Discoveries and news in Rome

A beautiful Roman mosaic has been discovered in the county of Rutland (central England) that shows the clash between Achilles and Hector. Object discovered on the grounds of an English farm.

It is commonly believed that women did not play any official roles in the camp life of the Roman army. However, the monument, which has been in the very centre of Rome for 2,000 years, gives us evidence that the soldiers ignored the ban on marriage and that their wives and daughters participated in triumphal ceremonies. Archaeologist Elizabeth Greene came to these conclusions.

Students of the Department of Archeology at the University of Barcelona discovered accidentally traces of Hannibal’s army. The discovery was made by accident, during a field exercise, when the remains of a moat appeared on the radar screen.

The city of Hippos, now an archaeological site in northeastern Israel, was known in Roman times as one of the so-called Decapolis, or groups of ten cities in Jordan, Israel and Syria, which were considered centres of Greek and Roman culture.

During the maintenance works in the Colosseum, workers came across sector markings that resemble today’s stadium markings that we know. The numbers were painted red on the arches above the entrances and were used to help the Olympics guests find a suitable place, according to their social class affiliation.

A bronze statue of Silenus (Silenus), the Greek god of vegetation and ecstatic joy, was discovered on the Danish island of Falster in 2015. Scientists determined the origin of the find during the reign of Emperor Octavian Augustus. The figurine proves that there were close contacts between Rome and the peoples inhabiting the territory of Scandinavia.

Salvage excavations conducted in 2015, north of the famous Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, brought a surprising and extremely valuable find from Roman times. There, archaeologists from the Israel Office of Antiquities (IAA) discovered a fragment of a stone stele engraved with the official Latin text, dedicated to the Roman emperor Hadrian.

Papyri began selling on eBay for thousands of pounds. Recently, a piece of papyrus containing 15 poems of Homer’s Iliad, recorded by an Egyptian scribe from the 4th century CE, was sold at an online auction for £16,000. At another auction, a sheet of parchment containing “Paul’s Letter” to the Romans was purchased for £301,000.

In Barnham, a village in the south of England, a Roman pond was discovered in 2015, surrounded by pottery remains and mud pits. Even a bronze Roman nail cleaner was discovered in one of the ditches. The finds confirm the presence of the Romans in this region.

Ancient Romans designed a fort in Britain with astronomy in mind. All four gates were aligned with the solstices so that the sun rose along with the winter and summer solstices, flush with each pair of gates.