, it was thought that the forts were a defensive line to protect the eastern provinces from Arab and Persian incursions.

"Since the 1930s, historians and archaeologists have debated the strategic or political purpose of this system of fortifications," says lead author of the research, Professor Jesse Casana from Dartmouth College, "but few scholars have questioned Poidebard's basic observation that there was a line of forts defining the eastern Roman frontier."

To tackle this, Professor Casana and a team of investigators from Dartmouth College utilized declassified spy satellite imagery from the Cold War to evaluate whether Poidebard's findings were accurate. Their results are published in the journal Antiquity.

"These images formed part of the world's first spy satellite programs," state the authors.

They "preserve a high-resolution, stereo perspective on a landscape that has been severely impacted by modern-day land-use changes."

SPY SATELLITES REVEAL HUNDREDS OF UNDISCOVERED ROMAN FORTS


Map showing distribution of forts as discovered by Poidebard (above) and the authors (below). Credit: Antiquity (2023). DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2023.153

By using the forts found by Poidebard as a reference point, the team was able to identify 396 more. They were widely distributed across the region from east to west, which does not support the argument that the forts constituted a north-south border wall.

The researchers hypothesize that the forts were actually constructed to support interregional trade, protecting caravans traveling between the eastern provinces and non-Roman territories and facilitating communication between east and west.

Importantly, this indicates that the borders of the Roman world were less rigidly defined and exclusionist than previously believed. The eastern Roman frontier was likely not a place of constant violent conflict.

https://phys.org/news/2023-10-spy-satellites-reveal-hundreds-undiscovered.html
 
From what I've heard, the Roman administration was mainly centred around the cities, with the tribesmen being 'controlled' by occasional forays by the army should they look to be gathering in threatening numbers.
 
Unique discovery: Temples at a a Roman military site.

Archaeologists have unearthed the remains of two Roman temples and a sacrificial pit in Germany.

The building remnants, located at the site of a former Roman camp known as Haltern in northwestern Germany, are the first known instances of temples found at a Roman military site, according to a translated statement.

During excavations, archaeologists unearthed the clay frameworks of the rectangular buildings. The last time researchers explored the site was in 1928, but the findings were since reburied to help preserve the existing structures.

The twin temples were once part of a larger building complex that measured roughly 21,500 square feet (2,000 square meters). Archaeologists initially thought one of the buildings was used as a meeting house, or "schola," for military officials and later as a workshop, based on some of the tools found strewn about the site. They're currently not sure of the second building's purpose.

An archaeological site in Germany


In the excavation area of the former military camp, the foundations of the temples can still be seen as faint soil discoloration. (Image credit: LWL/C. Hentzelt)
"[The constructions] were based on the typical large podium temples made of stone that could be found in numerous Roman cities at the time of Emperor Augustus," Bettina Tremmel, an archaeologist with the Regional Association of Westphalia-Lippe (LWL) in Germany, said in the statement. Augustus, the great-nephew and adopted heir of Julius Caesar, ruled as the empire's first emperor from 31 B.C. to A.D. 14.

Between the two structures, researchers found a shallow, circular sacrificial pit — a surprising find, considering "the construction of a grave within a settlement was forbidden under Roman law," according to the statement. No human remains have been found at the site thus far. ...

https://www.livescience.com/archaeo...it-unearthed-at-ancient-roman-camp-in-germany
 
Maybe the rule-breaking sacrificial pit signifies that mutiny may have taken place at this site?
 
In Roman civil wars, the dead were buried - end of.
Even executions of major figures were accorded a burial. The Senate insisted on going 'by the book' because it gave them the high ground, especially in religious affairs. Traitors were executed in various ways, as were any criminals (check out patricides), but they were still buried in various forms.
Romans didn't go in for human sacrifice, at all.
 
Stormkhan said:
In Roman civil wars, the dead were buried - end of.
Even executions of major figures were accorded a burial. The Senate insisted on going 'by the book' because it gave them the high ground, especially in religious affairs. Traitors were executed in various ways, as were any criminals (check out patricides), but they were still buried in various forms.
Romans didn't go in for human sacrifice, at all.
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Of course some of the Vestal Virgins were buried while still alive. (Domitian's execution of Cornelia for example) Which cut out part of the process.
 
"Rules is rules!"
They were buried alive as punishment. It wasn't a sacrifice. The Vestal broke the Table of Laws (allegedly) and she was punished according to law.
 
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