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Sea gives up a portrait of ancient Rome

 

Date: August 8, 2012

 

"Local fishermen's finds have led to an astounding discovery, reports Martin Daly from Rome.

 

FOR 2000 years the ancient and decomposing hulk lay buried in deep, muddy waters, off the Italian coast.

 

Everybody knew it was down there because for more than 80 years local fishermen had been collecting bits of Roman artefacts and pots in their nets.

 

Finds of this nature are not unusual in Italian waters, which are littered with treasures going back thousands of years.

 

But these artefacts told a different story, and it was good enough to attract the interest of the archaeological community and a police commander who heads an expert diving squad in the city of Genoa."

 

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Etruscan Pyramidal Chambers Discovered in Italy

 

Past Horizons

 

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

 

"Initial investigations have begun on a series of pyramidal chambers carved from the tufa rock underneath the city of Orvieto, Italy.

 

Dr. David B. George of the Department of Classics at Saint Anselm and Dr. Claudio Bizzarri of the Parco Archeogico Ambientale dell Orvietano (PAAO) are the co-directors leading the excavation with students from Saint Anselm College.

 

The interior of the subterranean space had been filled almost to the top with the upper section used as a modern wine cellar. However one feature caught the eye; a series of ancient stairs carved into the wall of a constructional type consistent with an Etruscan date.

 

The mysterious Etruscans

 

The Etruscan’s controlled Orvieto from circa 1000 BCE until the Roman conquest of the city in 264 BCE. Widely known for their art, agriculture, fine metalworking and commerce, they started to decline during the fifth century BCE as the Romans grew in power and by 300-100 BCE they had been absorbed into the Roman state.

 

Their puzzling, non-Indo-European language was virtually extinguished as they left almost no literature to document their society. The last person known to have been able to read Etruscan was the Roman emperor Claudius. Almost all we know about this highly influential culture comes from their richly decorated tombs that help to reconstruct their history."

 

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October 1, 2012

 

The Unsolved Mystery of the Tunnels at Baiae

 

"There is nothing remotely Elysian about the Phlegræan Fields, which lie on the north shore of the Bay of Naples; nothing sylvan, nothing green. The Fields are part of the caldera of a volcano that is the twin of Mount Vesuvius, a few miles to the east, the destroyer of Pompeii. The volcano is still active–it last erupted in 1538, and once possessed a crater that measured eight miles across–but most of it is underwater now. The portion that is still accessible on land consists of a barren, rubble-strewn plateau. Fire bursts from the rocks in places, and clouds of sulfurous gas snake out of vents leading up from deep underground.

 

The Fields, in short, are hellish, and it is no surprise that in Greek and Roman myth they were associated with all manner of strange tales. Most interesting, perhaps, is the legend of the Cumæan sibyl, who took her name from the nearby town of Cumæ, a Greek colony dating to about 500 B.C.– a time when the Etruscans still held sway much of central Italy and Rome was nothing but a city-state ruled over by a line of tyrannical kings."

 

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Public release date: 10-Oct-2012

 

EurekAlert!

 

CSIC researchers find the exact spot where Julius Caesar was stabbed

 

They have found a concrete structure that the adoptive son of the General, killed in 44 BC, placed inside the Curia of Pompey to condemn his death

 

"A concrete structure of three meters wide and over two meters high, placed by order of Augustus (adoptive son and successor of Julius Caesar) to condemn the assassination of his father, has given the key to the scientists. This finding confirms that the General was stabbed right at the bottom of the Curia of Pompey while he was presiding, sitting on a chair, over a meeting of the Senate. Currently, the remains of this building are located in the archaeological area of Torre Argentina, right in the historic centre of the Roman capital.

 

Antonio Monterroso, CSIC researcher from the Institute of History of the Center for Humanities and Social Sciences (CCHS-CSIC), states: "We always knew that Julius Caesar was killed in the Curia of Pompey on March 15th 44 BC because the classical texts pass on so, but so far no material evidence of this fact, so often depicted in historicist painting and cinema, had been recovered"."

 

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Cat Discovers 2,000-year-old Roman Catacomb

 

Rome resident Mirko Curti stumbles upon tomb piled with bones while chasing wayward feline near his apartment

 

Tom Kington in Rome

 

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 18 October 2012 14.52 BST

 

"Rome may not exactly be short of catacombs, but one discovered this week is more deserving of the name than the city's countless other subterranean burial chambers. For Mirko Curti stumbled into a 2,000-year-old tomb piled with bones while chasing a wayward moggy yards from his apartment building.

 

Curti and a friend were following the cat at 10pm on Tuesday when it scampered towards a low tufa rock cliff close to his home near Via di Pietralata in a residential area of the city. "The cat managed to get into a grotto and we followed the sound of its miaowing," he said."

 

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Tomb Raiders Lead to New Archaeological Find

 

19/10/2012

 

Votive offerings to Juno from 4th to 2nd century BC

 

"(ANSA) – Rome, October 19 - Investigations into the activities of four tomb raiders in the Alban hills near Rome have led to the discovery of a previously unknown site containing ancient Roman votive offerings. The ex-votos date from the fourth to the second century BC and include life-sized statues and depictions of parts of the human anatomy in terracotta offered to the ancient Roman goddess Juno."

 

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Concerns Grow Over Pompeii’s Damages

 

ROME - Reuters

 

December 3, 2012

 

"Part of the wall of a house in the ancient city of Pompeii collapsed November 30, raising fresh concerns about the state of one of the world’s most treasured archaeological sites. Officials said the wall was part of a 2,000-year-old house on the Vicolo del Modesto, in a section of the site that had already been declared off limits to the public for safety reasons.

 

About two square meters (yards) of the wall were involved in the collapse, which occurred after heavy rain storms in most of southern Italy."

 

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Classics Professor Unearths Archaeological Clues About Ancient Roman Vineyards

 

December 6, 2012

 

by Elizabeth Bettendorf

 

"Call it a toast to the past.

 

A Florida State University classics professor whose decades of archaeological work on a remote hilltop in Italy have dramatically increased understanding of the ancient Etruscan culture is celebrating yet another find.

 

This time around it's not the usual shards of pottery and vessels, remnants of building foundations or other ancient artifacts unearthed in past years, but rather a treasure that's far more earthy: grape seeds.

 

Actually, Nancy Thomson de Grummond has discovered some 150 waterlogged grape seeds that have some experts in vineyard-grape DNA sequencing very excited.

 

The tiny grape seeds, unearthed during a dig this past summer in Cetamura del Chianti, were discovered in a well and are probably from about the 1st century A.D., roughly about the time the Romans inhabited what is now Italy's Chianti region. The seeds could provide "a real breakthrough" in the understanding of the history of Chianti vineyards in the area, de Grummond said."

 

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Discovered: French and Italian Archaeologists Find the Lost Port of Ancient Rome

 

"PARIS (AFP).- French and Italian archaeologists have found the remains of a grain port that played a critical role in the rise of ancient Rome, France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) said on Thursday.

 

Cores drilled at a location at the mouth of the River Tiber have revealed the site of a port whose existence has been sought for centuries, it said in a press release. The port lies northwest of Ostia, which was established by Rome as a fortress gateway to enable trade to pass upriver towards the city and prevent pirates and marauders."

 

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DECEMBER 11, 2012

 

UK Archaeologists Uncover Lost Communities in Italy

 

"LEXINGTON, Ky. (Dec. 11, 2012) — Over the summer, a team of faculty and students from the University of Kentucky discovered evidence of not just one lost community, but two in northern Italy. Using their archaeological expertise and modern technology, data was collected indicating the existence of a Roman settlement and below that, a possible prehistoric site.

 

Many years ago, archaeologist and art historian Paolo Visonà, a native of northern Italy and adjunct associate professor of art history in the UK School of Art and Visual Studies at the UK College of Fine Arts, first learned of a possible ancient settlement from a farmer in Valbruna, near the village of Tezze di Arzignano. While working his family’s land, Battista Carlotto had discovered artifacts that looked to Visonà like ceramics, mosaic, and glass of the Roman Empire."

 

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Restoration of Roman Tunnels Gives a Slave's Eye View of Caracalla Baths

 

Tourists will see 'maniacal Roman perfection and incredible hydraulic technology' in labyrinth under Rome's Caracalla baths

 

Tom Kington in Rome

 

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 11 December 2012 18.55 GMT

 

"In the middle of a patch of grass amid the ruins of the Caracalla baths in Rome, there is a staircase that takes visitors deep into the ground to a world resembling the lair of a James Bond villain.

 

"This is our glimpse at maniacal Roman perfection, at incredible hydraulic technology," said archaeologist Marina Piranomonte, as she descended and waved at a network of high and wide tunnels, each measuring six metres (20ft) high and wide, snaking off into the darkness.

 

The baths, on a sprawling site slightly off the beaten track in a city crowded by monumental attractions, hold their own against the nearby Circus Maximus, its shattered walls standing 37 metres high, recalling its second century heyday when it pulled in 5,000 bathers a day.

 

But for Piranomonte, it is the three kilometre, triple-tiered grid of tunnels that lies under the site – the first tract of which will open for visits this month – which really shows off how seriously the Romans took their sauna time."

 

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Archaeologists Discover Augustan-Era Sculptures Near Rome

 

Sculptures found in villa in Ciampino tell myth of Niobe

 

08 January, 15:34

 

"(ANSA) - Rome, January 8 - Archaeologists say they've uncovered an "exceptional" group of sculptures dating to the 1st century BC in a villa in Rome's suburb of Ciampino.

 

The sculptures, found in an ancient villa owned by Roman general Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus, a patron of the poet Ovid, tell the myth of Niobe, the proud daughter of Tantalus who lost all her 14 children after boasting to the mother of Apollo and Artemis, Leto, about her fertility."

 

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Oldest Roman Hairstyle Recreated for First Time

 

Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior WriterDate: 09 January 2013 Time: 11:13 AM ET

 

"For the first time, the hairstyle of the Roman Vestal Virgins has been recreated on a modern head.

 

The Vestals were priestesses who guarded the fire of Vesta, the goddess of the hearth, among other sacred tasks. Chosen before puberty and sworn to celibacy, they were free from many of the social rules that limited women in the Roman era. Their braided hairstyle, the sini crenes, symbolized chastity and was known in ancient texts as the oldest hairstyle in Rome.

 

"These were the six most important women in Rome with the possible exception of the emperor's wife," said Janet Stephens, the Baltimore hairdresser and amateur archaeologist who unraveled the secrets of the Vestals' trademark braids. [see Video of the Braiding Process]"

 

 

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Down the Drain: Lost Items Reveal Roman Bath Activities

 

Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior WriterDate: 11 January 2013 Time: 12:08 PM ET

 

"Ever go swimming with rings on your fingers or hoops in your ears only to find your jewelry had vanished after your dip?

 

If so, you've got something in common with ancient Romans.

 

A new study of objects lost down the drains in the bathhouses from the Roman Empire reveals that people got up to all sorts of things in these gathering places. They bathed, of course, but they also adorned themselves with trinkets, snacked on finger foods and even did needlework.

 

"For the Romans, the baths weren't just a place to get clean, but this larger social center where a variety of activities were taking place," said study researcher Alissa Whitmore, a doctoral candidate in archaeology at the University of Iowa"

 

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Scale Model Discovered for Florence Cathedral

 

Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery NewsDate: 11 January 2013 Time: 08:58 AM ET

 

Italian archaeologists have unearthed the remains of a mini dome near Florence’s cathedral — evidence, they say, that the structure served as a scale model for the majestic structure designed by Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446).

 

Found during excavations to expand the Cathedral museum, the model measures 9 feet in circumference and it’s made of bricks arranged in a herringbone pattern.

 

“This building technique had been previously used in Persian domes, but Brunelleschi was the first to introduce it into Europe when he worked at the dome,” Francesco Gurrieri, professor of Restoration of Monuments at the University of Florence, told Discovery News.

 

“Although at the moment we cannot confirm the small dome was the demostration model for Brunelleschi’s plans, it did belong to the yard he created between 1420 and 1436, when he worked at one of the most incredible feats of engineering,” Gurrieri said.

 

One of the most instantly recognizable churches in the world, the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore is the highest and widest (143 feet in diameter) masonry dome in the world."

 

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Pompeii 'Wall Posts' Reveal Ancient Social Networks

 

Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior WriterDate: 10 January 2013 Time: 01:05 PM ET

 

"Think of it as the earliest version of the Facebook wall post: Ancient Pompeii residents revealed their social networks through graffiti on actual walls.

 

Now, a new analysis of some of these scribbled messages reveals the walls of the wealthy were highly sought after, especially for political candidates hoping to drum up votes. The findings suggest that Pompeii homeowners may have had some control over who got artistic on their walls, said study researcher Eeva-Maria Viitanen, an archaeologist at the University of Helsinki."

 

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Temple of 'Jupiter the Stayer' found

28/02/2013

Romulus started cult to god who made Romans unstoppable

Rome, February 28 - "The temple built by Romulus to celebrate the hand of Jupiter giving Roman troops their unstoppable force has been found at the foot of the Palatine Hill, Italian archaeologists say. The ruins of the shrine to Jupiter Stator (Jupiter the Stayer), believed to date to 750 BC, were found by a Rome University team led by Andrea Carandini. "We believe this is the temple that legend says Romulus erected to the king of the gods after the Romans held their ground against the furious Sabines fighting to get their women back after the famous Rape (abduction)," Carandini said in the Archeologia Viva (Living Archaeology) journal. According to myth, Romulus founded Rome in 753 BC and the wifeless first generation of Roman men raided nearby Sabine tribes for their womenfolk, an event that has been illustrated in art down the centuries. Carandini added: "It is also noteworthy that the temple appears to be shoring up the Palatine, as if in defence"."

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The Arch of Titus Digital Restoration Project


Posted on March 31, 2013 by Leen Ritmeyer

 

"In a previous post we reported on the The Arch of Titus Digital Restoration Project in Rome, led by Prof. Steven Fine, which has as its aim the scanning of the menorah panel for evidence of ancient color.

Prof. Steven Fine noted that in the first presentation at the upcoming April 4 Kennes Torah Umadda (Congress of Torah and Science) in Jerusalem he will be discussing — for the first time in Israel — the discoveries made by the Arch of Titus Digital Restoration Project last summer and the implications of advances in the study of polychromy for the study of the arch (and of Jewish visual culture in general).

Here is the account that has been  published by the Center for Israel Studies of the Yeshiva Universtity in New York.

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ARCHAEOLOGY

Skeleton of Ancient Prince Reveals Etruscan Life

SEP 20, 2013 08:03 PM ET // BY ROSSELLA LORENZI

The skeletonized body of an Etruscan prince, possibly a relative to Tarquinius Priscus, the legendary fifth king of Rome from 616 to 579 B.C., has been brought to light in an extraordinary finding that promises to reveal new insights on one of the ancient world’s most fascinating cultures.

Found in Tarquinia, a hill town about 50 miles northwest of Rome, famous for its Etruscan art treasures, the 2,600 year old intact burial site came complete with a full array of precious grave goods.

"It’s a unique discovery, as it is extremely rare to find an inviolate Etruscan tomb of an upper-class individual. It opens up huge study opportunities on the Etruscans," Alessandro Mandolesi, of the University of Turin, told Discovery News. Mandolesi is leading the excavation in collaboration with the Archaeological Superintendency of Southern Etruria."

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Roman Emperor Hadrian's Villa Brought to Life with Gaming Software

By Megan Gannon, News Editor | November 22, 2013 03:52pm ET

"In ruins today, Hadrian's Villa can only hint at its second-century glory. But a new digital archaeology project promises to transport computer users to the Roman emperor's opulent compound as it might have been nearly 2,000 years ago.

Five years in the making, the Digital Hadrian's Villa Project brings to life all 250 acres (101 hectares) of the estate in Tivoli, Italy, through 3D reconstructions and gaming software. The project launched Friday (Nov. 22), and the first of its 20 interactive Web players should be publicly available sometime before Thanksgiving (Nov. 28), said the project's leader Bernie Frischer of Indiana University."

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Site Link:

 

Digital Hadrian's Villa Project

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ARCHAEOLOGY

'Secret' Labyrinth of Roman Tunnels Mapped

DEC 2, 2013 05:30 PM ET // BY STEPHANIE PAPPAS, LIVESCIENCE

"Deep under the streets and buildings of Rome is a maze of tunnels and quarries that dates back to the very beginning of this ancient city. Now, geologists are venturing beneath Rome to map these underground passageways, hoping to prevent modern structures from crumbling into the voids below.

In 2011, there were 44 incidents of streets or portions of structures collapsing into the quarries, a number that rose to 77 in 2012 and 83 to date in 2013. To predict and prevent such collapses, George Mason University geoscientists Giuseppina Kysar Mattietti and scientists from the Center for Speleoarchaeological Research (Sotterranei di Roma) are mapping high-risk areas of the quarry system.

The mapping is important, Kysar Mattietti told LiveScience, because through the years, Roman citizens have taken the patching of the quarry systems into their own hands."

 

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20 December 2013 Last updated at 01:06 GMT

Unlocking the Scrolls of Herculaneum

By Robin Banerji

BBC News Magazine

The British Museum's 2013 show of artefacts from the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, buried in ash during an explosive eruption of Mount Vesuvius, was a sell-out. But could even greater treasures - including lost works of classical literature - still lie underground?

"For centuries scholars have been hunting for the lost works of ancient Greek and Latin literature. In the Renaissance, books were found in monastic libraries. In the late 19th Century papyrus scrolls were found in the sands of Egypt. But only in Herculaneum in southern Italy has an entire library from the ancient Mediterranean been discovered in situ.

On the eve of the catastrophe in 79 AD, Herculaneum was a chic resort town on the Bay of Naples, where many of Rome's top families went to rest and recuperate during the hot Italian summers.

It was also a place where Rome's richest engaged in a bit of cultural one-upmanship - none more so than Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, a politician and father-in-law of Julius Caesar.

In Herculaneum, Piso built a seaside villa on a palatial scale - the width of its beach frontage alone exceeds 220m (721ft). When it was excavated in the middle of the 18th Century, it was found to hold more than 80 bronze and marble statues of the highest quality, including one of Pan having sex with a goat.

When he came to plan his own exercise in cultural showing off, J Paul Getty chose to copy Piso's villa for his own Getty museum in Malibu, California."

 

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Virtual Archaeologist at IU Turns Clock Back Millennia to Uncover Secrets of Ancient Rome

NASA data, simulations used to connect Egyptian obelisk, Augustus' 'Altar of Peace'

Dec. 19, 2013

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - "An Indiana University archaeo-informaticist has used virtual simulations to flip the calendar back thousands of years and show for the first time the historical significance of the unique alignment of the sun with two monuments tied to the founder of the Roman Empire.

For nearly a half-century, scholars had associated the relationship between the Ara Pacis, the “Altar of Peace” dedicated in 9 BC to then-emperor Augustus, and the Obelisk of Montecitorio - a 71-foot-high granite obelisk Augustus brought to Rome from Egypt - with Augustus’ Sept. 23 birthday.

Prevailing research had found that on this day, the shadow of the obelisk - serving as the pointer, or gnomon, of a giant sundial on the plaza floor - would point toward the middle of the Ara Pacis, which the Roman Senate had commissioned to recognize the peace brought to the Roman Empire through Augustus' military victories.

Over his nearly 40 years of teaching Roman topography classes, IU Bloomington School of Informatics and Computing professor Bernie Frischer had always informed students of that prevailing theory, but today in an announcement made at the Vatican’s Pontifical Archaeological Academy in Rome, Frischer provided another explanation for the original placement of the two landmarks that were both parallel and adjacent to what was at the time the major road, the Via Flaminia, leading from Rome over the Apennine Mountains to the coast of the Adriatic Sea."

Continued
 



Virtual video of sun moving behind obelisk on Oct. 9.
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