Category Archives: EUROPE

4,500-year-old Neolithic tomb collapses in South Dublin

4,500-year-old Neolithic tomb collapses in South Dublin

The tomb, which dates back to the Neolithic period before the start of the Bronze Age, appears to have collapsed in late 2021, with photos showing the capstone having fallen in. The tomb itself is located on farmland in Shankill and is known as the Carrickgollogan wedge tomb.

The Carrickgollogan Dolmen in Shankill Co Dublin

Andrew Bambrick, who runs a heritage conservation community, says that the capstone appears had fallen in between the two supporting stones and that it was sad to see it like this. 

“It’s sad, it’s been in the country for over 4,500 years and it’s collapsed,” said Bambrick.

Photos taken of the monument in early 2021 show it surrounded by fencing and overgrown with brambles. In more recent photos, there are fewer brambles surrounding the tomb, but the capstone has collapsed inwards.

Bambrick says that while wedge tombs have collapsed in the past, it is usually due to factors like tree roots displacing the tomb and over long periods of time, erosion.

Bambrick says that he has reported the collapse to the National Monument Service, but had yet to receive a response.

The tomb appears to have collapsed in late 2021

However, the Department of Heritage said that the National Monuments Service was made aware of the collapse and that they plan on investigating further.

“The National Monuments Service was recently made aware of an apparent collapse of a capstone at the monument and will be investigating the matter,” said a spokesperson for the Department.

The wedge tomb is included within the most recent Record of Protected Structures (RPS) published by Dun Laoghaire – Rathdown County Council. 

While there is awareness of large scale monuments, like Newgrange, Bambrick says that there needs to be more done to raise awareness of smaller, local heritage sites like the Carrickgollogan Dolmen.

He says greater awareness of these historical sites will lead to greater preservation efforts and called for local community groups to be set up to look after dolmens.

Bambrick said that while there were laws in place to protect historical sites like dolmens, there needed to be further efforts to investigate and enforce these protection laws.

He says that a separate organisation specifically to tackle monument vandalism needed to be set up by the Government.

The National Monuments Service is responsible for archaeological matters arising at larger monuments in the care of the State, as well as carrying out surveys on areas that may have historical monuments.

The body also provides advice to planning authorities on development proposals, like development plans, around the impacts they may have on historical sites.

Wedge tombs were the last tombs to be built during the Neolithic period, acting as burial grounds. All wedge tombs in the country are protected under the National Monument Service.

Similar tombs constructed during the Neolithic era include passage tombs, portal tombs and court tombs. These were constructed earlier in the Neolithic era, before wedge tombs became more common.

Well-known wedge tombs include the Labbacallee wedge tomb near Glanworth in Co Cork. It is noted as the largest in Ireland and dates back to 2300 BC.

4,500-year-old Neolithic tomb collapses in South Dublin
The Labbacallee wedge tomb near Glanworth in Cork

The Mystery of the Death of 60 Prisoners From a Camp in the Stargard Area

The Mystery of the Death of 60 Prisoners From a Camp in the Stargard Area

‘During research in Stalag II-D, we found several dozen mass graves. We carried out exhumation in one of them and found the remains of 64 men. Based on the analysis of collected evidence, artefacts, we can now say that most of them were Red Army soldiers’, says Dr. Andrzej Ossowski, head of the Department of Forensic Genetics at the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin.

Archaeological and genetic research in the former German POW camp Stalag II D in Stargard.

He adds that the items discovered in the grave include fragments of Polish and Belgian soldier uniforms, but at this stage, it is not possible to confirm that those soldiers were also buried there.

Based on the Red Army soldiers data published by the OBD Memorial project, the researchers determined that the prisoners died within four consecutive days, in December 1941.

Preliminary findings also indicate that death occurred as a result of exhaustion, but scientists want to investigate it in more detail – precisely because of the short time, in which so many people died.

‘The scale is incredible – a dozen or so people per day died in the camp. There are no traces that would point to a brutal death mechanism – shooting or torture, which we have seen during our work in Stutthof, Treblinka or Sobibór’, explains Ossowski.

According to Ossowski, exhaustion made prisoners susceptible to infectious diseases, such as typhus. ‘We plan to carry out pioneering testing for the presence of pathogens in the preserved bone material – so far, no one has done that in Poland’, the geneticist says.

He adds that research in the former Stalag II-D will continue. The researchers assume that the 64 prisoners found in the grave are not the only such victims.

‘It was not a concentration camp or extermination camp. It was a POW camp. This shows the scale of the criminal system, and we can talk about a mass scale of death in POW camps. This is a terrifying image showing the enormity of criminal action.

It was extermination through the conditions, to which prisoners of war were exposed – hard work, malnutrition, lack of any medical care, emphasises Ossowski.

He notes that research is also underway to determine the identity of prisoners of other nationalities, about whom the researchers have very little information at this point. He also points out that in the case of soldiers of the Red Army, although their fate was known, the communist system never informed their relatives.

‘After taking possession of the German documentation, Soviets did not inform families what happened to their relatives – despite the fact that, as can be seen in the documents, even their addresses were recorded. The authorities allowed to brand the relatives of Soviet POW +families of traitors+’, the geneticist says.

The work that began in October 2021 is the first comprehensive research in the former camp. Earlier, the Military Property Agency, which owns the area, conducted surveys after history enthusiasts determined the approximate location of the burial site in the complex.

Stalag II-D was one of the largest POW camps in the Third Reich. From 1939 (initially, it operated as a temporary camp, Dulag L), prisoners from all over Europe were sent there, soldiers and non-commissioned officers, including soldiers from Gen. Kleeberg’s Army, as well as other Polish soldiers, French, Belgian and Soviet soldiers.

POWs from the camp worked on work details all over Pomerania, including farms and road construction. Many of them died during labour and were buried near their place of work. The camp functioned until its evacuation in February 1945.

Research in Stalag II-D was co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. (PAP)

2,000-Year-Old Intact Roman Glass Bowl Uncovered in the Netherlands

2,000-Year-Old Intact Roman Glass Bowl Uncovered in the Netherlands

Archaeologists excavating a site in Nijmegen — the oldest city in the Netherlands, situated on the Waal river about six miles from the German border — have discovered a blue glass bowl estimated to be some 2,000 years old, in pristine condition. 

2,000-Year-Old Intact Roman Glass Bowl Uncovered in the Netherlands
2,000-year-old glass bowl unearthed in Nijmegen in the Netherlands

The bowl, just small enough to sit comfortably in the palm of a hand, has a trim rim and a vertical stripe pattern with ridges on the outside.

With no chips or cracks on its surface, the object is stunningly intact. Lead archaeologist Pepjin van de Geer remarked that it was “really special,” deserving pride of place in a museum. 

The ancient Roman bowl is thought to have originated from glass workshops in German cities like Cologne and Xanten, though van de Geer also entertains the possibility that it may have been traded from Italy. 

“Such dishes were made by allowing molten glass to cool and harden over a mould,” he told the Dutch regional newspaper De Stentor.

“The stripe pattern was drawn in when the glass mixture was still liquid. Metal oxide causes a blue colour.”

Archaeologists hope to produce a map of the historic settlement.

Van de Geer’s team had been excavating the site ahead of construction for a new housing and green development project called Winkelsteeg, which promises to be a “dynamic living and working area” for the growing city.

Around the time the bowl was in use, Nijmegen was a Roman military camp that subsequently drew civilian settlement.

It was the first city in the modern-day Netherlands that was named a municipium, or Roman city, so the local Batavi inhabitants were the first in the region to be granted Roman citizenship.

The same excavation effort has unearthed Roman tombs, trinkets like dishware and jewellery, and traces of construction — which the archaeologists hope will be definitive enough to allow them to produce a map of what the settlement layout looked like.

Remains of a man and dog trying to escape ancient tsunami found on Aegean coast

Remains of a man and dog trying to escape ancient tsunami found on Aegean coast

Roughly 3,600 years ago, the massive Thera volcano in the Aegean Sea blew its top, unleashing massive tsunamis. Now, archaeologists in western Turkey have unearthed the bones of a young man and a dog killed by one of those tsunamis. 

It’s the first time that any victims of the ancient eruption have been found in their archaeological context, and it’s the northernmost evidence found of the tsunamis that followed it.

Archaeological excavations at the site in the town of Çeşme, about 40 miles (70 kilometres) west of the city of Izmer, began more than 10 years ago when construction workers built an apartment complex there found Bronze Age ruins. 

Remains of a man and dog trying to escape ancient tsunami found on Aegean coast
The skeleton of a man killed in a tsunami after the eruption of the Thera volcano is the first found in its archaeological context.

But only recently did researchers realize that the destruction they saw was caused by tsunamis from the Thera eruption, said Vasıf Şahoğlu, an archaeologist at the University of Ankara, who led the excavations from 2009 until 2019 and is the lead author of a new study on the discoveries.

“It took some years, and then everything started to have some meaning,” Şahoğlu told Live Science. “This is going to help us enormously. … We will now be able to interpret everything in a much better way.”

The Bronze Age ruins were discovered in 2009 near the waterfront of Çeşme ahead of the construction of a new apartment building.

The Thera volcano, which was then at the centre of the resulting archipelago of Aegean islands now known as Santorini, erupted in about 1600 B.C. It was one of the worst natural disasters in human history; scientists estimate the volcano erupted with 2 million times the power of the Hiroshima atomic bomb, NASA reported. 

The blast wiped out the Minoan town of Akrotiri on the island, and its aftermath may have contributed to the demise of the Minoan civilization on Crete, about 75 miles (120 km) to the south. The volcano’s plume may have been seen in Egypt, and it likely caused a global volcanic winter that reached as far as China. 

The site is near the busy waterfront of a popular seaside resort on Turkey’s Aegean coast. It will now become an archaeological museum.

Ancient eruption

Despite the widespread devastation and the tens of thousands of people who must have died, the remains from only one death attributed to the eruption have ever been found — those of a man buried by rubble on Santorini, which was discovered in the 19th century, Şahoğlu said.

Many victims of at least four tsunamis that spread across the Mediterranean after the Thera eruption were likely swept out to sea. Archaeologists may also have found other skeletal remains from the cataclysm, but they may have assumed those people were killed by other causes, such as earthquakes, he added.

It can be difficult to see the signs of destruction caused by an ancient tsunami, and often these signs can only be confirmed by the presence of microscopic marine animal fossils, said Beverly Goodman-Tchernov, an archaeologist at the University of Haifa and senior co-author of the study.

Before now, traces of the tsunamis from Thera have been found at only six sites in the Aegean, and Çeşme — about 140 miles (220 km) away — is the most northerly.

The discovery in 2017 of the bones of the man and dog mean the site at Çeşme can serve as a “frozen moment” of life at the time of the eruptions, she said.

The man was about 17 years old when he died; he was killed by one of the tsunami waves and then washed up against a wall in the Bronze Age town. 

The remains of the dog were found nearby, but there is no evidence that the man and the dog were together when they were killed, Goodman-Tchernov said.

Rescue efforts

Interestingly, a pit had been deliberately dug above the man’s body, possibly in an attempt to rescue him or to retrieve his body for a proper burial. Similar pits had been dug elsewhere at the site, apparently soon after one of the earliest tsunami waves, she said.

“We think these are actually the preserved ‘negative spaces’ from where people have come and rescued the injured survivors or removed [the dead],” Goodman-Tchernov told Live Science. “Unfortunately, there was another tsunami wave that came in and filled all of those.”

Şahoğlu said scientific tests would be carried out on the remains, including DNA analysis, to try to learn more about the young man and the dog. Archaeologists will also look for other traces of the tsunami in the area, and the discovery of tsunami destruction at Çeşme should spur experts to reassess the evidence from archaeological sites nearby, he said. 

Today, Çeşme is a thriving resort town on the Aegean coast, and the archaeological site is right beside the town’s popular waterfront. “It was very difficult to work in the middle of one of the most touristic destinations in Turkey,” Şahoğlu said.

But the archaeological work at Çeşme has now concluded, and authorities are now awaiting approval to build a museum above the site to preserve the excavations, he said.

The remains were described in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Golden Pectoral and Bronze Mirror- Discoveries of Archaeologists in a Siberian Barrow

Golden Pectoral and Bronze Mirror- Discoveries of Archaeologists in a Siberian Barrow

The archaeological site Chinge-Tey is located in the Touran-Uyuk valley in northern Tuva, a republic in the Asian part of the Russian Federation. It is called the ‘Siberian Valley of the Kings’ because of the many large barrows with rich equipment, dating back more than 2.5 thousand years. Some of them are referred to as princely barrows.

Last year, Polish archaeologists from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków discovered two intriguing graves. The first of them was in the central part of a destroyed, almost completely flattened barrow with a diameter of approx. 25 m. Almost invisible to the naked eye, It was detected by aerial laser scanning.

The wooden burial chamber, built in the framework of solid beams, contained the remains of two bodies. The chamber itself was covered with three layers of beams. The floor was covered with planks. According to the researchers, the deceased were a woman who died at the age of approx. 50 years old and a 2-3 years old child.

Golden Pectoral and Bronze Mirror- Discoveries of Archaeologists in a Siberian Barrow
Burial of a woman with a child

Next to the remains of the woman, the researchers found gold ornaments, an iron knife, a bronze mirror and a very well preserved wooden comb decorated with engraved ornament.

‘A particularly interesting artefact was a golden pectoral ornament, a decoration hung at the neck in the shape of a sickle or crescent’, says the head of the Polish part of the expedition, Dr Łukasz Oleszczak from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. He emphasises that objects of this type, known from mounds in southern Siberia, have so far been found almost exclusively in the graves of men.

‘They were considered symbols of belonging to a social group, caste, perhaps warriors – in any case, men. Its presence in the grave of a woman is a very interesting deviation from this custom. This certainly confirms the unique role of the deceased in the community of the +Valley of the Kings+’, the archaeologist says.

He points out that the woman was buried in the central part of the tomb located in the immediate vicinity of the great barrow that, according to the researchers, belongs to a nomad prince. ‘It seems that, like the others buried in this barrow, she belonged to the prince’s entourage’, says Oleszczak.

He mentions the condition of the grave goods made from organic material. The researchers from the Polish-Russian expedition had previously found arrow shafts, an ice axe handle, a piece of a quiver. The woman’s grave contained a wooden comb connected with a leather loop to a mirror made of bronze. This set of cosmetic items was placed in the grave in a leather pouch.

The second grave discovered in the last season of excavation was located outside the ditch surrounding the barrow. It was the skeleton of a teenage child, placed in a small pit surrounded by stones. It did not contain any equipment.

‘Graves of children on the perimeter or just outside the ditch surrounding the barrow are a typical part of the funeral rites of this early Scythian culture’, adds Dr. Oleszczak.

The archaeologists also found evidence that a treasure of objects made of bronze was most likely deposited around the perimeter of the barrow at some point. Evidence of this is the discovery of tens of horse tack parts, a bronze ice axe, as well as an ornament in the form of a goat.

They were located with a metal detector. According to Dr. Oleszczak, the treasure was scattered by deep ploughing in the 20th century, when a kolkhoz operated near the cemetery.

In 2021, Polish archaeologists continued their research within the barrow they started to excavate two years earlier. Back then, they found two burials – a central, robbed one, and an intact side grave that contained the body of a young warrior, richly equipped with weapons, a knife, a whetstone and gold ornaments. This is one of the 10 tombs located in a row on the north-south axis in the western part of the cemetery.

According to the researchers, the graves come from the 6th century BCE, when the peoples of Scythian origin lived in these areas. According to the experts, it was the Aldy-Bel culture. In the early Scythian period, the Touran-Uyuk valley was one of the most important ritual centres of the Scythian and Siberian worlds. It was from there, from the mountains of southern Siberia, that the people originated who dominated the steppes of Eastern Europe.

Archaeological camp on the bank of the river Uyuk.

The Scythians were known for being warlike. Their achievements have been described, among others, by the famous Greek historian Herodotus.

The research was supported by a grant awarded by the Polish National Science Centre. The excavations were carried out in cooperation with scientists from the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, under the supervision of Konstantina V. Chugunova.

Bronze Dagger Discovered in Slovakia

Bronze Dagger Discovered in Slovakia

During their time off, relaxing by the River Váh, near Hlohovec, a local came across an object that they found interesting. Only when they returned home, did they discover that it was an archaeological find and paid a visit to the nearest museum?

Similar finds should be handed over to the regional offices of the Monuments Board of the Slovak Republic.

The local had discovered a short sword, or a long dagger, with a length of almost 26 cm and a weight of almost 150 g, the Trnava Office of the Monuments Board said. Its handle from organic material has not been preserved. Only traces of the rivets remained.

The recently discovered sword is the fourth reported and handed over find from the River Váh in the Trnava Region since 2002.
The recently discovered sword is the fourth reported and handed over find from the River Váh in the Trnava Region since 2002.

Similar short swords have been found in the Danube basin, stretching from southern Germany to the Vojvodina province in Serbia.

“They are typical for the emerging Tumulus culture, which began to dominate the central European region in the 16th century BC, that is during the Middle Bronze Age,” said Matúš Sládok from the Trnava Office.

In the past, a similar sword was discovered in Včelince, near Rimavská Sobota, where it was part of discovered bronze objects.

Long daggers from the Early and Middle Bronze Ages are often found in richly filled tombs, as part of mass discoveries, and often in rivers.

The sword found in the River Váh may have fallen into the water as part of the cult, but it may also be a lost object, Sládok said. The dagger’s owner could have lost it, for example, when wading the river, he added.

At the end of the Early Bronze Age, the first metal swords began to appear in Central Europe, as a separate invention that most likely evolved from long bronze daggers.

The sword from the Váh could serve as a very interesting developmental link between these two types of weapons, Sládok argued.

More Váh finds

The sword is the fourth find from the River Váh in the Trnava Region since 2002, which has been reported and handed over, the year the Monuments Office of the Slovak Republic was established.

In the Váh, people have found a bronze blade from a dagger on a stick from the early Bronze Age, iron semi-finished products dating to the 2nd century BC – 2nd century AD, and a fragment of a millstone.

5,000-Year-Old Town Discovered Underwater in Greece

5,000-Year-Old Town Discovered Underwater in Greece

Archaeologists surveying the world’s oldest submerged town have found ceramics dating back to the Final Neolithic. Their discovery suggests that Pavlopetri, off the southern Laconia coast of Greece, was occupied some 5,000 years ago — at least 1,200 years earlier than originally thought.

These remarkable findings have been made public by the Greek government after the start of a five-year collaborative project involving the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and The University of Nottingham.

As a Mycenaean town, the site offers potential new insights into the workings of Mycenaean society. Pavlopetri has added importance as it was a maritime settlement from which the inhabitants coordinated local and long-distance trade.

The ruins of Pavlopetri are located a short distance from the coastline, just a few meters underwater in Vatika Bay in southern Greece.
Could the Pavlopetri site in southern Greece have been the inspiration for Plato’s story of Atlantis?

The Pavlopetri Underwater Archaeology Project aims to establish exactly when the site was occupied, what it was used for and through a systematic study of the geomorphology of the area, how the town became submerged.

This summer the team carried out a detailed digital underwater survey and study of the structural remains, which until this year were thought to belong to the Mycenaean period — around 1600 to 1000 BC.

The survey surpassed all their expectations. Their investigations revealed another 150 square metres of new buildings as well as ceramics that suggest the site was occupied throughout the Bronze Age — from at least 2800 BC to 1100 BC.

The work is being carried out by a multidisciplinary team led by Mr Elias Spondylis, Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture in Greece and Dr Jon Henderson, an underwater archaeologist from the Department of Archaeology at The University of Nottingham.

The resulting research project used a novel combination of archaeology, underwater robotics, and state-of-the-art graphics to survey the seabed and bring the ancient town back to life.

Dr Jon Henderson said: “This site is unique in that we have almost the complete town plan, the main streets and domestic buildings, courtyards, rock-cut tombs and what appear to be religious buildings, clearly visible on the seabed. Equally, as a harbour settlement, the study of the archaeological material we have recovered will be extremely important in terms of revealing how maritime trade was conducted and managed in the Bronze Age.”

Possibly one of the most important discoveries has been the identification of what could be a megaron — a large rectangular great hall — from the Early Bronze Age period. They have also found over 150 metres of new buildings including what could be the first example of a pillar crypt ever discovered on the Greek mainland. Two new stone-built cist graves were also discovered alongside what appears to be a Middle Bronze Age pithos burial.

Mr Spondylis said: “It is a rare find and it is significant because as a submerged site it was never re-occupied and therefore represents a frozen moment of the past.”

The Archaeological coordinator Dr Chrysanthi Gallou a postdoctoral research fellow at The University of Nottingham is an expert in Aegean Prehistory and the archaeology of Laconia.

Dr Gallou said: “The new ceramic finds form a complete and exceptional corpus of pottery covering all sub-phases from the Final Neolithic period (mid 4th millennium BC) to the end of the Late Bronze Age (1100 BC).

In addition, the interest from the local community in Laconia has been fantastic.

The investigation at Pavlopetri offers a great opportunity for them to be actively involved in the preservation and management of the site, and subsequently for the cultural and touristic development of the wider region.”

The team was joined by Dr Nicholas Flemming, a marine geo-archaeologist from the Institute of Oceanography at the University of Southampton, who discovered the site in 1967 and returned the following year with a team from Cambridge University to carry out the first-ever survey of the submerged town.

Using just snorkels and tape measures they produced a detailed plan of the prehistoric town which consisted of at least 15 separate buildings, courtyards, streets, two-chamber tombs and at least 37 cist graves.

Despite the potential international importance of Pavlopetri, no further work was carried out at the site until this year.

Through a British School of Archaeology in Athens permit, The Pavlopetri Underwater Archaeology Project began its five-year study of the site with the aim of defining the history and development of Pavlopetri.

A digital reconstruction of the buildings at Pavlopetri was submerged by the sea about 1100 BC.

Archaeology bombshell: 7,000-year-old find older than Pyramids stuns scientists

Archaeology bombshell: 7,000-year-old find older than Pyramids stuns scientists

The archaeological discovery was hiding in plain sight for centuries, tucked away in a field near the village Łysomice in northern Poland. But with the aid of Google Earth scans, archaeologists were able to spot concentric outlines of where the ancient structures, or pans, once stood. The researchers now believe the buildings were raised by some of the first European communities to farm the land.

The discovery dates the neolithic structures to about 2,000 years before the Great Pyramid of Giza was built in Egypt.

Mateusz Sosnowski from the Institute of Archaeology at the University of Nicolas Copernicus praised the unexpected find.

The archaeologist said: “Our discovery can be boldly dubbed sensational due to the fact the pans are located east of the Vistula river.

“These constructions are the most north-eastern of their type in Europe. We did not expect such a discovery in this region.”

Archaeology bombshell: 7,000-year-old find older than Pyramids stuns scientists
Researchers have found ancient, neolithic structures in Poland
The ancient structures were hidden in plain sight

The ringed structures or pans were found roughly three miles (5km) apart outside of Łysomice.

The structures measure approximately 278ft (85m) across and feature three concentric ditches with a common centre.

When viewed from space with the aid of Google Earth and Google Maps, the pans left distinct impressions in the land now used for modern farming.

The archaeologists speculate the structures may have had ties to early astrological efforts due to the direction of their construction.

Dr Sosnowski said: “What is is also interesting, is that the entrances are most likely directly opposite one another on a northwest-southeast axis.

“We suppose they could also be linked to astronomical observations.”

The entrances likely faced the direction of the rising sun during the Winter Solstice.

Dr Sosnowski said: “In order to confirm this concept we will need further analysis.”

To date, archaeologists have found more than 130 of these pan-like structures all over Europe.

At least one-third of these structures can be found in Austria.

The rest are peppered across Poland, Hungary, Germany, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

The neolithic structures were found in northern Poland
The structures were built by the first Europeans to farm the land

In this particular case, the archaeologists believe the structures were “planned and raised by a large group of people”.

According to some researchers, they may have served ceremonial roles or acted as temples for pagan practices. The European pans were typically surrounded by concentric ditches and wooden palisades, which suggests they could have been defensive structures.

Dr Sosnowski and his team now want to visit the sites in person in the winter.

The discovery comes after archaeologists in South America uncovered the 2,000-year-old remains of two infants wearing helmets. The unusual remains were found on the coast of Central Ecuador at a burial site called Salango.

Archaeologists in the UK have also made an incredible 8,000-year-old discovery at the bottom of the sea. The ancient find is likely a boat from the Stone Age, found just off the coast of Great Yarmouth.

Archaeologists have also solved an incredible Roman mystery after discovering a “forgotten city” buried in the Mediterranean.