1,700-year-old Gold Jewelry Find 50 in Pagan Burial Cave on Display for First Time

Impressive items of gold jewelry, discovered in past excavations in burial caves in Jerusalem, will be exhibited to the public for the first time at the 48th Archaeological Congress organized by the Israel Antiquities Authority, the Israel Exploration Society and the Israel Archaeological Association.

The congress will take place at the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel, now inaugurated in Jerusalem.

The new research uncovered the remains of a lead coffin discovered on Mount Scopus, containing jewels including gold earrings, a hairpin, a gold pendant and gold beads, carnelian beads and a glass bead.

The jewels were discovered in 1971, in an excavation carried out by Yael Adler (deceased) of the Israel Department of Antiquities but the finds were not published.

The jewels were recently located in the context of the Israel Antiquities Authority’s “Publication of Past Excavations Project”, whereby old excavations that were not fully published are now being published.

“The location of the original reports that gathered dust over the years in the Israel Antiquities Authority archives, and physically tracing the whereabouts of the items themselves, has shed light on long-forgotten treasures,” says Dr. Ayelet Dayan, Head of the Archaeological Research Department, who heads this project.

“The beautiful jewelry that we researched is an example of such treasures.”

Dr. Ayelet Dayan, Ayelet Gruber and Dr. Yuval Baruch of the Israel Antiquities Authority, who carried out the research on the jewelry, consider that the very valuable items that bear the symbols of Luna, the Roman moon goddess, also accompanied the girls in their lifetime, and after they died, they were buried with them in order to continue to protect them in the afterlife.

According to their research, two similar gold earrings were discovered in another excavation carried out by Prof. Vassilios Tzaferis on behalf of the Department of Antiquities on the Mount of Olives in 1975.

“It seems that the girl was buried with an expensive set of gold jewelry that included earrings, a chain with a lunula pendant (named after the goddess Luna), and a hairpin,” say the researchers.

“These items of jewelry are known in the Roman world, and are characteristic of young girl burials, possibly providing evidence of the people who were buried at these sites.

Late Roman Jerusalem—renamed Aelia Capitolina—had a mixed population that reached the city after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and the evacuation of the Jewish population.

People from different parts of the Roman Empire settled in the city, bringing with them a different set of values, beliefs and rituals. The pagan cult of the city’s new population was rich and varied, including gods and goddesses, among them the cult of the moon goddess Luna.”

“The interring of the jewelry together with the young girl is touching. One can imagine that their parents or relatives parted from the girl, either adorned with the jewelry or possibly lying by her side and thinking of the protection that the jewelry provided in the world to come,” according to Eli Escusido, Director of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

“This is a very human situation, and all can identify with the need to protect one’s offspring, whatever the culture or the period.”

Skeletons Found Near Dead Sea Scrolls Likely Belonged to an Enigmatic Religious Group

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is regarded as one of the greatest archaeological finds in history. Almost as interesting as the content of the texts themselves has been the question of who created and cared for them.

A recent analysis of skeletons found near the site and dating to the same time period suggests the common assumption of an enigmatic religious group known as the Essenes may be correct.

The belief that people living in Qumran at the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls creation were members of a celibate Jewish sect called the Essenes is one of the earliest and also the most popular.

These men were said to be the creators or caretakers of the famed scrolls. However, IBTimes notes Bedouin herders, craftsmen, and Roman soldiers have also been proposed as possible inhabitants of Qumran at that time.

ScienceNews reports that a recent evaluation of 33 skeletons buried at Qumran supports the popular belief that the community was comprised of religious men.

The analysis focused on examining physical factors, including pelvic shape and body sizes, and concluded that it is highly probable only men and children were present at the site.

Three of the skeletons could not be identified as male or female. This is a change from the previous assessment that seven of the skeletons were female.

Radiocarbon dating of one of the Qumran skeleton’s bones places the body at approximately 2,200 years old. This is close to the time when the Dead Sea Scrolls are estimated to have been written – 150 BC to 70 AD.

The estimated age of death for the men ranged from around 20 to 50 years old. The lack of war-related injuries goes against the soldier hypothesis.

Anthropologist Yossi Nagar of the Israel Antiquities Authority in Jerusalem said that the men cannot be confirmed as Essenes, but the belief is probable.

It is said the Essenes were an apocalyptic sect of Judaism that left Jerusalem in protest against the Romans and the way things were happening at the Temple.

They apparently went into the desert to follow the orders of the prophet Isaiah. This religious group has often been linked to the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Small samples of bone were removed from some of the Qumran skeletons, so there is a chance that researchers could try to complete DNA analysis and perhaps find more clear evidence of who the people living near the Dead Sea Scrolls were. However, Nagar is uncertain if this type of study will be completed.

The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 11 caves at Qumran between 1947 and 1956. The set of nearly 1000 manuscripts provide some of the earliest versions of the Hebrew Bible.

 A 12th cave was discovered in February 2017, but only scroll jars, fragments of scroll wrappings, and a piece of worked leather were discovered.

The first Dead Sea Scrolls were found unintentionally by a Bedouin shepherd at a cave in the vicinity of Qumran. As more texts surfaced over the years, several were put on sale on the black market to private buyers.

This issue led the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Heritage Project to excavate in the Judean Desert Caves in 2016 at the Cave of Skulls – a difficult location to reach. Israel Hasson, director-general of the Israel Antiquities Authority, explained the urgency to find the last Dead Sea Scrolls.

Roman remains unearthed by archaeologists at Exeter Cathedral

New Discoveries from the Roman era have been uncovered by archaeologists investigating the historic cloister garden at Exeter Cathedral in Exeter, England.

These discoveries include remnants of an early Roman street, timber buildings, and the wall of a Roman town house that was later overlaid by the foundations of the medieval cloisters.

During the Roman period, present-day Exeter was known as Isca Dumnoniorum, also known simply as Isca, which was a Roman legionary fortress for the Second Augustan Legion.

The town grew up around this fortress and served as the tribal capital of the Dumnonians under and after the Romans.

According to archaeologists, these findings provide “new clues to Exeter’s distant past” and offer a clearer understanding of what the site would have looked like in Roman times.

The street and timber buildings are estimated to date from around AD 50-75 and were part of the Roman legionary fortress that underlies central Exeter.

They likely formed a section of a lengthy barrack building that extended towards the grand stone bath-house revealed under the Cathedral Green in the early 1970s.

The later stone wall belongs to a previously unknown town house from the 3rd and 4th centuries.

This work is part of a project to construct a new cloister gallery that will connect the cathedral with its Chapter House and Pearson buildings.

The gallery will be built on the medieval foundations of the original cloisters, which were destroyed in 1656.

The funding for this project is being provided by Exeter Cathedral’s 2020s Development Appeal, which aims to raise £10 million in addition to the £6 million already received in grants and donations.

The funds will support essential improvements and a calendar of community activities and events designed to make the ancient Devon landmark accessible and sustainable for the future.

Archaeologists Discover the 2,000-year-old ‘Sphinx Room’ Hidden in Emperor Nero’s Golden Palace

Archaeologists have discovered a hidden vault in the ruins of Roman Emperor Nero’s sprawling palace, hidden under the hills near Rome’s ancient Colosseum.

According to a statement (translated from Italian) from the Colosseum archaeological park, which includes the palace’s ruins, the chamber has sat hidden for nearly 2,000 years, likely dating to between A.D. 65 and A.D. 68.

The chamber nicknamed the Sphinx Room, is richly adorned with murals of real and mythical creatures including — you guessed it — a sphinx.

Painted in rich red, green and yellow pigments that have survived the last two millennia incredibly well, the vaulted room is also decorated with images of a centaur, the goat-rumped god Pan, myriad plant and water ornaments, and a scene of a sword-wielding man being attacked by a panther. 

According to the statement, the Sphinx Room was discovered accidentally, while researchers were setting up to restore a nearby chamber.

The room’s curved ceilings are 15 feet (4.5 meters) high, and much of the room is still filled in with dirt.

Nero began constructing his massive palace — known as the Domus Aurea, or “golden house” — in A.D. 64 after a devastating, six-day-long fire reduced two-thirds of Rome to ashes.

That researchers are still uncovering new rooms in the Domus Aurea after hundreds of years of excavation (the ruins were first rediscovered in the 15th century) is no surprise.

In its prime, the palace sprawled over four of Rome’s famous seven hills and is believed to have included at least 300 rooms.

Thanks, in part, to his narcissistic construction project, Nero’s reputation suffered in the eyes of history, and he is remembered today as a power-mad despot.

Following Nero’s suicide in A.D. 68, much of his palace was looted, filled with earth, and built over.

One of the palace’s central features, a large manmade lake, was eventually covered up by the Flavian Amphitheater — better known as the Roman Colosseum — in A.D. 70.

Thanks to the lake’s infrastructure, the bottom of the Colosseum was occasionally flooded to wage mock naval battles, bringing glory to the mad emperor’s successors.

Stunning Roman Villa Unearthed Under New Aldi Supermarket Site

Oxford archaeologists have unearthed what they believe to be a Roman villa which features a stunning mosaic under a site earmarked for a new Aldi supermarket. 

A bathhouse, which featured beautiful red, white and blue tiles, was discovered on Warrington Road, Buckinghamshire. 

The Olney site is currently being prepared for the construction of a brand-new Aldi supermarket.

Archaeologists said the mosaic featured ‘vibrant colours and intricate decorative patterns’ made up of red, white and blue tiles’.

Oxford Archaeology carried out the work for develop Angle Property and was commissioned due to the site’s proximity to another existing Roman site, according to the BBC.

The group deem the mosaic ‘archaeological remains of high significance’.

It is believed much of the ancient remains extend under Warrington Road, the digl team said. 

The archaeologists said that following talks with Historic England and Milton Keynes Council, the mosaic has been preserved in situ. 

Materials have been placed over the brickwork to protect the relics and allow construction to continue without causing damage. 

Senior project manager at Oxford Archaeology, John Boothroyd, told the BBC: ‘Due to the site location we anticipated some notable Roman remains, but the discovery of this fantastic mosaic far exceeded those expectations.

‘To be able to preserve remains of this quality and importance is a brilliant outcome, and one that could only have been achieved with the support of Angle Property.’ There are currently 992 ALDI locations in the UK.

Roman Mosaic Re-Exposed by Archaeologists In Folkestone

The Remains of a Roman mosaic reburied 65-years-ago has been re-exposed by Archaeologists from the canterbury Archaeologists trust

The mosaic is part of the central dining room from a large 2nd century villa complex situated on the cliffs overlooking Folkestone, England.

Beneath the Roman foundations are traces of an earlier Iron Age settlement, occupied by native Britons centuries before the Roman invasion.

The complex was first excavated by archaeologists in 1924, however, the cost of maintaining the site led to the mosaic being reburied to preserve the monument.

Local accounts at the time reported the mosaic being in a poor state of preservation.

Excavations during the 1920’s found Classis Britannica tiles which suggests that the villa might have a connection to the Roman Navy in Britain, or that the villa was possibly some sort of signalling station.

For reasons that are unclear, the villa seems to have been abandoned sometime in the late third century. It was briefly reoccupied in the 4th century, before it was abandoned and buried under sediments.

Due to the threat of coastal erosion, the mosaic is now under threat of falling into the sea, evidenced by the loss of several rooms of a bath-suite which have already been lost since the 1920’s.

Beginning in 2010, the Canterbury Archaeological Trust has been recording sites under threat as part of a collaboration with local volunteers and university students.

The aim of the study at the Folkestone mosaic is to determine what still survives and how best to preserve the monument.

The team found that the southern part of the mosaic survives, thanks in part to the restoration works conducted in the 1920s to stabilise what remained of the Roman designs.

After documenting the remains, the mosaic will re-buried while discussions on whether it should be lifted and preserved for displaying in a museum are undertaken.

Jaw-Dropping Discovery: 18th-Century Mummified Monks Revealed Suffering From Tuberculosis Infections

Scientists recently examined tissue samples from tuberculosis-infected bodies that were naturally mummified in a church crypt in Vac, Hungary. Researchers found that tuberculosis that killed them in the 1700s derived from an ancestral strain of the bacteria dating from Roman times still circulating in Europe in the 18th century.

The bodies, excavated in 1994, were naturally mummified by extremely dry air and pine chips in coffins. The pine chips have natural antimicrobial agents and absorbed moisture.

The bodies had been buried in a church crypt between 1731 and 1838. They were Catholics, buried fully clothed, and many of them were rich, says an article in Phys.org. Their clothing too was preserved by the dry air.

Vac is just north of the Hungarian capital of Budapest. A construction worker in the Dominican church in Vac tapped on a wall and heard a hollow sound. He pulled out a brick and saw the caskets.

Experts found more than 200 bodies, 26 of which were tested because they had signs of tuberculosis infection. Eight of the bodies yielded tissue samples from which researchers were able to do genetic sequencing of the tuberculosis germs.

“What emerged is a tableau of a disease that fully lives up to its reputation in folklore,” wrote Phys.org. “TB was raging in 18th-century Europe, even before urbanization and crowded housing made it a killer on a much greater scale, the investigators found.”

The German microbiologist Robert Koch was the first to describe Mycobacterium tuberculosis, in 1882. Koch said consumption, as people called it then, killed one in seven people. The disease is still a serious problem, but the World Health Organization reports deaths from it have been decreasing in recent decades.

In the church in Vac, the dead people’s names and how they died were recorded in documents. Phys.org said that makes the bodies a valuable resource for people who study diseases because the combination gives evidence about how TB and disease spread centuries ago.

“Microbiological analysis of samples from contemporary TB patients usually report a single strain of tuberculosis per patient,” Mark Pallen of the England’s University of Warwick medical school, told Phys.org.

Pallen was the chief researcher in the new study. “By contrast, five of the eight bodies in our study yielded more than one type of tuberculosis—remarkably, from one individual, we obtained evidence of three distinct strains.”

All eight bodies were carriers of a particularly virulent strain of tuberculosis called Lineage 4. Still today this strain infects more than 1 million people in the Americas and Europe per year.

“It confirmed the genotypic continuity of an infection that has ravaged the heart of Europe since prehistoric times,” Pallen said.

Researchers built a family tree of the TB bug and ascertained its bacterial ancestor dating to the late Roman period. This dating seems to lend credence to recent estimates that tuberculosis emerged in humans about 6,000 years ago, Phys.org said. Previous research theorized tuberculosis emerged in humans tens of thousands of years ago.

The World Health Organization reports that about one-third of humans are infected with tuberculosis bacteria, but only a small percentage will become ill from it.

In 2013, about 9 million people became sick with the disease worldwide. Approximately 95 percent of TB deaths are in middle- and low-income nations. While the disease is a serious problem, the threat from it appears to be decreasing somewhat.

“The number of people falling ill with TB is declining and the TB death rate dropped 45 percent since 1990. For example, Brazil and China have shown a sustained decline in TB cases over the past 20 years. In this period China has had an 80% decline in deaths,” WHO reports.

Roman-era altar stone has been discovered under Leicester Cathedral

The base of a Roman-era altar stone has been discovered under Leicester Cathedral, the first Roman altar stone ever found in Leicester. 

The area was previously believed to be a garden space in the Roman city, but archaeologists from the University of Leicester Archaeological Service (ULAS) uncovered the remains of a Roman building in the northwest quarter of the site. Inside the cellar of this building was the base of an altar stone.

This was not a plain subterranean storage room. The floor is concrete and the stone walls were painted. The quality of construction materials, the decorative paintwork and the presence of the altar indicates the room was a private shrine or otherwise devoted to religious worship.

The room dates to the 2nd century A.D. and was accessed by an external passageway with timber walls and a flagstone floor. The cellar was demolished and filled deliberately in the late 3rd or early 4th century.

The altar was found toppled face-down into the rubble layer. It was made of local sandstone from a quarry just one mile away and was decorated on three sides.

The back is plain, so it was probably originally placed against a wall. About half of it survives. Archaeologists estimate it would originally have been about two feet tall.

Mathew Morris, who led the dig, said the discovery of the Roman altar – the first to be found in Leicester – was “amazing”.

He added: “For centuries, there has been a tradition that a Roman temple once stood on the site of the present cathedral.

This folktale gained wide acceptance in the late 19th century when a Roman building was discovered during the rebuilding of the church tower.”

“Underground chambers like this have often been linked with fertility and mystery cults and the worship of gods such as Mithras, Cybele, Bacchus, Dionysius and the Egyptian goddess Isis.

Sadly, no evidence of an inscription survived on our altar, but it would have been the primary site for sacrifice and offerings to the gods, and a key part of their religious ceremonies.”

Leicester Cathedral was built in the heart of the medieval city at least as early as the 12th century and likely earlier than that.

The current building mostly dates to the 19th century when the church was extensively restored, but Leicester was a seat of a bishopric from 680 A.D. until the Saxon bishop was chased out of town by invading Danes in 870 A.D., so it’s likely there was a Saxon church predating the Norman cathedral.

As part of an ambitious restoration program complete with construction of a new Heritage Learning Centre, the old churchyard and gardens have been undergoing a comprehensive excavation since October 2021.

The excavation unearthed more than 1,100 burials dating from the end of the Saxon period in the 11th century to the middle of the 19th.

Radiocarbon dating of the earliest skeletal remains will narrow down the date range, and also confirm that the original parish church of St. Martin’s was founded in the late Saxon period.

The remains are currently undergoing examination that archaeologists hope will shed new light on the lives and deaths of Leicester’s inhabitants over nearly 1,000 years. When the research project is concluded, all of the individuals will be respectfully reinterred by Leicester Cathedral.

Archaeologists have also discovered the remains of a structure believed to be from the Anglo-Saxon period. If the date is confirmed, this will be the first Anglo-Saxon structure ever found in this area of Leicester.

It will expand the known map of Anglo-Saxon occupation of the town after the end of Roman occupation. A silver penny from the period (880-973 A.D.) found near the structure is the first Anglo-Saxon coin found in Leicester in almost two decades.

2,200-Year-Old New Piece of Roman Puzzle Emerges, Bringing Together Ancient Map of Rome

Maps are a useful modern tool, telling us how to get places, showing us where borders lie, and illustrating the distance between two places. 

While modern technology has made the creation of and access to maps something we don’t think twice about, the creation of maps during ancient times was far more complicated. 

Without the availability of GPS, air travel, and computers, ancient civilizations had to rely on other means for the difficult task of creating maps. 

One ancient map – the Forma Urbis Romae – has been a mystery for years, serving as a complex jigsaw as researchers continue to uncover various pieces of the puzzle, including a recently discovered fragment that has just been reunited with the other existing pieces.

Sometime between 203 and 211 AD a marble map of Rome was created. According to History of Information , the map was originally composed of 150 marble slabs, and it was 18.10 meters (60ft) high by 13 meters (43ft) wide. 

“Created at a scale of approximately 1 to 240, the map was detailed enough to show the floor plans of nearly every temple, bath, and insula in the central Roman city.

The boundaries of the plan were decided based on the available space on the marble, instead of by geographical or political borders as modern maps usually are.” 

The map shows the topography of Rome as it existed at the time, including structures such as temples, houses, shops, warehouses, and apartment buildings. 

According to Discovery News , the map was created under the rule of Emperor Septimius Severus.  Severus served as emperor from 193 to 211 and was a strong leader, known for converting the Roman government into a military monarchy.   

The Forma Urbis Romae map has only been recovered in relatively small pieces.  The fragments that have been found are currently held at the Capitoline museum in Italy. 

Researchers have recovered only approximately ten percent of the map, in 1200 pieces.  They have been attempting to piece it together for hundreds of years, since the first pieces were found in 1562. 

According to History of Information, a team of researchers from Stanford University, led by Marc Levoy, began using digital technology in an effort to solve the puzzle. 

Of the 1200 pieces collected, only about 200 have been identified.  The map was originally constructed on a wall within the Templum Pacis (Temple of Peace). 

The wall still remains, but the map was partially torn down hundreds of years ago, with the remaining pieces eventually fell, shattering into hundreds of pieces.

In 2014, a new piece of the map was discovered while workers were working at a Vatican-owned building called Palazzo Maffei Marescotti. It is believed that the pieces ended up in that location during construction of a 16th century palace, as building materials were being recycled.

  According to museum officials, “the fragment relates to plate 31 of the map, which is the present-day area of the Ghetto, one of the monumental areas of the ancient city, dominated by the Circus Flaminius, built in 220 BC to host the Plebeian games, and where a number of important public monuments stood.” 

The new piece not only brought forth new information, but after recently being reunited with the rest of the pieces, it also allowed researchers to identify where three other existing pieces to the map belong.  This affords researchers a new outlook on the map as a whole.

The Forma Urbis Romae has been called a giant jigsaw puzzle.  Unlike other puzzles, it did not come with a box showing the final product, or uniform pieces. 

In fact, it did not even come with all of the pieces, and researchers may never know where the remaining pieces are located.  The discovery of the new piece allowed for more than just the placement of a single piece, but for a more holistic view of the map as a whole. 

As researchers continue to find pieces of the map they will better be able to piece together another impossible jigsaw puzzle – Roman history as a whole.

2,000-year-old Roman figure found during railway excavation

Archaeologists have unearthed an “extremely rare” carved wooden figurine, likely dating to early Roman Britain, in a waterlogged ditch north of London during excavations ahead of a major rail project.

The figurine is badly deteriorated, but it appears to depict a man dressed in a Roman-style tunic.

Pieces of pottery were also found in the ditch and date to between A.D. 43 and 70, during the Roman conquest of much of Britain under the emperor Claudius, which occurred from A.D. 43 to around 84. (Julius Caesar staged earlier invasions of Britain in 54 B.C. and 55 B.C. but he achieved no permanent hold on the island.)

The archaeologists suggest the figurine may have been deliberately placed in the ditch as a religious offering; the practice of depositing objects and even human sacrifices in bogs and wetlands was common throughout Northern Europe before the Roman conquests.

“The preservation of details carved into the wood, such as the hair and tunic, really start to bring the individual depicted to life,” archaeologist Iain Williamson of Fusion JV, a contractor for the government’s High Speed 2 (HS2) rail project, said in a statement.

HS2 will eventually connect the English cities of London and Manchester, covering a distance of more than 300 miles (480 kilometers). By law, all the land along the route must first be investigated by archaeologists before any construction, so the project has become a major source of new archaeological discoveries.

The figurine was found in July last year near the village of Twyford in Buckinghamshire. According to the HS2 statement, archaeologists from the private firm Infra Archaeology were working for Fusion JV, the main contractor for the central stage of HS2, near a wetland site called Three Bridge Mill when they found what they thought was a rotten piece of wood in a waterlogged Roman ditch.

Subsequent excavations revealed that it was a human-like figurine about 26 inches (67 centimeters) tall and 7 inches (18 cm) wide that had been cut from a single piece of wood.

“Not only is the survival of a wooden figure like this extremely rare for the Roman period in Britain, but it also raises new questions about this site,” Williamson said. “Who does the wooden figure represent, what was it used for and why was it significant to the people living in this part of Buckinghamshire during the 1st century A.D.?”

One of the most surprising things about the find is that the figurine has been preserved at all. Wooden objects usually quickly rot away when exposed to oxygen, but a few ancient wooden relics have survived because they became buried in anaerobic (oxygen-free) conditions beneath layers of sediment — in this case, waterlogged clay in the ditch.

The figurine’s arms have degraded below the elbows, along with its feet, but overall it is in good condition given its age, HS2’s statement said. 

“A surprising amount of detail remains visible in the carving, with the figure’s hat or hairstyle clearly noticeable,” the statement said.

“The head is slightly rotated to the left, the tunic at the front seems to be gathered at the waist going down to above knee level, and the legs and shape of the calf muscles are well-defined.”

A spokesman for the government heritage organization Historic England, which has studied the figurine, called it a “remarkable find.”

“The quality of the carving is exquisite and the figure is all the more exciting because organic objects from this period rarely survive,” Jim Williams, a senior science advisor with Historic England, said in the statement.

“This discovery helps us to imagine what other wooden, plant or animal-based art and sculpture may have been created at this time.”

The artifact is now being preserved and will undergo further examinations. A small, broken-off fragment of the figurine was also found in the ditch; the archaeologists hope to use it to give an accurate radiocarbon date for the wood, while stable isotope analysis of the fragment might reveal where the wood came from.