Remains of the Inhabitants of Herculaneum who took shelter in the coast buildings during Vesuvius eruption.

A study found that the residents of the Roman town of Herculaneum weren’t instantly vaporized by the Vesuvius, but were instead baked and put to death. Like neighboring Pompeii, during the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the year 79 AD, the ancient town was ruined.

Although Pompeii Streets were covered at a level of 13 and 20 feet of ash and pumice, Herculaneum was struck by pyroclastic flows — blazing clouds of gas and debris. While many of the wealthy coastal town’s residents evacuated before the eruption, at least 340 people perished as they attempted to shelter in stone boathouses and on the beach.

While these victims were thought to have had a mercifully rapid death, a fresh analysis of the victim’s skeletal remains now suggests something else. One aspect that makes Herculaneum interesting in comparison with Pompeii is its location relative to Mount Vesuvius — which gave the townsfolk more time to evacuate. 

‘The residents saw the eruption and had a chance to attempt an escape,’ said biological anthropologist Tim Thompson of the Teesside University in Middlesbrough.

‘It gives a snapshot into the way in which these people responded and reacted to the eruption,’ he added.

Although many of the coastal town’s population evacuated, around 340 individuals still ended up stranded on the waterfront when the pyroclastic flows swept across the town at some 100 miles per hour (160 kph).

As some of the towns’ menfolk hurried to prepare boats on the beach, many women and children took refuge in the vaulted stone boathouses — or ‘fornici’ — where they would ultimately been unearthed centuries later in 1980.

‘They hid for protection and got stuck. The general theory has been that these individuals were instantly vaporised,’ said Professor Thompson.

This notion has been supported by the fact that few of the human remains from Herculaneum were found in the so-called ‘pugilistic attitude’ — or ‘boxer position’, with flexed elbows and knees as well as clenched fists.

Bodies subjected to high temperatures often end up in the boxer position as their tissues and muscles dehydrate and contract — but this does not occur if temperatures are high enough to rapidly vaporise this flesh off of the bone.

According to the researchers, the latter requires temperatures from the pyroclastic flow well in excess of 1832°F (1000°C) — and they had doubts as to whether this phenomenon took place at Herculaneum. 

‘Vaporisation isn’t necessarily in keeping with what we see forensically in modern volcanic eruptions,’ Professor Thompson added. To investigate, the team used techniques to study the Herculaneum boathouse skeletons that they had first developed to study ancient cremations.

Their past work had shown that the crystalline inner structure of skeletons changes depending on the amount of heat they are subjected to, as does the amount of collagen that remains within the bone.

They conducted their tests on the ribs of 152 individuals who perished within the fornici — and found that the state of their bones was not consistent with exposure to temperatures in the order of 572–932°F (300–500°C).

‘What was interesting was that we had good collagen preservation but also evidence of heat-induced change in the bone crystalline,’ said Professor Thompson.

‘We could also see that the victims had not been burned at high temperatures.’ 

Instead of having their flesh instantly vaporised, the victims may have lived long enough to unpleasantly suffocate on the toxic fumes of the pyroclastic surge, the researchers concluded — if the heat stress didn’t kill them first.

‘The heat caused some changes externally, but not necessarily internally to the bones,’ Professor Thompson said. 

This suggests that — in the insulated environment of the boathouses, at least — the temperatures from the pyroclastic flow likely did not exceed 752°F (400°C) and may have been as low as 464°F (240°C).

‘The walls of the fornici, as well as their own body mass, dispersed the heat in the boathouses, creating a situation that more closely relates to baking,’ he added.

Professor Thompson and colleagues’ findings have not only challenged assumptions about how the catastrophe of Vesuvius played out — but have also opened up new areas of investigation.

‘Thanks to the collagen preservation in the bones of the Herculaneum victims, we have been able to commence a whole suite of further analyses,’ added paper author and archaeologist Oliver Craig of the University of York.

‘For example, through stable isotope measurements, we have gained a unique snapshot of the Roman diet.’ 

Sunken 13th-Century Medieval Village Submerged in Italian Lake Will Reemerge in 2021

Although Atlantis ‘s search for the famed underwater town still has to bring fruit, the lake has been the birthplace of a truly medieval Italian village known as Fabbriche di Careggine has emerged from a lake after being submerged many decades ago.

You haven’t heard about Fabbriche di Careggine, but the Italian village is one of the most popular and exclusive tourist destinations in the world. No, not because of its price-tag or luxury adornments, simply because it’s one of the hardest to get into, literally.

At present, the medieval village resides on the bottom side of Lake Vagli, buried under 34 million cubic meters of water. However, the good news is that it will soon be open to visitors.

As you’ve probably guessed, Fabbriche di Careggine wasn’t always a sunken city. In fact, the 13th-century town was once a thriving hotbed for iron production, characterized by its high proportion of skilled blacksmiths.

However, in 1947, a hydroelectric dam was built close to the village, forcing the residents to move to the nearby town of Vagli di Sotto. Fabbriche di Careggine was then flooded to create the artificial lake.

Incredibly, being sunken underwater has allowed the village’s stone buildings, cemetery, bridge, and church to remain remarkably intact. Where the story gets interesting, however, is in the lake’s management.

Since it was constructed, the man-made lake has been drained four times for maintenance work, each time revealing the lost city of Fabbriche di Careggine.

As the fluid dissipates, the outline of the historic ‘Ghost Town’ is unveiled, like the lost city of Atlantis rising from the watery depths.

The last time the phenomenon occurred was back in 1994, but it appears a fresh draining is in order, according to Lorenza Giorgi, daughter of Domenico Giorgi, the ex-mayor of the Municipality of Vagli di Sott.

“I inform you that from certain sources I know that next year, in 2021, Lake Vagli will be emptied,” she wrote in a Facebook post.

“The last time it was emptied in 1994 when my father was mayor and thanks to his commitment and to the many initiatives that, with effort, had managed to put up in one summer the country of Vagli welcomed more than a million of people.”

Since Giorgi’s post, energy company ENEL, which owns the dam has confirmed it is considering draining the lake as a possible boost to the local tourism sector.

With Italy still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic that devastated the country, tourism officials have been trying anything they can to get visitors back to the area. If you ask us, resurrecting a lost city from its watery grave might be just the way to do it.

Roman mosaic floor has been discovered under a vineyard in northern Italy

A Roman mosaic floor has recently been discovered under a vineyard in northern Italy after decades of searching. While taking to Twitter Myko Clelland, who is a family historian, shared the images of the ‘biggest discovery’.

Surveyors in the commune of Negrar di Valpolicella north of Verona published images of the well-preserved tiles buried under meters of earth.

According to officials, scholars first found evidence of a Roman villa there more than a century ago. Technicians are still gently excavating the site to see the full extent of the ancient building.

A note on the commune diggers finally made the discovery “after decades of failed attempts”.

Surveyors must ask the owners of the vineyard and the municipality to “identify the best ways of making this archeological treasure accessible and usable, hidden under our feet.”

Technicians will need “significant resources” to finish the job. But local authorities have pledged to give “all necessary help” to continue with the excavation.

About Verona Roman

Verona, its strategic position at the center of a network of roads is comprised,  of the streets Postogna, Gallica, and Claudio Augusta in the Roman period.

Even today in Verona, the traces of its Roman heritage are so abundant and well-preserved that after Rome, Italy is the region with the most recognizable parts.

Verona is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region. It is the second-largest city municipality in the region and the third-largest in northeast Italy.

The metropolitan area of Verona covers an area of 1,426 km2 (550.58 sq mi) and has a population of 714,274 inhabitants.

It is one of the main tourist destinations in northern Italy because of its artistic heritage and several annual fairs, shows, and operas, such as the lyrical season in the Arena, an ancient Roman amphitheater.

Between the 13th and 14th century the city was ruled by the Della Scala Family.

Under the rule of the family, in particular of Cangrande I Della Scala, the city experienced great prosperity, becoming powerful, rich, and being surrounded by new walls. The Della Scala era is survived in numerous monuments around Verona.

Two of William Shakespeare’s plays are set in Verona: Romeo and Juliet and The Two Gentlemen of Verona. It is unknown if Shakespeare ever visited Verona or Italy, but his plays have lured many visitors to Verona and surrounding cities.

The city has been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO because of its urban structure and architecture.

In mint condition! Millions of pounds-worth of pristine 5th-century gold coins are found buried in a pot under an Italian theatre.

It was an amphora, not a pot, but archaeologists found a literal jackpot in a dig in northern Italy last week. No word on if there was a rainbow. Hundreds of gold coins dating from Rome’s late Imperial era, the 4th or 5th century, were found at a dig in Como, Italy, according to the Italian Ministry of Culture.

The ministry shared photos of the shiny coins, which were spilling out of an amphora — a Roman jar with two handles — buried in the dirt.

Inside was an estimated 300 gold coins from the late Roman Imperial era, which took place in the 5th century, just before the empire’s untimely demise. Despite their age, the coins are in miraculous condition, with all the images and engravings easily visible.

“We do not yet know in detail the historical and cultural significance of the find,” said Alberto Bonisoli, the culture minister of Italy’s Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities (Ministero per I Beni e le Attività Culturali) in a press release.

“But that area is proving to be a real treasure for our archaeology. A discovery that fills me with pride”.

The urn and its stash of gold were taken to a government restoration laboratory in Milan, where they will be thoroughly examined. This might take a while, however, as the coins were found tightly packed into little stacks so that they can only be removed one at a time with careful precision.

So far, historians have successfully separated 27 coins, all of which are from the 5th century. This makes this treasure particularly intriguing, as, during this time, there was very little currency flow in the Roman economic system.

The coins feature engravings that suggest they were minted during the reigns of five different emperors: Honorius, Valentinian III, Leon I, Antonio, and Libio Severo.

The Italian media has predicted that the coins, none of which reach beyond 474 AD, could be worth millions of euros. And that doesn’t even take into account everything that was found in the urn, or the urn itself.

Keeping the coins company was a bar of gold, and at the bottom of the urn, archaeologists predict even more precious objects might be found.

According to The History Blog, “no such hoard has even been unearthed in northern Italy before”.

The archaeological site may seem like an odd place to stash such valuable items, but whoever placed them there likely “buried it in such a way that in case of danger they could go and retrieve it.” That’s according to Maria Grazia Facchinetti, an expert in rare coins. Beyond the location, the way that the coins were hidden has given historians like Facchinetti a few hints about the owner’s identity.

“They were stacked in rolls similar to those seen in the bank today,” she says.

“All of this makes us think that the owner is not a private subject, rather it could be a public bank or deposit”.

Facchinetti’s theory is bolstered by the fact that the theatre is just a few steps away from the city’s forum – a place where merchants, banks, and temples often did business.

Although the ancient Roman neighborhood was also known for its wealth, so a miserly and paranoid private owner is not out of the question. Layer analysis will now be used to determine if the coins were all deposited in the same era or if they were placed in the urn over a period of time.

The Cressoni Theatre, where the coins were found, is not far from the ancient city of Novum Comum, home to many other important Roman artifacts. The historic theatre was opened in 1807 but was converted into a cinema that closed in 1997.

Today, the plan is to demolish the old building and replace it with luxury residences. The recent discovery, however, has stalled all future work at the site until further excavations can be made.

Mt. Vesuvius Eruption Exploded Skulls And Vaporized Bodies, Roman Archaeologists Find

More than two million people visit Pompeii every year and hundreds of thousands visit the ruins of Herculaneum,  the second city buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in August 79 AD.

It was not much longer than 24 hours for the volcanic eruption. Thousands of people have died, as many exactly know no one.

Certainly, in Pompeii only about 1000 bodies have been found and in Herculaneum only 300 bodies. But Pompeii had more than twenty thousand men, Herculaneum about 4000. Where are the others? Well, many could have fled.

There are reports of survivors. Others may have died on the run. There are excavations only in Pompeii and Herculaneum, not in the surrounding area.

Whoever made it out of the city, but was killed by a stone from the volcano, for example, has probably not been found until today. The layers with the material from the eruption are 5 to 25 meters deep.

Corpses in Pompeii

Since the 1870s, during the Excavations Pompeii, when a cavity was found, a plaster cast was made.

The bodies were filled with ashes during the volcanic eruption. Later the bodies rotted. What remained was a hollow space. If you filled it with plaster, you got an exact 3D image of the former man. There are also such plaster figures of animals that lived in Pompeii.

In Pompeii, visitors can see such plaster people. They are surprisingly accurate, even in detail. You can see the position of the body at death. We even thought we could see fear and pain in some faces.

The plaster cast method also has disadvantages. Possible remains such as bones of ancient people can no longer be examined.

Nevertheless, many plaster casts have been carefully examined by scientists. For example, it was found that in ancient times almost all people had very good teeth, no tooth decay, or the like. This is probably due to the nutrition, there were hardly any sweets except honey at that time.

Corpses in Herculaneum

In Herculaneum, however, many skeletons were discovered. Several hundred people found refuge in stable, small buildings in the lower part of the city on the former shore of the sea. Here they died of hot ashes, toxic gases, and heat.

Some of the skeletons are still there as they were found. Visitors to Herculaneum see many remains of people in each of the small buildings. One mother even had a baby in her arms.

These bodies have been examined in recent years using state-of-the-art methods. DNA analysis and other methods have provided many new insights.

It was surprising that almost all corpses were well nourished. Almost everyone ate fish and meat. A young woman was probably a vegetarian, even that existed in antiquity.

At present, there are some projects which investigate the human, antique excrement from the sewage of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Here, too, there are some new things, for example concerning the nutrition of the people of that time.

For many visitors of Pompeii, the plaster casts of the people are a highlight during the visit of the excavation. In the Excavation Herculaneum, the skeletons in the lower area are certainly a highlight.

Eighteenth-Century Mass Grave Unearthed in Romania

A mass grave from the eighteenth century was discovered in West Romania by the team of researchers from the West University of Timişoara according to a Romania-Insider report.

The grave holds the remains of six adults and one child who are thought to have died during a plague outbreak between 1737 and 1740.

It was discovered in the area of the city’s Oituz street, on a site open for the building of a school campus.

In the tomb, the archaeologists found the remains of six adults and one child, who was carrying a cross similar to the Lorraine one and a pendant showing Blessed Delphina and Saint Elzear, saints of the Franciscan Order.

The remains could be of colonists who came from the region of Lorraine, the archaeologists believe, taking the clue from the cross and the pendant found. The high number of people interred in the grave points to the epidemic. 

“We believe they died during the worst epidemic, which remained for a long while in the collective memory and forever in the written one, namely the plague that swept Timişoara between 1737 and 1740,” archaeologist Andrei Stavilă explained in a Facebook post.

This is not the first time the inhabitants of Timisoara experience the bad consequences of an epidemic. Typhus or plague are plague that frequently deviated on the city, both during the Ottoman rule (1552-1716), but also later during the Habsburg (1716-1860). The collective tomb investigated on the archaeological site in the area of Oituz Street area documenting such an unfortunate episode of the city’s history.

Several are elements that suggest this fact. First of all, a large number of deceased in the same grave, six adults and one child. On the other hand, the double cross and the pendant, found at the child’s neck, come to complete the story of the archaeological complex.

The cross resembles, in shape, to Lorraine, with multiple analogies and uses throughout the time in sunset Europe.

More interesting is, however, the pendant that illustrates, on the avers and reverse, saints of the Tertiary Franciscan Order: Saint Delphina and Saint Elzear. This is the only Franciscan couple canonized or formally beatified, they are patrons of newlyweds, poor and lepers.

The pendant that illustrates them is important for our discovery. This is because the tomb cannot date before 1694, which is known to be that of Delphina’s beatification, and the information that the two are owners of lepers is important for our hypothesis.

But they surprise our flint balls found among the earthly remains of adults. Could they have been shot? For sure but why? What was the child’s fault? Did the seven form a family? What was the context of their disappearance?

At this point, gathering the data, we appreciate that the tomb may belong to some settlers, even from the region of Lorena. We believe that their deaths occurred in the context of the worst epidemic for a long time left in collective memory and forever in scripts, namely the plague that haunted Timișoara between 1737-1740.

Under these circumstances, lead may have them ended suffering or were punished for failing to comply with the rules imposed by the authorities during the epidemic time

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