The Colosseum is one of Italy’s most popular tourist sites
Spectators at Rome’s ancient gladiator arena, the Colosseum, may have enjoyed snacks of olives, fruit and nuts, archaeologists have found.
Food fragments of figs, grapes, cherries, blackberries, walnuts and more have been unearthed at the site. Archaeologists also found the bones of bears and big cats that were probably used in the arena’s hunting games.
The discoveries were made by archaeologists examining the 2,000-year-old landmark’s sewers.
Relics like these provide a snapshot into the “experience and habits of those who came to this place during the long days dedicated to the performances”, said Alfonsina Russo, Director of the Colosseum Archaeological Park.
Researchers say bones from bears and lions were probably left by animals that were forced to fight each other and gladiators for entertainment. Smaller animal bones belonging to dogs were also found.
A selection of fruit seeds, stones, & pits recovered from the drainage system of the Colosseum in #Rome, remains of the snacks eaten by #Roman spectators watching the games in the arena up to 1900 years ago #RomanArchaeologypic.twitter.com/qrSSRQUIYB
The study began in January 2021 and involved the clearance of around 70m (230ft) of drains and sewers under the Colosseum, which remains one of Italy’s most visited landmarks.
Specialist architects and archaeologists used wire-guided robots to navigate the arena’s complex drainage system – aiding their understanding of daily life in Rome as well as ancient hydraulic structures, researchers said.
The Colosseum was the biggest amphitheatre in the Roman Empire, falling into disuse around 523 AD. It was famous for hosting gladiatorial fights and other public spectacles in front of crowds of tens of thousands.
Ancient coins were also discovered in the dig, including 50 bronze coins dating back to the late Roman period, spanning roughly 250-450AD and a silver commemorative coin from around 170-171AD celebrating 10 years of Emperor Marcus Aurelius’ rule.
Researchers Revisit Circumstances of Ötzi the Iceman’s Death
A reconstruction of Ötzi on display at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in the city of Bolzano in South Tyrol, Italy.
The ancient, mummified body of Ötzi the Iceman was found decades ago by hikers in the high Alps — but how did it get there? A new study questions the prevailing story of Ötzi’s death more than 5,000 years ago, suggesting that Ötzi did not die in the gully where he was found. Rather, his remains may have been carried there by the periodic thawing of the ice that surrounded his body.
And researchers propose that other prehistoric people who died in icy, mountainous regions could have been preserved by the same process.
“I think the possibility now is perhaps a bit larger” of finding another prehistoric body, archaeologist Lars Pilø told Live Science. “It’s not so large that I can promise there will be a body in the next decade, but I think that there’s definitely a chance.”
Pilø is the lead author of the new study, published Nov. 7 in the journal Holocene, which takes a fresh look at evidence from Ötzi.
He also leads the Secrets of the Ice project, which is associated with Norway’s Innlandet County Council and the Museum of Cultural History at the University of Oslo; it studies the archaeology of glaciers and ice patches, many of which are now melting and revealing frozen troves of ancient artefacts.
The iceman cometh
The remains of Ötzi, who’s named after the Ötztal Alps where he was found, were discovered on Sept. 19, 1991, by German tourists in an Alpine pass between Italy and Austria.
The hikers first thought they’d found the preserved body of a modern mountaineer, but investigations later determined that Ötzi died about 5,300 years ago.
According to the Secrets of the Ice website, the generally accepted story of Ötzi’s death comes from investigations by archaeologist Konrad Spindler of the University of Innsbruck in Austria.
Spindler found that Ötzi had probably been murdered: an arrowhead was embedded in his shoulder, and a deep cut in his hand appeared to be a defensive wound suffered while warding off a blow. He also noted that Ötzi’s backpack, bow and arrow quiver were damaged, which Spindler proposed was a sign of combat.
But Pilø and his colleagues argue that the damage to Ötzi’s equipment was probably caused by the pressure of the ice that surrounded them.
“There’s definitely been a conflict,” he said. “But what we say is that the damage to the artefacts is more easily explained by natural processes.”
Ötzi’s remains were found in a gully, marked here on the lower right with a black arrow, near the Tisenjoch pass in the Ötztal Alps along the border with Italy and Austria.
Otzi’s remains were found at a height of 10,530 feet (3,210 meters) at the place marked with a black circle. An axe that’s thought to have belonged to him was found lower down the slope, at the place marked with a black square.
The site where Otzi’s remains were found, marked here with a red dot, was excavated by scientists from Austria’s University of Innsbruck in 1992.
Ozti’s upper body was found partially resting on the half-submerged rock on the left of this photograph, where one of the scientific team is resting his green boot.
Several artefacts were found near Ötzi’s remains, including this quiver with arrows. They’re damaged, which was interpreted as a sign of conflict, but the new study proposes it might have been caused by the pressure of the ice.
Alpine death
The most significant proposal in the new study is that Ötzi didn’t die at the bottom of the gully where he was found, but rather that his body was carried there as the ice thawed and refroze over several summers.
Early investigations proposed that Ötzi was killed in the gully in the fall season and that his body was protected there from the crushing pressure of a glacier above.
But analysis of the food in Ötzi’s intestine suggests instead that he died in the spring or early summer when the gully would have been filled with ice, Pilø said.
In the new study, the authors propose that Ötzi died somewhere on the surface of a stationary ice patch — not a moving glacier — and that his remains and artefacts were carried into the gully by the periodic thawing and refreezing of the ice.
That means the body and artefacts were exposed at times and may have been submerged in melted ice water, but they nonetheless stood the test of time for thousands of years. So, it’s likely that other long-dead bodies may have been preserved in the same way, he said.
Archaeologist Andreas Putzer of the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano in Italy, where Ötzi’s body and artefacts are on display, said that closer investigation of the mummy could confirm if it had indeed been exposed to glacial meltwater over time.
“A mummy submerged in water would lose its epidermis [skin], hair, and nails,” Putzer, who was not involved in the new research, told Live Science in an email. “Normally this happens to bodies of drowned persons.” Pathological research could determine if the remains were ever submerged in melted ice water, as the new study proposes, or if they were continually frozen in ice, he said.
A 2,000-year-old theatre found 25 metres below Pompeii ruins revealed
Herculaneum, like its neighbouring city of Pompeii, was buried under volcanic ash and pumice during the tragic event 2,000 years ago. Now found below the modern-day town of Ercolano, the city was rediscovered by chance in 1709 during the digging of a well.
Tunnels were soon added at the site by treasure hunters, and some artefacts were removed but now, 200 years later, TV cameras explored the area during Channel 5’s “Pompeii: The New Revelations”.
Historian Dan Snow detailed how an incredible discovery was made.
He said earlier this month: “In 1709, a well was dug in this town that had grown up on the coast eight miles north of Pompeii.
“The workers started to pull up slabs of beautiful marble.
Dan Snow explored the ancient city
Dan Snow headed down the well
“A French aristocrat, Emmanuel d’Elbeuf, was building a mansion nearby, so he was in the market for marble.
Quite quickly he realised this must have been a Roman theatre
Dan Snow
“He decided to cut out the middleman and bought the well for himself.
“First a worker, and then d’Elbeuf himself were strapped into slings and lowered 15 metres down the well.”
Mr Snow went on to detail how an ancient Roman theatre was uncovered, in a remarkable breakthrough.
He added: “At the bottom, he discovered this cavity and he started crawling around and found broken bits of marble and statues.
“Quite quickly he realised this must have been a Roman theatre, it could only be a theatre from the lost town of Herculaneum that the Roman authors had talked about.
A series of tunnels have been dug
“A group of convicts were sent down here and told to tunnel through and mine it for treasure.
“They’ve left us with this warren of tunnels that they hacked out.
“Luckily, they didn’t take all the murals, they left some here, you can still see some of the beautiful Roman paintings.”
Mr Snow explored the theatre, detailing how key features could still be made out today,
He continued: “Look at that, it’s been underground ever since that invasion in 79AD, the colours still perfect.
A theatre was uncovered
Dan Snow said it could have housed 2,500 people
“Look up there on the arches, just beautiful, they stripped whatever they could find.
“Slowly, these convicts hollowed out more and more of this structure, until they’d uncovered pretty large parts of the theatre.
“They revealed the stage, the steps to the auditorium and some of the rows of seats – in total would have accommodated up to 2,500 people.
“This is where the people of Herculaneum would have sat side-by-side, watching the action on the stage below. (video link below)
“It’s a Roman theatre buried under 25 metres of volcanic rock.”
Although it was smaller than Pompeii, Herculaneum was a wealthier town. It was a popular seaside retreat for the Roman elite, which is reflected in the extraordinary density of grand and luxurious houses with a marble finish.
Famous buildings of the ancient city include the Villa of the Papyri and the so-called boat houses in which the skeletal remains of at least 300 people were found.
Archaeology breakthrough: Bombshell discovery unearths third-century human mountains’
The discovery was made near Rome, as researchers came across the remains of a man that would have been classed as a giant when he lived in the third century A.D.
It represents an incredibly rare find – as today gigantism affects about three people in a million worldwide.
The condition begins in childhood, when a malfunctioning pituitary gland causes abnormal growth.
Two partial skeletons, one from Poland and another from Egypt, had previously been identified as “probable” cases of gigantism, but the Roman specimen is thought to be the first clear case from the ancient past, study leader Simona Minozzi, a paleopathologist at Italy’s University of Pisa said.
The figure stood at about 6ft 8 inches, classed as a giant in third century A.D when the average height for a man was 5ft 5 inches.
The unusual skeleton was found in 1991 during an excavation at a necropolis in Fidenae (map), a territory indirectly managed by Rome.
At the time, the Archaeological Superintendence of Rome, which led the project, noted that the man’s tomb was abnormally long. It was only during a later anthropological examination, though, that the bones too were found to be unusual. Shortly thereafter, they were sent to Minozzi’s group for further analysis.
Archaeology news: The researchers found a ‘human mountain’
The figure has gigantism according to the study
o find out if the skeleton had gigantism, the team examined the bones and found evidence of skull damage consistent with a pituitary tumor, which disrupts the pituitary gland, causing it to overproduce human growth hormone.
Other findings — such as disproportionately long limbs and evidence that the bones were still growing even in early adulthood — support the gigantism diagnosis, according to the study, published October 2 2012 in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.
His early demise — likely between the age of 16 and 20 — might also point to gigantism, which is associated with cardiovascular disease and respiratory problems, said Minozzi, who emphasized that the cause of death remains unknown.
A statue of Maximinus Thrax
Charlotte Roberts, an archaeologist at Durham University, said she was “certainly convinced with the diagnosis” of gigantism in 2012, but that she’d like to know more.
She said: “You can’t just study the disease, you have to look at the wider impact of how people functioned in society, and whether they were treated any differently.”
She added that one thing researchers to know is that the second-century A.D. emperor Maximinus Thrax was described in the literature as a “human mountain.”
Archaeologists have found other remains that could have been giants
Minozzi noted, though, that imperial Roman high society “developed a pronounced taste for entertainers with evident physical malformations, such as hunchbacks and dwarfs — so we can assume that even a giant generated enough interest and curiosity”.
Roberts also highlighted how the find has been useful in learning about gigantism.
She said: “Normally a doctor will be looking at a patient with a disease over short-term span.
“We’ve been able to look at skeletons from archaeological sites that are thousands of years old. You can start to look at trends of how diseases have changed in frequency over time.”
An Ancient Fast Food Restaurant in Pompeii That Served Honey-Roasted Rodents Is Now Open to the Public
The thermopolium, or fast food restaurant, of Regio V in Pompeii. Photo courtesy of Archaeological Park of Pompeii.
Archaeologists studying the Roman city of Pompeii recently discovered a thermopolium—a kind of ancient fast food restaurant—and it is now open to the public.
Visitors won’t be able to try the Roman delicacies that would have been served at the original restaurant—since this is a society that thought honey-roasted rodents raised in jars were a delicacy—but they will be able to see the establishment’s colourful fresco paintings.
One artwork seemingly features ingredients that would have been prepared at the thermopolium, such as a rooster, while another shows a scene from mythology, with a Nereid riding a sea-horse.
A third depicts a collared dog and Roman-era graffiti that roughly translates to “Nicias Shameless Shitter,” presumably an insult to the owner, Nicias.
A fresco of a collared dog at the thermopolium with Roman-era graffiti.
The discovery, in 2019, “led to a greater understanding of the diet and daily life of Pompeians,” Massimo Osanna, the former head of the Pompeii archaeological park and now director general of Italy’s museums, said in a statement.
Experts believe prepared food would have been displayed in large dolia jars set in holes carved in the stone counter, similar to today’s take-out restaurants.
The excavations uncovered duck, pig, goat, and fish bones, as well as snail shells amid shards of earthen pottery, suggesting that some kind of meat and seafood stew may have been on the menu. Typical dishes served at a thermopolium would have included salty fish, baked cheese, lentils, and spicy wine, according to the Guardian. (One jar apparently still smelled strongly of wine when archaeologists first discovered it.)
The dining culture and culinary traditions of Pompeii are currently the subject of “Last Supper in Pompeii,” an exhibition at San Francisco’s Legion of Honor museum.
The city’s sudden destruction with the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the year 79 A.D. instantly carbonized food and cookware, leaving a record of day-to-day life frozen in time.
The thermopolium was a fixture of Pompeii—the newly discovered site is just one of 80 such restaurants that have been found in the city—because poor Roman families couldn’t afford to have kitchens in their homes. And, in an inversion of contemporary society, the wealthy didn’t go out for expensive meals. Instead, they had enslaved workers prepare feasts at home, served up in richly decorated banquet halls.
The thermopolium, or fast food restaurant, of Regio V in Pompeii.
Archaeologists uncovered the thermopolium during excavations at Regio V, a section of Pompeii that is not yet fully open to the public and has been home to most of the active digging on the site since the 1960s. In addition to the restaurant, sections of the Casa di Orione and Casa del Giardino mansions are also opening to visitors this week.
Other recent Regio V finds include a skeleton of a man believed to have been killed fleeing the volcano and a selection of amulets that may have belonged to a female sorcerer.
Human bones found at the new thermopolium suggest the business’s proprietor may have died on the premises.
Large Temple Found in Italy’s Etruscan City of Vulci
Archaeologists from the universities of Freiburg and Mainz identify one of the largest known sacred buildings of the Etruscans
An interdisciplinary team headed by archaeologists Dr. Mariachiara Franceschini of the University of Freiburg and Paul P. Pasieka of the University of Mainz has discovered a previously unknown Etruscan temple in the ancient city of Vulci, which lies in the Italian region of Latium.
The building, which is 45 meters by 35 meters, is situated west of the Tempio Grande, a sacred building which was excavated back in the 1950s.
Archaeologists and other colleagues uncover the walls of the Etruscan temple in Vulci.
Initial examination of the strata of the foundation of the northeast corner of the temple and the objects they found there, led the researchers to date the construction of the temple towards the end of the sixth or beginning of the fifth century BCE.
“The new temple is roughly the same size and on a similar alignment as the neighbouring Tempio Grande, and was built at roughly the same Archaic time,” explains Franceschini. “This duplication of monumental buildings in an Etruscan city is rare, and indicates an exceptional finding,” adds Pasieka.
The team discovered the temple when working on the Vulci Cityscape project, which was launched in 2020 and aimed to research the settlement strategies and urbanistic structures of the city of Vulci.
Vulci was one of the twelve cities of the Etruscan federation and in pre-Roman times was one of the most important urban centres in what is now Italy.
New discoveries about city design and development
“We studied the entire northern area of Vulci, that’s 22.5 hectares, using geophysical prospecting and Ground Penetrating Radar,” explains Pasieka.
“We discovered remains from the city’s origins that had previously been overlooked in Vulci and are now better able to understand the dynamics of settlement and the road system, besides identifying different functional areas in the city.”
The researchers were able in 2021 to uncover the first sections of wall, made of solid tuff.
“Our knowledge about the appearance and organization of Etruscan cities has been limited until now,” says Franceschini. “The intact strata of the temple are offering us insights into more than a thousand years of development of one of the most important Etruscan cities.”
Over the coming years scientists want to study the different phases of use and the precise architectural appearance of the temple in more depth, in order to learn more about the religion of the Etruscans, the social structures in Vulci and what the lives of the city’s inhabitants were really like.
Fritz Thyssen Foundation and Gerda Henkel Foundation are funding the excavation
The project is being funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation (2020-2022) and the Gerda Henkel Foundation (2022-2023) along with the University of Mainz’s research area “40,000 Years of Human Challenges: Perception, Conceptualization and Coping in Premodern Societies”.
The departments of classical archaeology at the University of Freiburg and at the University of Mainz are working together with the Vulci Foundation, which administers the archaeological park “Parco Naturalistico Archeologico di Vulci”, and the Italian national monument authority, Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio per la provincia di Viterbo e per l’Etruria meridionale.
Among the well-preserved statues were five almost a metre in height.
An “exceptional” trove of bronze statues preserved for thousands of years by mud and boiling water has been discovered in a network of baths built by the Etruscans in Tuscany.
The 24 partly submerged statues, which date back 2,300 years and have been hailed as the most significant find of their kind in 50 years, include a sleeping ephebe lying next to Hygeia, the goddess of health, with a snake wrapped around her arm.
Archaeologists came across the statues during excavations at the ancient spa in San Casciano dei Bagni, near Siena. The modern-day spa, which contains 42 hot springs, is close to the ancient site and is one of Italy’s most popular spa destinations.
The ancient Etruscan spa was developed by the Romans and visited by emperors including Augustus.
Close to the ephebe (an adolescent male, typically 17-18 years old) and Hygeia was a statue of Apollo and a host of others representing matrons, children and emperors.
Believed to have been built by the Etruscans in the third century BC, the baths, which include fountains and altars, were made more opulent during the Roman period, with emperors including Augustus frequenting the springs for their health and therapeutic benefits.
Alongside the 24 bronze statues, five of which are almost a metre tall, archaeologists found thousands of coins as well as Etruscan and Latin inscriptions. Visitors are said to have thrown coins into the baths as a gesture for good luck for their health.
Massimo Osanna, the director general of museums at the Italian culture ministry, said the relics were the most significant discovery of their kind since two full-size Greek bronzes of naked bearded warriors were found off the Calabrian coast near Riace in 1972. “It is certainly one of the most significant discoveries of bronzes in the history of the ancient Mediterranean,” Osanna told the Italian news agency Ansa.
The ancient spa was active until the fifth century when the pools were sealed with heavy stone pillars, which the archaeologists removed.
The excavation project at San Casciano dei Bagni has been led by the archaeologist Jacopo Tabolli since 2019. In August, several artefacts, including fertility statues that were thought to have been used as dedications to the gods, were found at the site. Tabolli, a professor at the University for Foreigners of Siena, described the latest discovery as “absolutely unique”.
The Etruscan civilisation thrived in Italy, mostly in the central regions of Tuscany and Umbria, for 500 years before the arrival of the Roman Republic. The Etruscans had a strong influence on Roman cultural and artistic traditions.
Initial analysis of the 24 statues, believed to have been made by local craftsmen between the second and first centuries BC, as well as countless votive offerings discovered at the site, indicates that the relics perhaps originally belonged to elite Etruscan and Roman families, landowners, local lords and Roman emperors.
The discovery of the well-preserved statues has been hailed as the most significant of its kind in 50 years.
Tabolli told Ansa that the hot springs, rich in minerals including calcium and magnesium, remained active until the fifth century, before being closed down, but not destroyed, during Christian times. The pools were sealed with heavy stone pillars while the divine statues were left in the sacred water.
The treasure trove was found after archaeologists removed the covering. “It is the greatest store of statues from ancient Italy and is the only one whose context we can wholly reconstruct,” said Tabolli.
The recently appointed Italian culture minister, Gennaro Sangiuliano, said the “exceptional discovery” confirms once again that “Italy is a country full of huge and unique treasures”.
The relics represent an important testament to the transition between the Etruscan and Roman periods, with the baths being considered a haven of peace.
“Even in historical epochs in which the most awful conflicts were raging outside, inside these pools and on these altars the two worlds, the Etruscan and Roman ones, appear to have coexisted without problems,” said Tabolli.
Excavations at the site will resume next spring, while the winter period will be used to restore and conduct further studies on the relics.
The artefacts will be housed in a 16th-century building recently bought by the culture ministry in the town of San Casciano. The site of the ancient baths will also be developed into an archaeological park.
“All of this will be enhanced and harmonised, and could represent a further opportunity for the spiritual growth of our culture, and also of the cultural industry of our country,” said Sangiuliano.
Archaeologists find remains of a man and his slave killed in the Pompeii eruption
The men may have escaped the first volcanic eruption that destroyed the city but died in the blast the next day.
Here are the plaster casts of what archaeologists believe was a wealthy man and his male slave fleeing the volcanic eruption of Vesuvius nearly 2,000 years ago.
The deadly eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Pompeii happened nearly 2,000 years ago, but more evidence from that horrifying event continues to reveal itself even now.
Partial male skeletons from that time period have been unearthed, officials at Italy’s Pompeii archaeological park said on Saturday.
During an excavation of ruins about 700 meters (about 2,300 feet) northwest of Pompeii, two skeletons were found lying next to each other in a layer of grey ash at least 6.5 feet (2 meters) deep.
Archaeologists poured plaster into the empty spaces left by the decaying bodies in the ash.
This technique, pioneered in the 1800s, better shows the victims’ bodies but also makes the remains “seem like statues,” Massimo Osanna, an archaeologist who is director of the archaeological park operated under the jurisdiction of the Italian Culture Ministry, explained to AP News.
The skeletons were found in a side room of a suburban villa along an underground corridor called a cryptoporticus.
“The victims were probably looking for shelter in the cryptoporticus, in this underground space, where they thought they were better protected,” Osanna said.
Studying the skulls and teeth, archaeologists have determined one of the men was between the ages of 18 and 25.
The young man also had a spinal column with compressed discs, which led archaeologists to hypothesize he may have done manual labour as a slave.
Here’s a glimpse of one of the male skeletons found at the dig in Pompeii.
The impression of fabric folds left in the ash layer also shows the younger man may have been wearing a short, pleated wool tunic.
The other male skeleton had a strong bone structure, especially in his chest area.
He was estimated to have been between the ages of 30 and 40. He may have been wearing a tunic as well as a mantle over his left shoulder.
Archaeologists believe these two men died suddenly, according to a statement, not during the first eruption but instead during the second pyroclastic flow, a violent, energetic flow that struck Pompeii and the surrounding area in the early hours of Oct. 25, leading to the death of the survivors who were still present in the city and countryside.
