Roman Archaeological News - General

[Resource Manager]

Simulation Helps Unravel Ancient Roman Puzzle

10 hours ago by Victor Caleca

"An enduring mystery of archaeology involving a well-known historical site in ancient Rome is being quietly unraveled in Indiana, thanks to a sophisticated computer simulation created by Ball State University digital artists.

The simulation, crafted by the Institute for Digital Intermedia Arts (IDIA) and commissioned by Indiana University's School of Informatics and Computing, re-creates the Campus of Mars. The site was built around 9 B.C.E. for the Emperor Augustus just outside the city walls of ancient Rome.

By integrating precise NASA historical data on the movements of the sun and moon with archaeological surveys of the site, researchers can examine suspected solar alignments involving structures that were part of the campus.

Among other things, says John Fillwalk, director of IDIA—a lab of Ball State's Office of Information Technology—the simulation looks at the relationship between the Ara Pacis (or Altar of Peace) and a nearby obelisk. The obelisk was moved by Augustus from its original home in Egypt and installed on the Campus of Mars."

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Archaeologists Unearth What May Be Oldest Roman Temple

Sylvia Poggioli | NPR | January 29th, 2014, 8:21am

"Archaeologists excavating a site in central Rome say they've uncovered what may be oldest known temple from Roman antiquity.

Along the way, they've also discovered how much the early Romans intervened to shape their urban environment.

And the dig has been particularly challenging because the temple lies below the water table.

At the foot Capitoline Hill in the center of Rome, stands the Medieval Sant'Omobono church.

Today, the Tiber River is about a hundred yards away. But when the city was being created, around the 7th century B.C., it flowed close to where the church now stands, where a bend in the river provided a natural harbor for merchant ships.

"And here they decide to create a temple," says Nic Terrenato, who teaches classical archaeology at the University of Michigan and is co-director of the Sant'Omobono excavation project.

"At this point Rome is trading already as far afield as Cyprus, Lebanon, Egypt," he says. "So they build this temple, which is going to be one of the first things the traders see when they pull into the harbor of Rome."

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Stanford Report, March 17, 2014

Stanford Professor Looks Underwater for History of the Roman Empire

Using archeological evidence from shipwrecks and harbors, classics scholar Justin Leidwanger uncovers the story of economic networks during a millennium of classical antiquity.

BY TOM WINTERBOTTOM

The Humanities at Stanford

"Stanford scholar Justin Leidwanger spends a lot of time underwater.

An assistant professor of classics, Leidwanger is a maritime archeologist. His research entails what it sounds like it would – exploring artifacts that lie beneath the sea.

A scholar with interests in the Roman and early Byzantine eras, Leidwanger has conducted thousands of dives – mostly to explore shipwrecks of the Eastern Mediterranean region. His students, too, don snorkels or scuba gear and work underwater.

Marine archeology, Leidwanger says, provides a privileged perspective on ancient history.

"There is a lot of theoretical work on the maritime economy of the Roman Empire, but I am interested in the close details of sea travel and how archeological finds can shed light on the history of consumption and connectivity around the Mediterranean," said Leidwanger."

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Augustus Rules Again as Rome Acts to Restore Lost Mausoleum

On the 2,000th anniversary of the emperor's death work will finally start to reopen historic site to visitors

Tom Kington in Rome

The Observer, Saturday 29 March 2014 23.14 AEST

"He was Rome's first emperor, the founder of a world-dominating imperial dynasty, and a builder of roads and stunning temples who brought peace to a far-flung empire; a man so powerful the Roman senate named a month after him. Now, on the 2,000th anniversary of the death of the emperor Augustus, the city of Rome is getting ready to honour its favourite son by saving his mausoleum from shocking neglect.

Built in 28BC and as broad as a city block, the cylindrical mausoleum has seen better days after being sacked, bombed and built upon down the centuries. It was used as a bullfighting ring and a concert hall before it was finally abandoned, recently becoming a hangout for prostitutes and a handy toilet for tramps."

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Rome 'Was Founded 200 Years Earlier Than Previously Thought'

By Mary-Ann Russon

April 15, 2014 08:24 GMT

"Archaeologists excavating Lapis Niger, an ancient shrine in the Roman Forum, have found a wall that predates Rome's official founding year of 753BC by up to two hundred years.

According to Italian newspaper Il Messagero, the wall was made from blocks of volcanic tuff, the product of volcanic eruptions, and was designed to channel water from the small river Spino, a tributary of The Tiber.

Near the remains of the wall, the archaeologists also found fragments of ceramic pottery and the remains of food in the form of grains.

"The examination of the ceramic material was crucial, allowing us today to fix the wall chronologically between the 9th century and the beginning of the 8th century," said Patricia Fortini, an archaeologist working for Sovraintendenza ai Beni Culturali di Roma Capitale, a state-funded organisation in charge of all historical, archaeological and artistic monuments found in Rome."

 

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New City Wall Discovered at Ostia

 

April 16, 2014

 

by Graeme Earl

"Researchers from the universities of Southampton and Cambridge have discovered a new section of the boundary wall of the ancient Roman port of Ostia, proving the city was much larger than previously estimated. The team, led by Professor Simon Keay (Southampton) and Professor Martin Millet (Cambridge), has been conducting a survey of an area of land lying between Ostia and Portus.

The work has been undertaken as part of the Portus Project, in collaboration with the British School at Rome and Paolo Germoni and Angelo Pellegrino of the Soprintendenza Speciale per I Beni Archeologici di Roma. Previously, scholars thought that the Tiber formed the northern edge of Ostia, however this new research, using geophysical survey techniques to examine the site, has shown that Ostia’s city wall also continued on the other side of the river. The researchers have shown this newly discovered area enclosed three huge, previously unknown warehouses – the largest of which was the size of a football pitch."

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 7-Aug-2014

Excavation of Ancient Well Yields Insight into Etruscan, Roman and Medieval Times

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - "During a four-year excavation of an Etruscan well at the ancient Italian settlement of Cetamura del Chianti, a team led by a Florida State University archaeologist and art historian unearthed artifacts spanning more than 15 centuries of Etruscan, Roman and medieval civilization in Tuscany.

"The total haul from the well is a bonanza," said Nancy de Grummond, the M. Lynette Thompson Professor of Classics at Florida State. De Grummond, who has performed work at the site since 1983, is one of the nation's leading scholars of Etruscan studies.

"This rich assemblage of materials in bronze, silver, lead and iron, along with the abundant ceramics and remarkable evidence of organic remains, create an unparalleled opportunity for the study of culture, religion and daily life in Chianti and the surrounding region," she said of the well excavation that began in 2011, which is part of a larger dig encompassing the entire Cetamura settlement.

A July 4 news conference at Italy's National Archaeological Museum in Siena drew a standing-room-only crowd as de Grummond and her team reported on their findings from the well excavation over the past four years. Among the most notable finds: 14 Roman and Etruscan bronze vessels, nearly 500 waterlogged grape seeds and an enormous amount of rare waterlogged wood from both Roman and Etruscan times.

The bronze vessels, of different shapes and sizes and with varying decorations, were used to extract water from the well, which has been excavated to a depth of more than 105 feet."

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Relief from the Arch of Titus, showing The Spoils of Jerusalem being brought into Rome

 

Smarthistory, Art History at Khan Academy

 

 

H/t: PaleoJudaica

 

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Physicists Read Scrolls Scorched by Ancient Volcano

 

By Lizzie Wade 20 January 2015 11:30 am 11 Comments
 

"Pompeii wasn’t the only Roman town destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 C.E. The blast of hot air and rain of volcanic ash also reached nearby Herculaneum (pictured above), where it entombed a library of papyrus scrolls. Unfortunately, it also transformed them from pliable parchment into little more than blackened, carbonized lumps. Archaeologists have tried several techniques to unroll the scrolls since the library was discovered in the 1750s,"

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Ancient Romans Ate Meals Most Americans Would Recognize

 

By Inside Science | February 6th 2015 08:46 AM

 

By: Joel N. Shurkin, 

 

"Let's pretend it is 56 B.C. and you have been fortunate enough to be invited to a party at the home of Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, a great social coup. Piso, after all, was Julius Caesar's father-in-law and a consul of Rome.

 

What's for dinner?

 

You need to prepare for pig. Archaeologists studying the eating habits of ancient Etruscans and Romans have found that pork was the staple of Italian cuisine before and during the Roman Empire. Both the poor and the rich ate pig as the meat of choice, although the rich, like Piso, got better cuts, ate meat more often and likely in larger quantities."

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Amazing Stop-Motion: Time Travel to Ancient Rome

  

ANCIENT ROME ARCHITECTURE BUILDINGS

 

"Recent research sheds light on an ancient Roman mystery: how a monument called Trajan's Column may have been built. This stop-motion animation imagines its construction."

 

Video Link

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A Second Arch of Titus Found

 

Posted on May 31, 2015 by Leen Ritmeyer

 

"The Arch of Titus which stands at the entrance to the Roman Forum draws huge crowds who want to see this well-known monument that was erected in memory of the Roman siege of Jerusalem and the desctruction of Jerusalem’s Temple in 70 AD.

 

The interesting part is the scene portrayed on the southern intrados (inner curved side of an arch) that shows Roman soldiers carrying away the spoils of the Jerusalem Temple, i.e. the Lampstand (menorah), the table of Shewbread and two trumpets."

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Jerusalem in Rome

 

Posted on June 2, 2015 by Leen Ritmeyer

 

Jerusalem in Rome – Searching for the Dedicatory Inscription in the Colosseum

 

"Last week, on a visit to Rome, we went in search of the Dedicatory Inscription in the Colosseum that I had blogged about in 2008. Walking down the Via dei Fori Imperiali, the wide avenue built by Mussolini  flanking the Forum and leading to the amphitheatre was a pleasure, as the Colosseum is no longer a crazy traffic circle. Cars are banned, with buses and taxis still allowed, but with strict speed restrictions. The scene that greets you at the piazza surrounding the Colosseum still resembles a funfair, with costumed “centurions” (some smoking cigarettes) and demanding exhorbitant prices from visitors to have their photo taken with them, hawkers selling everything from souvenirs to selfie sticks and horses waiting patiently beside their carriage for their next passengers. Meanwhile scaffolding snakes its way around the Colosseum in a $35 million renovation project due to be completed in 2016."

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The Fall and Rise and Fall of Pompeii

 

The famous archaeological treasure is falling into scandalous decline, even as its sister city Herculaneum is rising from the ashes

 

By Joshua Hammer

Smithsonian Magazine

July 2015

 

"On a sweltering summer afternoon, Antonio Irlando leads me down the Via dell’Abbondanza, the main thoroughfare in first-century Pompeii. The architect and conservation activist gingerly makes his way over huge, uneven paving stones that once bore the weight of horse-drawn chariots. We pass stone houses richly decorated with interior mosaics and frescoes, and a two-millennial-old snack bar, or Thermopolium, where workmen long ago stopped for lunchtime pick-me-ups of cheese and honey. Abruptly, we reach an orange-mesh barricade. “Vietato L’Ingresso,” the sign says—entry forbidden. It marks the end of the road for visitors to this storied corner of ancient Rome."

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpTunZJ845I&feature=youtu.be

 

Published on Apr 29, 2015

 

"In 1752, an ancient library was discovered at Herculaneum, buried beneath the ashes of Mount Vesuvius. Astonishingly, nearly 2000 carbonized papyrus rolls were preserved, though some were so badly burned they looked like pieces of charcoal. While some texts from the philosophical library have been published, many of the papyri have yet to be unrolled or read."

[Resource Manager]

Intact, Packed Etruscan Tomb Found

 

DEC 4, 2015 04:00 PM ET // ROSSELLA LORENZI

 

"An intact Etruscan tomb, complete with sarcophagi, a full array of grave goods and a mysterious marble head, has has been brought to light in the Umbria region of Italy, in what promises to be one of the most important archaeological findings in recent history.

 

Dated to the end of the 4th century B.C., the burial site was found by a farmer who opened a void in the earth while working with his plow in a field near Città della Pieve, a small town some 30 miles southwest of Perugia."

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Pompeii Bibliography and Mapping Project

 

Website Link

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Roma Subterranea Judaica (series)

 

"The following pdfs are provided as a service to the community by the International Catacomb Society.

 

All the items are authored by Jessica Dello Russo, ICS Executive Director & Doctoral Candidate at the Vatican's Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana:"

Link

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Tomb Excavations Uncover Treasures of an Etruscan Princess

 

Amber necklace, golden Egyptian scarab amulet among findings

 

March 11, 2016

 

(ANSA) - Milan, March 8 - "Excavations of a tomb in northern Lazio dating to around the 8th century BC have uncovered treasures including an amber necklace, a golden Egyptian scarab amulet and rare pottery that archaeologists say likely belonged to an Etruscan princess."

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Ancient Romans Wrote With Metallic Ink

 

By Andrew CurryMar. 21, 2016 , 4:30 PM

 

"By analyzing charred scrolls that were burnt and buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 B.C.E., researchers have determined that the Romans wrote with metallic ink—an innovation thought to have originated several centuries later in the Middle Ages, according to a paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

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Vol. 22 Spring 2016 - Print the Spring 2016 Issue

 

Spring 2016, Cover Stories, Daily News

 

Text in Lost Language May Reveal God or Goddess Worshipped by Etruscans at Ancient Temple
 

Wed, Mar 30, 2016

SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY—"Archaeologists in Italy have discovered what may be a rare sacred text in the Etruscan language that is likely to yield rich details about Etruscan worship of a god or goddess.

The lengthy text is inscribed on a large 6th century BCE sandstone slab that was uncovered from an Etruscan temple."

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Roman Women Much More Independent Than Previously Thought

 

Date of news: 19 May 2016

 

"The classic misunderstanding about ancient Rome is that only the men were considered citizens and the women were seen as an extension of their husband or father. Historian Coen van Galen dispels that notion. He will be defending his doctoral thesis on 30 May at Radboud University."

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Summer 2016, Cover Stories, Daily News

 

Reading the Unreadable

 

Mon, Jul 18, 2016

 

"It was about two thousand years ago when the eruption of southern Italy's Mount Vesuvius enveloped the ancient Roman cities of Pompei and Herculaneum in a fiery cataclysm, swathing them in a hot ash and mud cocoon that would actually end up 'freezing' their remains in what for history has been two of the best-preserved ancient urban centers. It became a gold mine for archaeological investigation in the late 19th century, and continues to reveal more to archaeologists today ..."

 

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PUBLIC RELEASE: 24-AUG-2016

 

One of the Most Significant Etruscan Discoveries in Decades Names Female goddess Uni

 

"One of the longest Etruscan texts ever found, the inscription's mention of Uni may indicate she was patroness of the Poggio Colla cult, with stone's language spelling out ceremonial religious rituals"

 

SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY

 

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[Resource Manager]

More Tombs Uncovered in Etruscan Vulci

 

Contain rings, vases, ornaments

 

(ANSA) - Rome, September 29 - "Archaeologists working in the Etruscan necropolis of Vulci near Viterbo have found 17 tombs containing a variety of ornaments and jewellery left by relatives of the deceased to facilitate their passage to the afterlife."

 

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