Roman sarcophagus discovered in Bath contained two skeletons, with one laid at the other’s feet
In the British city of Bath, two separate skeletons were discovered inside a Roman-era tomb. A well-preserved body was discovered face-down with the partial remains of another person positioned at its feet.
Beads and pottery that may have contained food were also discovered at the site, suggesting they were some kind of offering.
The limestone casket, along with stone walls and evidence of a cremation burial, were uncovered at Bathwick Roman Cemetery in southwest Bath’s Sydney Gardens, the last remaining Georgian pleasure gardens in the UK.
The casket, found in a grave about six feet long, 23 inches wide and 19 inches deep, was north-facing, suggesting it was a pagan burial.
The cremation burial is the only recorded one of its kind in the Bathwick Cemetery, according to the BBC.
A nearly 2,000-year-old Roman sarcophagus containing two bodies was discovered in Bath, England. Its northern-facing orientation and the presence of offerings suggest it was a pagan burial, archaeologists say
‘Having a human skeleton directly associated with a coffin is a rarity and to have this one associated with what was probably votive offering and a nearby human cremation, allows a very rare glimpse into funerary practices in the region almost two millennia ago,’ archaeologist Kelly Madigan, who worked on the excavation, said in a statement.
Calling the discovery ‘a real career highlight,’ Madigan said that testing of the bones could offer new information, ‘where we can delve deeper into just who the people we found in the coffin were, where they were from and their health and welfare.’
The limestone casket, along with stone walls and evidence of a cremation burial, were uncovered at Bathwick Roman Cemetery in southwest Bath
Historic England advisor Sylvia Warman called the discovery ‘a first for Bathwick and a really significant find for Roman Bath and the World Heritage Site.’
The baths remain a major tourist attraction and receive over a million visitors a year.
While habitation goes back to the Neolithic era, the city proper was founded in 43AD, when the Romans turned a patch of marshland into the ancient world’s equivalent of a luxury spa, taking advantage of the millions of gallons of warm water bubbling up from natural hot springs.
They named it Aquae Sulis, after the Celtic goddess Sulis, associated with the Roman deity Minerva.
The Romans constructed elaborate baths in the city in the first century AD, taking advantage of natural hot springs that provided warm water. More than a million tourists visit Bath each year
A temple dedicated to Minerva was erected in 70 AD, and the bathhouse was expanded and improved over the next 300 years.
By the 5th century, with the fall of the Roman empire, the baths fell into disrepair and were eventually abandoned.
In 2007, archaeologists found a massive hoard of 30,000 Roman coins less than 500 feet from the baths, the BBC reported. The collection, one of the largest ever found in the country, dates to about 270 AD.
1,800-year-old headless Greek statue found at Turkey’s Metropolis site
Archaeologists in western Turkey have unearthed a 1,800-year-old marble statue from the ancient ruins of Metropolis, known as ‘City of the Mother Goddess’ during the Roman period.
Earlier this month, the Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry’s Department announced the discovery of the Roman-era statue, a robed female figure with her head and both arms missing.
The limbs were probably attached separately, according to Art News, though more work needs to be done to uncover the identity of the figure, researchers say.
The current excavation is a collaboration between the ministry and Celal Bayar University in Manisa, Turkey.
Metropolis (Greek for ‘mother state’) was a name bestowed on various cities, though this one is in Western Turkey’s Torbali municipality, about 25 miles from modern-day Izmir, the country’s third-largest city.
The headless Greek statue.
Humans have occupied the land for at least 8,000 years, since the Neolithic period.
Artefacts indicate it was inhabited by Hittites during the Bronze Age (when it was known as Puranda) and was also active during the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman periods.
It was founded as Metropolis by the Greeks in roughly 300 BC and, despite its matriarchal name, was home to one of only two known temples devoted to Ares, the Greek god of War.
The sculpture dates to Metropolis’ Roman era—when the empire controlled Anatolia, the portion of Turkey located on the Asian continent.
Roman scientist-philosopher Ptolemy described the town as an important trading post in Lydia, about halfway along the ancient trade routes between Smyrna and Ephesus.
Though the figure’s head and arms are missing archaeologists say she is otherwise quite well-preserved
Fieldwork began in the region in the 1970s, with excavations at Metropolis starting in the mid-1980s.
Since then, archaeologists have uncovered more than 11,000 artefacts, according to Art News, including coins, ceramics, glass, ivory and metal objects.
The city ‘has a deep-rooted history dating back to prehistoric times,’ Celal Bayar University archaeologist Serdar Aybek told the Turkish-language Demirören News Agency in January, according to an English-language report in Arkeonews.
‘It has the fertility brought by the Küçük Menderes River. It is a region that has always been settled.’
Notable finds include a Hellenistic marble seat of honour uncovered in the outdoor theatre, elaborate Roman baths featuring sculptures of Zeus and Thyke, goddess of good fortune, as well as other Roman-era buildings including a sports complex, government building, various shops, galleries and public toilets.
More recently, four massive interlocking cisterns big enough to hold 600 tons of water were uncovered in the city’s acropolis last year. It’s believed they were used during the Late Roman period and may have been helpful when the city was under siege by invaders.
The Greek theatre at Metropolis restored in 2001. Photo taken 2007.
In the 12th and 13th centuries, when the cisterns were no longer used to provide water, they became a garbage dump, with animal bones, broken ceramics and other detritus of daily life found on the site, according to the Daily Sabah.
The Turkish government opened the ‘City of the Mother Goddess’ to tourists in 2014.
Ancient Greek Pyramids: A Unique Phenomenon and an Archaeological Mystery
The so-called Greek Pyramids, also called the Pyramids of Argolis, are several frusta or truncated pyramidal shaped structures and “blockhouses”, located on the eastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula in present-day Greece.
Although the structures are distinct in form and shape from typical Ancient Greek architecture, mention of the monuments in antiquity is scarce, with only the geographer Pausanias (AD 110-180) observing a single pyramidal monument (although associating Pausanias’s text with the Pyramids of Argolis is contested) in his Corinthiaka that states:
“Traveling from Argus to the region of Epidaurus, there is a building to the right that resembles very much a pyramid and bears relief carved shields of the shape of the Argolic shields.
In this place, Proetus had battled with Acrisius for the throne and they say that the battle ended without a winner; for this reason, they were later reconciled, as none could achieve a decisive victory.
It is said that this was the first time that men and armies equipped with shields clashed; for those that fell in this battle from both armies, since they were compatriots and even relatives, a common tomb was built in that place.”
Groups of possible pyramidal structures have been identified at Ligourio (Argolida), Kambia (Argolida), Viglafia (Lakonia), and Elliniko (Argolida), with the pyramid of Hellinikon at Elliniko being the best preserved and studied.
Dating of the monuments has been troublesome due to the lack of archaeological material, with previously disputed studies of ceramics from the Protohelladic II period dated to 2800–2500 BC, early thermoluminescence dating giving a range of 2500–2000 BC, but many proponents support the proposed construction during the Late Classical Hellenistic period, centred on the later 4th century BC.
Historical theories for the structures function have tried to establish an “Egyptian connection”, suggesting guard houses for Egyptian mercenaries, or burial practices that paralleled with the Ancient Egyptians, but these theories lack all credibility and without evidence.
The more likely theory looks at the structures’ presence of internal walls, small rooms, cisterns, the provision of a water supply, and internally fastened doors within the monuments, that Young (1957) and Fracchia (1985) proposed was for an agricultural function, possibly with a secondary function of providing a refuge in turbulent times.
Archaeologists discover the 18th-century wooden road
Archaeologists have discovered a well-preserved stretch of a late 17th or early 18th-century wooden road in Jarosław, southeastern Poland. At 100 feet long, it is one of the longest wooden roads ever discovered in what is now Poland.
The remains were discovered in February during archaeological exploration of the site of planned sewer work in the historic centre of the city.
The road led to a gate in the city walls opening west towards Kraków. It was part of a 250-mile route connecting Bielsko Biała to Lviv in modern-day Ukraine. It was a dirt road, except for the section inside Jarosław.
Archaeologists have excavated a wooden road in the town of Jarosław, located in the Podkarpackie Voivodeship of Poland.
The road was 10 feet wide, so must have been one-way traffic only because that was not enough space for two lanes. It was made of timbers mounted on transverse wooden joists. The wood was probably oak and it was very sturdy.
There are no hoof marks or wheel ruts even though it must have been a busy street as Jarosław held one of the largest market fairs in Europe and was a major hub of trade in the region. It was in active use for about 100 years before paved roads were built over it.
Some of the roads have been removed to the Jarosław Museum for conservation and study. Objects found during the removal of the timbers — coins, show leather, nails — will go on display in the museum.
The section still in place will be displayed in situ in the coming months.
The road was laser scanned before removal so a detailed animated model could be made accurate to the millimetre.
Possible shaman’s snake stick from 4,400 years ago discovered in a Finnish lake
Archaeologists in Finland have uncovered an intricately carved wooden staff that may have been used by Stone Age shamans for rituals. More than half a metre long, the perfectly preserved life-sized wooden stick is a carving of a snake, shaped as if it is slithering away.
It was found at Järvensuo 1, a wetland site in Finland’s southwest that was occupied between 4000 BC and 2000 BC, and is ‘unlike any other wooden artefact found in Northern Europe’ during this period.
The archaeologists say the object is 4,400-years-old, meaning it dates back to the Neolithic period – the final division of the Stone Age.
Incredibly preserved detail of the carved snake’s head. The unbelievably well-preserved wooden stick was intricately carved in the shape of a snake slithering away
‘This delicately carved natural-sized snake figurine is a magnificent, thought-provoking glimpse from far back in time,’ said study author Dr Satu Koivisto at the University of Turku.
‘I have seen many extraordinary things in my work as a wetland archaeologist, but the discovery of this figurine made me utterly speechless and gave me the shivers.’
Contemporary rock art shows snake-shaped objects being held by human-like figures, which is why the experts think the carving was a Stone Age shaman’s staff for rituals.
Side view (a) and top view (b) of the stick, suspected to be a staff. The archaeologists say the object is 4,400-years-old, meaning it dates back to the Neolithic period
‘There seems to be a certain connection between snakes and people,’ said co-author Dr Antti Lahelma from the University of Helsinki.
‘This brings to mind northern shamanism of the historical period, where snakes had a special role as spirit-helper animals of the shaman.
‘Even though the time gap is immense, the possibility of some kind of continuity is tantalising – do we have a Stone Age shaman’s staff?’
Järvensuo 1 was discovered by accident by ditch diggers during the 1950s but had not been fully excavated. As such, archaeologists have been working to explore the site since 2019.
The prehistoric lakeshore has wetland conditions conducive to preserving wooden items. Previous excavation work at the site unearthed a wooden scoop with a handle like a bear’s head.
Järvensuo 1, a wetland site, is located in south-west Finland at the foot of a moraine hill rising in the middle of a large peatland plateau. Archaeological interest is with the southern shore of the drained Rautajärvi Lake. a) Location map; b) study area at Järvensuo; c) aerial photograph of the site
The artifact was found at Järvensuo, a site located beside a lake in southwest Finland. A large number of artifacts associated with fishing were also found at the site.
Several other wooden artefacts have been found by the new investigations, including wooden utensils, structural remains and pieces of fishing equipment.
According to archaeologists, this indicates Järvensuo 1 was the site of not just bizarre rituals involving the snake figurine, but practical activities as well-meaning it offers a snapshot of all aspects of ancient life.
‘Well-preserved finds from wetlands help our understanding of ancient peoples and the landscape where they performed both mundane and sacred activities,’ said Dr Koivisto.
Sadly, Järvensuo 1 and the historical treasures within are under threat from drainage and other changes to the local environment, exacerbated by climate change.
‘The signs of destruction caused by extensive drainage are already clearly evident at the site and its organic treasures are no longer safe,’ said Dr Koivisto.
Pioneering technology has helped experts find a lost camp built and used by thousands of Roman soldiers sent to conquer Northwest Iberia. The discovery is the largest and oldest Roman military fortified enclosure excavated so far in Galicia and northern Portugal. The foundations of the enclosure wall date from around the second century BC.
The 2,100-year-old Roman military camp of Lomba do Mouro in Melgaço, Portugal.
Experts analyzed a section of sediment from the wall’s foundations using an optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating technique. This made it possible to date the last time the quartz crystals were exposed to sunlight and how long they were buried under the walls.
The discovery means Lomba do Mouro is the oldest scientifically identified Roman camp to date in Galicia and northern Portugal and may link its construction to the first Roman military campaigns in Gallaecia.
The camp of Lomba do Mouro, in Melgaço, Portugal, was constructed by around 10,000 Roman troops who were crossing the Laboreiro Mountain between the Lima and Minho rivers. It was designed to be a temporary fortification, used for a day or weeks at most in the warmer months, and was built quickly.
The army was crossing high ground for safety. Written sources describe fighting during their excursion, but also some potential agreements were made with the local community.
Temporary camps are hard to spot because little archaeological evidence is left behind—due to their non-permanent nature and because they were often destroyed on purpose when the Roman Army left.
Dr. João Fonte, from the University of Exeter, a member of the research team, said: “Written sources mention the army crossing different valleys, but until now we didn’t know exactly where.
Because of the temporary nature of the site, it’s almost impossible to find without using remote sensing techniques, and radiocarbon dating wouldn’t have been accurate because plant roots creep into the structure.”
“We have found numerous military camps in the Northwest of the Iberian Peninsula in recent years, but their dating is very complex.
As they are temporary enclosures, there is very little material or organic evidence in them that would allow a scientifically valid dating to be obtained, until now.”
Covering more than 20 hectares, Lomba do Mouro was discovered using remote sensing techniques by the romanarmy.eu research collective and was the subject of an archaeological survey in September 2020.
Detail of trench 2
The campaign was led by University of Exeter archaeologist João Fonte as part of the Finisterrae project funded by the European Commission through a Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant (grant agreement 794048).
Until now the oldest dated Roman camp in Galicia and northern Portugal—excavated by the same team—was Penedo dos Lobos (Manzaneda, Ourense), where coins could be found linking this enclosure with the war campaigns known as the Cantabrian Wars (29-19 BC), with which the Emperor Octavian Augustus put an end to the process of conquest of Hispania. Lomba do Mouro was built a hundred years before Penedo dos Lobos.
In 137 BC the Roman consul Decimus Junius Brutus entered Gallaecia with two legions, crossing the rivers Douro and Lima and reaching the Minho.
The dating of the walls, together with the large dimensions of the enclosure, support the hypothesis that the camp may have been erected by a contingent linked to these times, although due to the degree of uncertainty of the dates it is difficult to establish a direct association with the episode of Decimus Junius Brutus campaign.
According to a Science Magazine report, palaeontologist Qiang Ji of Hebei GEO University and his colleagues have examined a hominin skull discovered on the banks of the Songhua River in northeastern China in 1933.
A massive, remarkably complete skull from China may reveal the long-sought face of a Denisovan.
Almost 90 years ago, Japanese soldiers occupying northern China forced a Chinese man to help build a bridge across the Songhua River in Harbin. While his supervisors weren’t looking, he found a treasure: a remarkably complete human skull buried in the riverbank.
He wrapped up the heavy cranium and hid it in a well to prevent his Japanese supervisors from finding it. Today, the skull is finally coming out of hiding, and it has a new name: Dragon Man, the newest member of the human family, who lived more than 146,000 years ago.
In three papers in the year-old journal The Innovation, palaeontologist Qiang Ji of Hebei GEO University and his team call the new species Homo longi. (Long means dragon in Mandarin.) They also claim the new species belongs to the sister group of H. sapiens, and thus, an even closer relative of humans than Neanderthals. Other researchers question the idea of a new species and the team’s analysis of the human family tree.
But they suspect the large skull has an equally exciting identity: They think it may be the long-sought skull of a Denisovan, an elusive human ancestor from Asia known chiefly from DNA.
Paleoanthropologist Marta Mirazón Lahr of the University of Cambridge, who was not involved in the work, says she’s “skeptical of the statements about humans’ long-lost sister lineage.” But she and others are thrilled with the find. “It’s a wonderful skull; I think it’s the best skull of a Denisovan that we’ll ever have,” says paleoanthropologist Jean-Jacques Hublin of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
The stunning skull was brought to light by the bridge builder’s grandchildren, who retrieved it from the well after their grandfather told them about it on his deathbed. They donated it to the Geoscience Museum at Hebei GEO University. But before Ji could ask him precisely where he found the fossil, the man died, leaving the researchers uncertain of its geological context.
With no geological context, Ji enlisted several researchers to help date the skull. Griffith University, Nathan, geochronologist Rainer Grün and colleagues linked strontium isotopes in sediment encrusted in its nasal cavities to a specific layer of sediments around the bridge, which they dated to between 138,000 and 309,000 years ago. Uranium-series dating on the bone also gives it a minimum age of 146,000 years.
Next, the researchers tried to identify the skull. Paleoanthropologist Xijun Ni of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Hebei GEO University, who led the effort, was initially puzzled: The massive skull had a brain comparable in size to that of modern humans. But it couldn’t be a member of H. sapiens because it had larger, almost square eye sockets, thick brow ridges, a wide mouth, and a huge molar.
Ni, who is also a palaeontologist who studies fossil dinosaurs and primates, used computational statistical methods to build and analyze a data set of more than 600 traits from the skull, such as measurements of its length and brow size, as well as the presence or absence of traits such as wisdom teeth. He compared 55 traits from 95 other fossilized skulls, jaws, or teeth from the genus Homo from around the world.
The computer model sorted the fossils into family trees, finding the tree that fits best with the data had four main clusters. The new skull nestled in a cluster whose branches included several skulls from China’s Middle Pleistocene, a period 789,000 to 130,000 years ago when several lineages of hominins coexisted.
Within the cluster of Chinese fossils, the new skull was most closely related to a jawbone from Xiahe Cave on the Tibetan Plateau. Proteins in that jawbone, as well as ancient DNA in the sediments of the cave, strongly suggest it was a Denisovan, a close relative of Neanderthals who lived in Denisova Cave in Siberia off and on from 280,000 to 55,000 years ago and left traces of its DNA in modern people.
To date, the only clearly identified Denisovan fossils are a pinkie bone, teeth, and a bit of skull bone from Denisova Cave. But the enormous, “weird” molar from the new find fits with the molars from Denisova, says Bence Viola, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Toronto who analyzed them with Hublin.
The paper authors acknowledge that the find could be a Denisovan. And Chris Stringer, a paleoanthropologist at London’s Natural History Museum and co-author on two of the papers, says so directly: “I think it probably is a Denisovan.”
But the team has not yet tried to extract ancient DNA or proteins from the skull or molar to test that idea. In the meantime, their analysis showed the cluster of Chinese fossils was closer to early H. sapiens than to Neanderthals who were alive at the same time, Ni says. “It is widely believed that the Neanderthal belongs to an extinct lineage that is the closest relative of our own species. However, our discovery suggests that the new lineage we identified that includes Homo longi is the actual sister group of H. sapiens.”
Although other researchers are stunned by the size and completeness of the skull, many are critical of the analysis. “When I saw this analysis, I nearly fell off my chair,” Hublin says.
They question how the skull was found to be closely related to the Xiahe jawbone because there are no overlapping traits to compare as the skull has no jawbone. Also, DNA studies reveal modern humans are more closely related to Neanderthals than Denisovans; if the Xiahe jawbone is indeed from a Denisovan, the new skull’s closest relative is likely a Neanderthal, not H. sapiens. “It’s premature to name a new species, especially a fossil with no context, with contradictions in the data set,” says María Martinón-Torres, a paleoanthropologist at CENIEH, the national centre for research on human evolution in Spain.
For now, the paper authors say they do not want to risk destroying the tooth or other bone to get DNA or protein. But other researchers hope that work happens soon. Viola, for one, says he hopes that one day, “I can finally look into the eyes of a Denisovan.”
Dozens of ancient pyramids found at a single site in Sudan
Among the discoveries are pyramids with a circle built inside them, cross-braces connecting the circle to the corners of the pyramid. Outside of Sedeinga only one pyramid is known to have been built in this way.
At least 35 small pyramids, along with graves, have been discovered clustered closely together at a site called Sedeinga in Sudan. Discovered between 2009 and 2012, researchers are surprised at how densely the pyramids are concentrated.
In one field season alone, in 2011, the research team discovered 13 pyramids packed into roughly 5,381 square feet (500 square meters), or slightly larger than an NBA basketball court. They date back around 2,000 years to a time when a kingdom named Kush flourished in Sudan. Kush shared a border with Egypt and, later on, the Roman Empire.
The desire of the kingdom’s people to build pyramids was apparently influenced by Egyptian funerary architecture.
At Sedeinga, researchers say, pyramid building continued for centuries. “The density of the pyramids is huge,” said researcher Vincent Francigny, a research associate with the American Museum of Natural History in New York, in an interview with LiveScience.
“Because it lasted for hundreds of years they built more, more, more pyramids and after centuries they started to fill all the spaces that were still available in the necropolis.”
This aerial photo shows a series of pyramids and graves that a team of archaeologists has been exploring at Sedeinga in Sudan. Since 2009 they have discovered at least 35 small pyramids at the site, the largest being 22 feet (7 meters) in width.
The biggest pyramids they discovered are about 22 feet (7 meters) wide at their base with the smallest example, likely constructed for the burial of a child, being only 30 inches (750 millimetres) long.
The tops of the pyramids are not attached, as the passage of time and the presence of a camel caravan route resulted in damage to the monuments. Francigny said that the tops would have been decorated with a capstone depicting either a bird or a lotus flower on top of a solar orb.
The building continued until, eventually, they ran out of room to build pyramids. “They reached a point where it was so filled with people and graves that they had to reuse the oldest one,” Francigny said.
Francigny is excavation director of the French Archaeological Mission to Sedeinga, the team that made the discoveries. He and team leader Claude Rilly published an article detailing the results of their 2011 field season in the most recent edition of the journal Sudan and Nubia.
The inner-circle
Among the discoveries were several pyramids designed with an inner cupola (circular structure) connected to the pyramid corners through cross-braces. Rilly and Francigny noted in their paper that the pyramid design resembles a “French Formal Garden.”
Only one pyramid, outside of Sedeinga, is known to have been constructed this way, and it’s a mystery why the people of Sedeinga were fond of the design. It “did not add either to the solidity or to the external aspect [appearance] of the monument,” Rilly and Francigny write.
A discovery made in 2012 may provide a clue, Francigny said in the interview. “What we found this year is very intriguing,” he said.
“A grave of a child and it was covered by only a kind of circle, almost complete, of brick.” It’s possible, he said, that when pyramid building came into fashion at Sedeinga it was combined with a local circle-building tradition called tumulus construction, resulting in pyramids with circles within them.
People were buried beside the pyramids in tomb chambers that often held more than one individual. This image shows a child who was buried with necklaces.
An offering for grandma?
The graves beside the pyramids had largely been plundered, possibly in antiquity, by the time archaeologists excavated them. Researchers did find skeletal remains and, in some cases, artefacts.
One of the most interesting new finds was an offering table found by the remains of a pyramid. . It appears to depict the goddess Isis and the jackal-headed god Anubis and includes an inscription, written in Meroitic language, dedicated to a woman named “Aba-la,” which may be a nickname for “grandmother,” Rilly writes.
It reads in translation:
Oh, Isis! Oh Osiris!
It is Aba-la.
Make her drink plentiful water;
Make her eat plentiful bread;
Make her be served a good meal.
The offering table with the inscription was a final send-off for a woman, possibly a grandmother, given a pyramid burial nearly 2,000 years ago.
