Roman Archeology News

Cleopatra: from history to myth
Cleopatra is an iconic figure, her legend fed by the writings of Plutarch, Chaucer, and Shakespeare, and the many film versions of her story.
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International hunt for stolen statue
Police have recovered fragments of an ancient Roman ivory statue of Apollo that were illegally excavated several years ago near Rome.
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On the trail of Caesar's killers
One of history's most notorious murders - the killing of Julius Caesar - is being investigated by a Warwick University professor 2,000 years on.
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Overlooked Women of Ancient Times
"Silent populations" was a term used by Natalie Boymel Kampen, an historian of ancient Roman art, for all the people who barely made it into the visual record centuries ago.
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Lives of Famous Men The Lost Frescoes
A scholar on the trail of Petrarch has discovered two rare books containing hand-drawn images that offer a glimpse of the lost fourteenth-century frescoes from the Hall of Famous Men. The frescoes, destroyed by fire, were commissioned to accompany Petrarch’s book of Roman heroes, Lives of Famous Men.
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Receipt reveals Roman slave secrets
The first evidence of Roman Britain's slave trade has been unearthed: a receipt for a young French girl bought for the equivalent price of a small sports car today.
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Burial with the Romans
The Romans normally respected the dead. But not always. Alison Taylor reports on mutilation, child sacrifice, burial alive and other such practices.
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When in North eat as Romans did
Cookery expert Susan Cresswell reckons she has the vital ingredient to send visitors to Hadrian's Wall country home happy.
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Unique ivory head is 'find of century'
An ancient ivory sculpture, the only one of its kind in the world and probably once belonging to a Roman emperor, has been found by police after a six-year inquiry into art smuggling, Italy's arts ministry said yesterday.
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Capital names
The Russian Institute for Egyptology in Cairo (RIEC) is working at a huge, almost flat ruin field beside the modern village of Mit Rahina, its concession in the area of ancient Memphis.
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Parking before history at the Vatican
The Vatican has been accused of destroying ancient Roman burial grounds to build a new underground car park for tourists.
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Vatican accused of destroying history to build car park
The Vatican has been accused of destroying ancient Roman burial grounds to build a new underground car park for tourists.
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Roman grave was found in the occupied village of Vassili

KIBRIS newspaper (11.03.03) reports that a Roman grave was found in the occupied Vassili village.
According to the paper, the head of the Famagusta area of the pseudo Department of Ancient Art and Museums, archaeologist Reyhan Katirci, announced that excavations are under way in the ancient graves of the village. In one of the graves they found two sarcophagus which are estimated to belong to the Roman era.
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An Ancient Model of the Cosmos
Just over a century ago sponge divers off the coast of Antikythera, an island northwest of Crete, discovered a first-century B.C. Roman shipwreck.
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Threatened mosaics could be reburied
One of the world's most important archaeological sites could be re-buried under tons of dirt if the funds are not found to save it.
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The Anglo-American Project in Pompeii
Pompeii is well known for its rich archaeological record sealed by volcanic deposits in A.D. 79. But what was the history of the city and its inhabitants before this date?
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Face of Ancient Statue Recovered
Police have recovered fragments of an ancient Roman ivory statue of Apollo that were illegally excavated several years ago near the Italian capital, authorities said Wednesday.
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March: the month to celebrate the ancient Roman god Mars
Ah, the month of March is upon us with all of its gloomy splendor. For many denominations of Christians this will be the season of Lent, beginning tomorrow on Ash Wednesday.
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Massive Archeological Excavations in Mysterious Bulgarian Mountain
Bulgarian archeologists will start massive excavations in the eastern part of the Rhodope Mountain known as a region extraordinarily rich in archeology finds. The explorers will study twenty-eight sites - several mediaeval settlements and a prehistoric mould among them.
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Museum film puts history in focus
The North-East's newest film theatre has opened its doors - to take people on a 1,800-year journey into the past.
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In the time of the Etruscans
The University Museum's refurbished classical-world galleries open Sunday with an exhibition linking the lesser-known ancient culture to the Romans and Greeks.
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Crock of Byzantine gold found at Abu Sir
A Hungarian archaeological team in Abu Sir, west Alexandria, recently unearthed five gold coins and a gold bracelet dating back to the Byzantine age (4th century AD).
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The Ides of March
The soothsayer's warning to Julius Caesar, "Beware the Ides of March," has forever imbued that date with a sense of foreboding.
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Necropolis proves headache for Vatican car park builders
Tombs from the time of the Roman emperor Nero have been unearthed as the Vatican tried to clear space for a multi-level underground car park.
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Vatican's parking problem likely to bury Nero, not raise him
Tombs from the time of the Emperor Nero have been unearthed as the Vatican tries to clear space for an underground car park.
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Roman grave was found in the occupied village of Vassili.
KIBRIS newspaper (11.03.03) reports that a Roman grave was found in the occupied Vassili village.
According to the paper, the head of the Famagusta area of the pseudo Department of Ancient Art and Museums, archaeologist Reyhan Katirci, announced that excavations are under way in the ancient graves of the village. In one of the graves they found two sarcophagus which are estimated to belong to the Roman era.
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bulldozer threat to roman relics
Important and rare Roman heritage could be bulldozed if plans for housing at Southwell Minster School's Church Street site go ahead.
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Heroic civilisation that terrified the Romans
Sitting on the bare earth grunting and scratching himself, the ancient Briton was a man tearing at the flesh of a fresh kill with his hands and gnawing the marrow from the bones.
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Roman chariots unearthed in Thrace
Archaeologists excavating a burial mound in northern Greece discover fourremarkably intact first-century carts and the skeletons of horses.
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Taste of Caesar's home life rises from the ashes
For almost 2,000 years one of the most glorious Roman treasures preserved by the ash from Mount Vesuvius has lain hidden, covered by rambling weeds and surrounded by stagnant water and unsuspecting frogs.
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How Rome held sway in Britain
In A.D. 128, hundreds of soldiers from the farthest reaches of the Roman Empire were garrisoned on this remote hillside, guarding their conquests in Britain from the barbarians to the north, on the other side of their brand-new wall.
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Pot luck award for wheelbarrow-wielding historian's quarry excavation
A Dorset woman who spent a year alone with a wheelbarrow excavating 7,000 years of history from the bottom of a quarry, won a major award yesterday for what has turned into one of the largest and most important archaeological excavations in England.
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Inscribed Roman stone resurfaces
An inscribed Roman stone has been rediscovered in the walls of a house in Greenhead ­ 27 years after it was last seen.
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Roman Villa, Lost Library Emerge After 2,000 Years
The long-buried Villa of the Papyri, one of Italy's richest Roman villas famed for its library of ancient scrolls, opened to the public Saturday almost 2,000 years after it was submerged in volcanic mud.
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Auld Lang Syne, The Ancient Roman Way
You may think the year begins on Jan. 1, and I suppose you're right, but it didn't use to. Once upon a time, at least in Rome, whence comes the Western calendar, the year began in March.
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The Last Stand
Stand atop the wind-swept plateau known as Masada, and you can almost picture the last desperate hours of the Jewish rebels who retreated there after the Romans burned Jerusalem in A.D. 70.
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Byzantine treasure trove unearthed by Hungarian mission in Alexandria
The Hungarian mission working in Abu Seir in western Alexandria unearthed a treasure trove of sold coins and bracelet that date back to the Byzantine era (4th century AD).
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Plants tell Colosseum's story
The Roman Colosseum's history is stamped on its plants, say Italian researchers.
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