Via Dell’ Impero An exhibition opening today at the Musei Capitolini in Rome shows the building of the city’s infamous via dei Fori Imperiali (previously via dell’ Impero), which also tore through the forums of Nerva, Augustus and Trajan, with little regard for the ancient Roman constructions that lay beneath. Via Dell’ Impero – Nascita di una Strada (Birth of a Road) will feature photos, paintings and sketches by professional Roman photographers and artists, including Filippo Reale, Cesare Faraglia and Odoardo Ferretti. The exhibition runs until20 September, documenting the demolition of buildings and the excavations which took place before the…
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Residents of Leptiminus, a city in Roman occupied Tunisia, ate a diet heavy in vegetables and marine life (including Grouper). However they avoided millet and legumes, dietary staples in other parts of the Empire. They also avoided eating large amounts of the local fish sauce which they were trying to sell to other people. These are the findings of a Canadian science team that analyzed skeletons from the cemetery of Leptiminus. The scientists were led by Professor Anne Keenleyside of Trent University in Peterborough. The skeletons they analyzed date from the 2nd century A.D. to 5th century A.D. To determine…
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Terracotta armies are certainly in the news at the moment. The long-awaited third dig of Qin Shihuang’s tomb finally got under way last month in China, while a slightly more idiosyncratic clay army was causing some consternation in Germany last week: prosecutors are investigating whether the saluting garden gnomes created by artist Ottmar Hoerl are in fact breaking strict German code that bans Nazi symbols and gestures.Libya’s Terracotta Army While these terracotta armies grab the limelight, there is another ‘army’ of 4,500 small terracotta figurines, which were uncovered during excavations at the Greek and Roman ruins of Cyrene near Shahhat…
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As this blog is being written a Canadian team is renewing excavations at the site of Madaba, a modern day Jordanian city that has at least 5,000 years of history behind it. The city is well known for its Byzantine mosaics including the 6th century AD ‘Madaba Map’, which is considered to be the oldest known map of the holy land. The Canadian excavations areled by Dr. Debra Foran and Professor Tim Harrison, both of the University of Toronto. Theyhave been taking place, off and on, for more than a decade. The theme of prosperity and collapse runs through the…
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What Have the Etruscans Ever Done for us? “What have the Romans ever done for us?” is a classic question from Monty Python’s Life of Brian (and possibly my favourite Roman-related screen moment of all time). But the Romans too could have asked themselves: “What have the Etruscans ever done for us?” The list would be almost as long as the one reeled off to the irascible John Cleese: language, architecture, engineering, gods, rituals – and much more – were all handed down in one shape or form to the Romans from their Etruscan ancestors. But despite the Etruscans’ advanced…
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Attribution: Jordi C Rome Italy Key Dates Construction started between 70 and 72 AD and was completed in 80 AD, with further modifications made circa 81-96. In 217, the Colosseum was badly damaged by a major fire and not fully repaired until about 240. The arena was used for contests into the 6th century, with gladiatorial fights last mentioned around 435 and animal fights last mentioned about 523. An earthquake in 1349 caused the collapse of parts of the outer facade, and it wasn’t repaired until works in 1831, 1846 and the 1930s. Excavation of the Colosseum’s substructure was carried…
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Silchester in Hampshire, UK, stands on the site of the Roman town of Calleva Atrebatum, which is currently being excavated by a team of archaeologists from the University of Reading. The project has been running since 1997, but the archaeologists now believe they have found traces of a settlement that pre-dates the Romans. The excavation has uncovered remnants from a town with a planned street grid possibly one of Britain’s oldest Iron Age towns. The director of the Silchester Town Life Project, professor Michael Fulford, told the BBC: “After 12 summers of excavation we have reached down to the first…
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Resins from pine and cashew trees, and Egyptian moringa oil: these are the essential ingredients of a rich woman’s beauty routine in Italy before the dawn of the Roman empire. The solid, yellow cream was found in an Egyptian alabaster vase belonging to an aristocratic Etruscan lady and is thought to be more than 2,000 years old. The results of a scientific analysis have just been published in July’s edition of Journal of Archaeological Science. While a concoction of these oils may not sound particularly attractive to modern women (let’s face it, the oily unction sounds like a sure pore-blocking…
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The ancient history of Iran is one of the richest in the world. Skirting the Fertile Crescent which nurtured the cradle of civilization, the turbulent nation has seen the rise and fall of the Medians, Achaemenids, Parthians and Sassanids – until their history was usurped by the Islamic conquests of the 7th century AD. Yet the incendiary movements of the past century, not least the latest political turmoil to hit Tehran, have been somewhat passed over by the world’s archaeologists. Now a leading expert from Britain’s University of Leicester is leading a project to discover just what impact Iran’s White…
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The Riverside Project is the largest archaeological investigation ever carried out at Stonehenge. Its basic hypothesis is simple: that Stonehenge was a monument to the deceased, while the nearby Woodhenge and other timber circles in its vicinity were monuments to those still alive. The River Avon was the sacred connection between the two, “a kind of Styx,” comments Mike Parker Pearson, a professor in the Department of Archaeology at Sheffield University and director of the Riverside Project. “It was a river linking the living and the dead.” The success of the initiative – which first broke ground in 2003 and…