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

• 

• 

• 

Rome Sinkhole Makes Extraordinary Archaeological Find

The Roman Archaeologists have confirmed that the sinkhole that opened up in front of the Pantheon in recent days has brought to light the ancient imperial flooring in Piazza Della Rotonda.

In addition, the discovery of the seven travertine slabs, which are situated at about 2.5 meters below piazza level, is, in fact, a rediscovery.

The flooring was uncovered during works in the 1990s but was sealed up again after being documented by archaeologists who have now had a chance to re-examine the ancient remains.

“More than 20 years after their first discovery” – explains Daniela Porro, special superintendent of Rome – “the slabs of the ancient floor of the square in front of the Pantheon emerge intact, protected by a layer of fine pozzolan”, in what he described as “unequivocal proof of the importance of archaeological protection, particular in a city such as Rome.”

In imperial times the square was much larger than the current one, opening out in front of the Pantheon, the temple dedicated to all the Roman gods, built by Agrippa between 27 and 25 BC.

The area was completely transformed in the second century AD, under Emperor Hadrian, with the level of the piazza raised and repaved.

However, the appearance of another sinkhole in the city is also further evidence of why ancient Romans became master hydrologists specializing in systems of channeling and holding water like tunnels, cisterns, spas, bath-houses, channels, and aqueducts. 

Only in January this year, The Local reported that a Rome apartment building has been evacuated and that a street was closed after “a sinkhole opened up” near the Colosseum.

Located on Rome’s famous Via Marco Aurelio, near the ancient Roman gladiatorial landmark, an apartment building, and two businesses were evacuated, and the street temporarily closed, as firefighters, police and housing authorities carried out emergency structural checks.

And The Local reported in February 2018 that a massive ten meters (33 feet) deep sinkhole occurred in the Balduina district, a residential area northwest of Vatican City, into which seven parked cars fell, with 22 families being evacuated from the residential area.

Why on Earth, does this sinkhole phenomena occur so frequently in Rome, and not in say Naples or Milan? After the January 2020 sinkhole, the mayor of Rome, Virginia Raggi, told  TG24 News that technicians were at something of a loss trying to explain the geological causes of the incident, and she said sinkholes (known as  voragine) are a “major problem in central Rome.”

Traditionally, on average every year 30 fresh sinkholes, subsidence, and other collapses are recorded in Rome, but what is alarming, according to The Local, is that since 2008 the annual figure has “tripled.”

Searching for a cause, a 2018 Guardian article asked should we “blame the rain, the government or just geology,” not only for sinkholes but for increasing extreme weather events in Italy, in general?

The article opens with reference to a shocking statistic published in Roma Republica, that in the first four months of 2018, Rome suffered an astonishing “44 sinkholes,” once every two or three days, with an average of “90 sinkholes a year in Rome since 2010.”

Many blame the rain in Rome, because in 2018 it was the wettest six months in living memory, and this may have had catastrophic effects on Rome’s geology, as the city is founded upon a floodplain, and most of it still rests on a sandy, soft soil.

Water finds no resistance in penetrating this permeable substrate, especially now that its gravitational path of destruction is assisted with the cracks caused by the vibrations of thousands of cars, trucks, and scooters buzzing over the aquaplane.

In an attempt to safeguard the city’s residents, or at least to appear to be doing something to support what is a catastrophically neglected city, in 2018, it was announced that a  multi-million-euro plan would be launched to fix its streets, but what was reported as ‘slow progress’ has now ground to a halt as Italian emergency authorities are presently struggling to build scaffolding around the perimeters of much more life-threatening, medical sinkhole.

Orichalcum, the lost metal of Atlantis, may have been found on a shipwreck off Sicily

A group of naval archeologists has uncovered two hundred ingots spread over the sandy seafloor near a 2,600-year-old shipwreck off the coast of Sicily. The ingots were made from orichalcum, a rare cast metal that ancient Greek philosopher Plato wrote was from the legendary city of Atlantis. 

A total of 39 ingots (metal set into rectangular blocks) were, according to Inquisitr, discovered near a shipwreck. BBC reported that another same metal cache was found. 47 more ingots were found, with a total of 86 metal pieces found to date.

The wreck was discovered in 1988, floating about 300 meters (1,000 ft) off the coast of Gela in Sicily in shallow waters. At the time of the shipwreck Gela was a rich city and had many factories that produced fine objects.   Scientists believe that the pieces of orichalcum were destined for those laboratories when the ship sank.

Sebastiano Tusa, Sicily’s superintendent of the Sea Office, told Discovery News that the precious ingots were probably being brought to Sicily from Greece or Asia Minor.

Tusa said that the discovery of orichalcum ingots, long considered a mysterious metal, is  significant as “nothing similar has ever been found.” He added, “We knew orichalcum from ancient texts and a few ornamental objects.”

According to a Daily Telegraph report, the ingots have been analyzed and found to be made of about 75-80 percent copper, 14-20 percent zinc and a scattering of nickel, lead, and iron.

The name orichalucum derives from the Greek word oreikhalkos, meaning literally “mountain copper” or “copper mountain”. According to Plato’s 5th century BC Critias dialogue, orichalucum was considered second only to gold in value, and was found and mined in many parts of the legendary Atlantis in ancient times

Plato wrote that the three outer walls of the Temple to Poseidon and Cleito on Atlantis were clad respectively with brass, tin, and the third, which encompassed the whole citadel, “flashed with the red light of orichalcum”.

The interior walls, pillars, and floors of the temple were completely covered in orichalcum, and the roof was variegated with gold, silver, and orichalcum. In the center of the temple stood a pillar of orichalcum, on which the laws of Poseidon and records of the first son princes of Poseidon were inscribed.

For centuries, experts have hotly debated the metal’s composition and origin.

According to the ancient Greeks, orichalcum was invented by Cadmus, a Greek-Phoenician mythological character. Cadmus was the founder and first king of Thebes, the acropolis of which was originally named Cadmeia in his honor.

Orichalcum has variously been held to be a gold-copper alloy, a copper-tin, or copper-zinc brass, or a metal no longer known. However, in Vergil’s Aeneid, it was mentioned that the breastplate of Turnus was “stiff with gold and white orachalc” and it has been theorized that it is an alloy of gold and silver, though it is not known for certain what orichalcum was.

Orichalcum is also mentioned in the ‘Antiquities of the Jews’ (1 st century AD) – Book VIII, sect. 88 by Josephus, who stated that the vessels in the Temple of Solomon were made of orichalcum (or a bronze that was like gold in beauty).

Today, some scholars suggest that orichalcum is a brass-like alloy, which was made in antiquity the process of cementation, which was achieved through the reaction of zinc ore, charcoal and copper metal in a crucible.

The latest discovery of the orichalcum ingots that had laid for nearly three millennia on the seafloor may finally unravel the mystery of the origin and composition of this enigmatic metal.