Dec 31st, 2011 at 10:00AM: Economic instability, a change of government, and now this.
It looks like Italy's most famous landmark, the Colosseum, may be crumbling. The Culture Ministry has launched an investigation after eyewitnesses spotted bits of stone falling off the Roman ruin on two different occasions in recent days.
An Italian shoe company has promised to restore the Colosseum with an ambitious 25 million euro ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
roman posts
Is the Colosseum crumbling?
Dec 31st, 2011 at 10:00AM: Economic instability, a change of government, and now this.
It looks like Italy's most famous landmark, the Colosseum, may be crumbling. The Culture Ministry has launched an investigation after eyewitnesses spotted bits of stone falling off the Roman ruin on two different occasions in recent days.
An Italian shoe company has promised to restore the Colosseum with an ambitious 25 million euro ...Sexy goddess bares all in Boston
Dec 29th, 2011 at 12:00PM:
The ancient goddess of love, sex, and beauty is making an appearance at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Aphrodite and the Gods of Love is a new exhibition examining one of the most popular ancient goddesses and her place in the Classical world. More than 150 ancient works of art are on display, including famous pieces such as the Knidia, a life-size sculpture of Aphrodite made by the ...Viking hoard highlights the value of responsible metal detectoring
Dec 17th, 2011 at 2:00PM:
When I used to work as an archaeologist, I heard a lot of bad-mouthing about metal detectorists. These guys scan the ground for coins and other metal objects. Most of the time they only find a few old pennies. It's when they discover something of historic value that some archaeologists get grumpy. Many archaeologists don't trust metal detectorists, saying they disturb ancient sites and pocket ...Early Christian art on display at the Onassis Cultural Center, NYC
Dec 8th, 2011 at 2:00PM:
It's often called the Dark Ages, a time when barbarian hordes overran Rome and that great civilization's art, culture, and learning disappeared. A time when there were no great achievements.
It's a misnomer.
Rome did not fall in the fifth century with the usurpation of the last emperor in Rome in 476. To the east, at the new capital of Constantinople, modern Istanbul, the Eastern Roman ...Roman sites in Libya survived the war mostly unscathed, initial reports show
Dec 1st, 2011 at 9:00AM:
The recent fighting in Libya that toppled Gaddafi destroyed many lives and laid waste to many neighborhoods. Now that the country is beginning to rebuild, Libyans are taking stock of other effects of the war.
Libya's beautiful Roman remains, it appears, got off easy. Earlier this week, the Guardian reported that the Roman cities of Lepcis Magna and Sabratha both survived the war without any ...Herod may not have completed Jerusalem's Western Wall, archaeologists discover
Nov 23rd, 2011 at 11:00AM:
It is one of the holiest spots in one of the holiest cities in the world. The Western Wall attracts Jews and Christians alike, and is on the limits of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, a Muslim holy site.
It's always been believed to have been built by King Herod, the king of Judea and a vassal of the Roman Empire who reigned from 37-4 BC. Herod expanded the Second Temple in Jerusalem and the Western Wall ...London's Temple of Mithras is moving back to its original location
Nov 18th, 2011 at 1:30PM:
London got its start as the Roman city of Londinium in the first century AD. Back then the so-called "mystery religions" were very popular in the Roman Empire. These cults, with their personal connections to the divine and secret rites, gave believers a more personal experience than the giant temples to Jupiter, Mars, and the rest of the standard pantheon. One of the most popular mystery ...Historic stretch of Hadrian's Wall repaired
Oct 15th, 2011 at 2:00PM:
A stretch of Hadrian's Wall, the famous fortification in northern England that for centuries marked the northernmost boundary of the Roman Empire, has been repaired.
After 2,000 years, parts of the fortification meant to keep out northern barbarians are in pretty bad shape. People have stolen stones over the past several centuries and you can see parts of the wall in local farmhouses and ...Excavations at ancient city of Perge in Turkey celebrate 65 years
Sep 12th, 2011 at 2:00PM:
Archaeological excavations at the ancient city of Perge in southern Turkey have reached their 65th year, the Hürriyet Daily News reports. This makes them the longest-running excavations in a country with a wealth of ancient sites.
Perge (aka Perga) is in Turkey's Antalya province and was founded 3,500 years ago by the Hittites. It became a prosperous Greek colony like Ephesus and ...Roman shipwreck found off Albanian coast
Aug 19th, 2011 at 2:00PM:
An underwater archaeological survey has turned up a Roman shipwreck off the coast of Albania.
As the above video shows, the remains of the ship are now little more than a heap of amphorae, the characteristic pots the Romans used to transport wine. The team hasn't had a chance to excavate the site yet, so more finds may lie hidden beneath the bottom of the sea.
The archaeologists estimate ...
Historic toilets of the world
Aug 8th, 2011 at 10:12AM: When my family and I went to Aberystwyth in Wales last month, we visited the Ceredigion County Museum and saw an amusing exhibition called At Your Convenience all about historic toilets. The hardworking curators had amassed an impressive collection privies, commodes, chamber pots, early flush toilets, even an entire outhouse.
Needless to say, my five-year-old son loved this. Imagine, getting to ...Apostle Philip's tomb found in Turkey? Maybe not
Jul 28th, 2011 at 7:30AM: The news wires are humming with yet another spectacular archaeological discovery, this time of the tomb of the Apostle Philip.
St. Philip was one of Christ's twelve apostles and is said to have been martyred and buried in Hierapolis, now Pamukkale in southwestern Turkey. The city was an ancient spa town owing to the local hot springs and also a center for pagan temples. St. Philip is said to ...Archaeologists explore "Pompeiis" in Bulgaria and El Salvador
Jul 10th, 2011 at 4:00PM:
Pompeii is an archaeological wonder, an entire Roman town preserved by a volcanic eruption. Now archaeologists are investigating two other "Pompeiis" to learn more about the past.
In El Salvador, a team has discovered a village dating to c. 630 AD that was covered in volcanic ash. Joya de Ceren was sealed up so well that archaeologists have been able to examine corn cobs, the logs used to ...Green Spain: Exploring Iberia's Celtic north
Jul 6th, 2011 at 10:30AM:
When people think of Spain, they tend to think of a sun-soaked, dry land with a hot climate and beautiful beaches. For the most part that's true, but Spain's northern region is very different and equally worth a visit.
Spain's four northern provinces are often called Green Spain. From west to east, Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, and the Basque Country are a verdant strip between the North ...Roman bath discovered in York
Jun 22nd, 2011 at 8:30AM:
The remains of a Roman bath have been discovered in York in northern England.
Archaeologists made the find while excavating ahead of construction of the new City of York Council Headquarters. York (then called Eboracum) was an important trading center in Roman times. So important, in fact, that it had more than one bath. The image above is from the basement of the Roman Bath pub, where a ...New discoveries reveal life and times of the Roman Emperor Hadrian
Jun 19th, 2011 at 3:00PM: The Emperor Hadrian is one of Rome's most famous emperors, ruling at the height of the Empire from 117-138 AD. His villa just north of Rome is a popular tourist attraction, yet some Italian researchers have discovered what countless visitors never noticed: the buildings are aligned with astronomical events.
On the summer solstice (June 21 this year) light passes through an opening above a ...Gladiator died because of ref's error, says archaeologist
Jun 19th, 2011 at 12:00PM: A gladiator who fought 1,800 years ago may have died because of a bad call from a ref.
Archaeologists have long puzzled over a line in the epitaph of Diodorus the gladiator's gravestone. It reads, "After breaking my opponent Demetrius I did not kill him immediately. Fate and the cunning treachery of the summa rudis killed me."
The summa rudis was a referee who oversaw gladiator games. Unlike ...Book review: Quiet Corners of Rome
May 24th, 2011 at 10:30AM: Travel guidebooks conceive of the world as a series of obvious, important monuments. This is particularly true of a brash and magnificent city like Rome. Your typical traveler could be forgiven for simplifying this complex historic capital down to a giant marble stadium, a series of famous steps and giant chapel mural. But writer David Downie reminds us there's a lot more to Rome than its ...Crucifixion nails found in Israel? Probably not.
Apr 16th, 2011 at 11:30AM: There's been a shocking archaeological discovery in Israel. Nails from the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ have been found!
Well, no, probably not.
The claim comes from Israeli Canadian documentary filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici, the Washington Post reports. Jacobovici has done several documentaries on Christian subjects and came across an archaeological report from 1990 mentioning the discovery of ...Roman child's footprints discovered in northern England
Feb 15th, 2011 at 1:30PM:
Every now and then an archaeological discovery makes me realize just how much we have in common with our ancestors.
Just this morning I was telling my son to keep out of the mud. I didn't want his shoes to get dirty, you see, and didn't give much thought to the footprints he left behind.
Two thousand years ago in Roman Britain a child was hopping or skipping beside the road. Archaeologists ...
