Underwater Temple Ruins Discovered in the Bay of Naples
The Ministry of Culture, academic and scientific organizations, and the underwater arm of the Carabinieri of Naples were instrumental in discovering the artefacts.
An ancient Nabataean temple with marble altars has been found in the Gulf of Pozzuoli outside Naples in the Italian region of Campania.
A statement from the Italian Ministry of Culture says: “The two marble altars of the Roman period, datable to the first half of the first century AD, are inserted inside the great Temple of the Nabataeans, now submerged.”
It is unclear when or if the ancient ruins will be removed from the seabed.
The Nabataean population was based in the desert areas of the Arabian Peninsula. Around 2,000 years ago they established a settlement at Pozzuoli, building up the largest commercial port in the Roman Mediterranean area, the ministry adds.
The Nabataean city there declined at the end of the fifth century.
“This is an extraordinary result and the fruit of the collaboration between peripheral bodies of the Ministry of Culture, the academic and scientific [organizations] in the region, and the underwater arm of the Carabinieri of Naples.
Ancient Puteoli [ancient Pozzuoli] reveals another of its treasures, whose exact location was unknown up to now, which testifies to the richness and vastness of commercial, cultural, and religious exchanges in the Mediterranean basin in the ancient world,” says the Italian culture minister Gennaro Sangiuliano in a statement.
The discovery throws light on the layout of the Pozzuoli port, adds the ministry, revealing how the “sacred buildings” of the Nabataean community stood in very close contact with the long rows of warehouses intended to store the many goods in transit in the port headed towards Campania or redirected to Rome.
“These finds bring the total number of Nabataean altar slabs and altar bases found in this area of the sunken city to five since the first was discovered in the 18th century.
The first three—two bases and one slab—are now in the collections of the National Archaeological Museum of Naples and the Archaeological Park of Campi Flegrei at the Castle of Baiae,” according to a commentary on the History Blog.
Hoard of 1,000-year-old Viking coins unearthed in Denmark
The silver coins were found about 5 miles from the Fyrkat Viking ringfort, near the town of Hobro.
Nearly 300 silver coins believed to be more than 1,000 years old have been discovered near a Viking fortress site in north-west Denmark, a museum has said.
The trove – lying in two spots not far apart – was unearthed by a girl who was metal-detecting in a cornfield last autumn.
“A hoard like this is very rare,” Lars Christian Norbach, the director of the North Jutland Museum, where the artefacts will go on display, told Agence France-Presse.
The trove includes Danish, Arab and Germanic coins as well as jewellery from Scotland or Ireland.
The silver coins were found about 5 miles (8km) from the Fyrkat Viking ringfort, near the town of Hobro. From their inscriptions, they are believed to date back to the 980s.
The trove includes Danish, Arab and Germanic coins as well as pieces of jewellery originating from Scotland or Ireland, according to archaeologists.
Norbach said the finds were from the same period as the fort, built by King Harald Bluetooth, and would offer a greater insight into the history of the Vikings.
There could be a link between the treasure – which the Vikings would bury during wars – and the fort, which burned down during the same period, he said.
Archaeologists have said they will continue digging next autumn after the harvest. They hope to find the burial sites and homes of the troves’ one-time owners.
People working at the site.
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The Vikings believed that burying their treasure allowed them to find it again after death.
The artefacts will go on public display in July at the Aalborg Historical Museum. The girl who made the discovery will receive financial compensation, the amount of which has not been made public.
2,000-year-old graves found in ancient necropolis beneath Paris Train Station
Archaeologists have discovered 50 tombs in an ancient necropolis just meters from a busy train station in central Paris, and these tombs belong to a lost necropolis of the Gallo-Roman city of Lutetia, the predecessor of present-day Paris.
These graves provide a rare look at life in Lutetia, the city that predated Paris by nearly 2,000 years.
Despite numerous road works over the years, as well as the construction of the Port-Royal station on the historic Left Bank in the 1970s, the buried necropolis was never discovered.
Only after plans for a new station exit were announced did France’s National Institute of Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP) open a series of test trenches covering 200 square meters (2152.78 sq ft) of land around the station.
The excavation revealed burials believed to be part of the Saint Jacques necropolis dating back to the 2nd century, the research institute said in a news release.
Camille Colonna, an anthropologist at INRAP, told a press conference that there were already “strong suspicions” the site was close to Lutetia’s southern necropolis.
One of the skeletons unearthed in an ancient necropolis was found meters from a busy Paris train station.
The Saint Jacques necropolis, the most important burial site in the Gallo-Roman town of Lutetia, was previously excavated in the 1800s. However, only objects considered precious were taken from the graves, with the many skeletons, burial offerings, and other artifacts abandoned. The necropolis was then covered over and again lost to time.
The INRAP team discovered one section that had never before been excavated.
“No one has seen it since antiquity,” said INRAP president Dominique Garcia.
Colonna also stated that the team was “very happy” to have discovered a skeleton with a coin in its mouth, which allowed them to date the burial to the 2nd century A.D.
The excavation has uncovered 50 graves, all of which were used for burial — not cremation, which was also common at the time.
Glass container on deposit in a burial in the excavation of Boulevard Port-Royal in Paris. The burials of a large necropolis, located south of Lutèce in the 2nd century AD, have been unearthed.
The remains of the men, women, and children are believed to be Parisii, a Gallic people who lived in Lutetia, from when the town on the banks of the Seine river was under the control of the Roman Empire.
The Parisii were skilled in agriculture, metallurgy, and long-distance trading and lived in the area around the south banks of the Seine River in Paris during the 2nd century AD. The Parisii founded Lutetia (now Paris), and despite fierce resistance to the Roman conquest, they were subjugated in the first century BC.
Ceramic jewelry, hairpins and belts, jug goblets, dishes, glassware, and other grave goods have been recovered to help date the burials. According to INRAP, the positions of hundreds of small iron nails, that attached soles to leather shoes, informed the archaeologists that while some were placed on the feet of the interred, others had been buried with shoes on either side of the bodies as a type of offering.
Cross-checking of two burials from the excavation of the Boulevard de Port-Royal in Paris.
The entire skeleton of a pig was found inside one coffin, and the remains of another small animal were found inside what is thought to have been a sacrifice pit for the gods. Furthermore, a coin was found lodged inside the mouth of a buried person.
The coin, known as “Charon’s obol,” reflected the story of Charon in Greek mythology, in which a coin was given to the ferryman of Hades to transport the souls of the deceased across the river Styx.
INRAP president Dominique Garcia said that the ancient history of Paris was “generally not well known,” adding that the unearthed graves open “a window into the world of Paris during antiquity.”
Unlike the excavation in the 1800s, this time the team plans to remove everything from the necropolis for analysis.
Two unique mid-14th-century shipwrecks were discovered in Sweden
During an archaeological dig in western Sweden this summer, the remains of two medieval merchant vessels known as cogs were discovered. Analyses show that the ships were built outside of Scandinavia in the mid-14th century.
The cogs were discovered by a team from Arkeologerna, which is part of the National Historical Museums of Sweden, during the construction of a railway tunnel in the town of Varberg.
Named Varbergskoggen 1 and Varbergskoggen 2, the first consists of the nearly complete port side that is about 20.5 meters long and 5 meters wide. The remains of the second ship are the forward end of the bottom of the hull, roughly 8 meters in length and 4.5 meters in width.
Elisabet Schager, archaeologist and project leader of the excavation say: “These wrecks are a very special discovery, both in Sweden and abroad, so it has been fantastic to find them. Before these two wrecks were discovered, only 7 other cogs were known in Sweden, and only around 30 are known in the whole of Europe.”
The first dendrochronological (tree-ring dating) samples show that Varbergskoggen 1 was constructed with lumber felled after 1346 in what is now the Netherlands, Belgium, and north-eastern France, while the smaller Varbergskoggen 2 was constructed with oak felled between 1355 and 1357 in northern Poland.
These results suggest that both vessels were in foreign waters, a long way from home, when they ultimately disappeared beneath the waves.
The remains of Varbergskoggen 2 from above.
Cogs were medieval single-masted transport vessels that are often associated with the Hanseatic League but were also used across the whole of Northern Europe. Often seen as the successor the Viking Age Knarr, cogs were designed to maximize cargo space.
Several construction details were noted during the excavation of the wrecks, all of which are characteristics identifiable with traditional cog construction. For example, the bottom strakes of the vessels were built in the carvel style, while the sides are built in the more traditional clinker style. Furthermore, the caulking between the strakes was made with moss and secured with lathes. Also, the decks were supported with bulky crossbeams which stuck out the sides of the hull.
Archaeologists have also discovered a variety of fascinating artifacts in the wrecks, such as leather shoes and wood and ceramic housewares.
A rare cache of ship equipment and reserve parts were discovered aboard Varbergskoggen 1 (Varberg Cog 1, the larger of the two), protected from wreck plunderers by a pile of ballast stones.
Small figurine was found in one of the cogs.
According to Schager the finds gives a detailed account of life at sea.
“We have a lovely assortment of personal objects that represent parts of the crew’s daily routines, like wooden bowls and spoons. A number of barrel lids, some of which have what appears to be maker’s marks carved in them, were also unearthed among the wreckage. We have collected and are analyzing soil samples as well, which will hopefully be able to identify the remnants of food and/or cargo. We will even search for parasitic remains, which could identify if animals were kept onboard, and if so, which species. We hope to be able to piece together where the cogs’ fateful journey originated, and where they were headed.”
The cause of the sinking of the cogs is still not clear.
“Once we have cleaned every timber from the wrecks, and critically analyzed them, we will hopefully be able to get to the bottom of the mystery.
The information we could gather from the initial excavation is that the larger Varbergskoggen 1 had rolled onto its port side in shallow waters while it was still rigged”, says Schager.
Study Suggests Greenland’s Norse Farmers Imported Wood
Archaeologists have used wood taxa analysis to distinguish between imported, drift and native wood from five Norse farmsteads on Greenland.
Historical records have long suggested that medieval Norse colonists on Greenland (AD 985–1450) relied on imported material such as iron and wood.
Until now, it has not been fully recognized where these imports of wood came from.
To study timber origins and distribution on Greenland, Lísabet Guðmundsdóttir from the University of Iceland examined the wood assemblages from five Norse sites in western Greenland, of which four were medium sized farms and one a high-status episcopal manor.
All sites were occupied between AD 1000 and 1400 and dated by radiocarbon dating and associated artifact types.
A microscopic examination of the cellular structure of the wood previously found by archaeologists on these sites enabled the identification of tree genus or species, and the results were published in the journal Antiquity.
The results show that just 0.27% of the wood examined were unambiguous imports, including oak, beech, hemlock and Jack pine. Another 25% of the total wood studied could be either imported or driftwood, including larch, spruce, Scots pine and fir.
Because hemlock and Jack pine were not present in Northern Europe during the early second millennium AD, the pieces identified from the medieval contexts in Greenland must have come from North America.
This confirms the historical sources, that the Norse did acquire wood from the east coast of North America. The sagas indicate that the explorers Leifurheppni, Þorleifurkarlsefni and Freydísall brought back timber from Vínland to Greenland.
In addition to the possibility of import, driftwood was one of the most important raw materials in Norse Greenland, making up over 50% of the combined assemblage.
Wood also came from Europe, likely including the oak, beech and Scots pine from this assemblage. Some may have come as ready-made artifacts, such as barrel staves, while reused ship timber could have been brought to use in buildings on Greenland.
Small Fort Found in Scotland on Rome’s Antonine Wall
An artist’s impression of a Roman fortlet at a different location along the Antonine Wall
The remains of a Roman fortlet have been discovered in West Dunbartonshire.
New technology has enabled the archaeology team at Historic Environment Scotland (HES) to uncover the structure after attempts to find it failed in the 1970s and 1980s.
The fortlet once stood next to the Antonine Wall.
Its buried remains have now been uncovered in a field close to Carleith Primary School in Duntocher, Clydebank.
HES announced the breakthrough on World Heritage Day, the international celebration of cultural heritage.
The Antonine Wall was the frontier that the Romans constructed across central Scotland, and is one of Scotland’s six Unesco World Heritage Sites.
Details of the fortlet were thought lost for hundreds of years.
An archaeologist using gradiometry to uncover the fortlet
It was referenced in 1707 by antiquarian Robert Sibbald, who wrote that he had seen a fortlet in the area around Carleith Farm. Excavation teams looked for it decades ago, but the exact location remained unknown.
After employing gradiometry, a geophysical surveying technique which looks under the soil without the need for excavation, the discovery was made.
The technique measures small changes in the earth’s magnetic field to detect archaeological features otherwise invisible from the ground surface.
It allowed archaeologists to identify the stone base of the fortlet, which remains buried underground. On top of this base, turf would have been laid to build a rampart about 2m high.
This fortlet would have been part of several along the Antonine Wall.
In its prime, it would have been occupied by 10 to 12 Roman soldiers who were stationed at a larger fort nearby, likely to be Duntocher. They would have manned the fort for a week at a time before being replaced by another detachment.
The fortlet would have been made up of two small wooden buildings to house the soldiers staying there and will have been used for the 20 years (AD142 – AD162) that the Antonine Wall was defended as the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire.
‘Detective work’
Commenting on the discovery, Riona McMorrow, deputy head of world heritage at HES, said: “It is great to see how our knowledge of history is growing as new methods give us fresh insights into the past.
“Archaeology is often partly detective work, and the discovery at Carleith is a nice example of how an observation made 300 years ago and new technology can come together to add to our understanding.”
Carleith Farm where the fortlet was discovered
This discovery has led to HES reviewing the site’s designation to ensure the fortlet is recognized and protected as part of the Antonine Wall.
The geophysical survey will also help to better understand and protect the wall.
While up to 41 fortlets may have lined the wall when it was built, only nine have previously been found.
HES said the discovery marks the tenth known fortlet and shows that there is still more to be discovered about the Roman monument and its functions.
Just metres from a busy train station in the heart of Paris, scientists have uncovered 50 graves in an ancient necropolis which offer a rare glimpse of life in the French capital’s precursor Lutetia nearly 2,000 years ago.
Somehow the buried necropolis was never stumbled upon during multiple road works over the years, as well as the construction of the Port-Royal station on the historic Left Bank in the 1970s.
However, plans for a new exit for the train station prompted an archaeological excavation.
Camille Colonna, an anthropologist at France’s National Institute of Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP), told a press conference that there were already “strong suspicions” the site was close to Lutetia’s southern necropolis.
The “Saint Jacques” necropolis, the largest burial site in the Gallo–Roman town of Lutetia, was previously partially excavated in the 1800s.
However, only objects considered precious were taken from the graves, with the many skeletons, burial offerings and other artifacts abandoned.
The necropolis was then covered over and again lost to time.
The INRAP team discovered one section that had never before been excavated.
“No one has seen it since antiquity,” said INRAP president Dominique Garcia.
Colonna said the team was also “very happy” to have found a skeleton with a coin in its mouth, allowing them to date the burial to the 2nd century AD. The excavation, which began in March, has uncovered 50 graves, all of which were used for burial — not cremation, which was also common at the time.
Ferryman of Hades
The remains of the men, women and children are believed to be Parisii, a Gallic people who lived in Lutetia, from when the town on the banks of the Seine river was under the control of the Roman Empire.
The skeletons were buried in wooden coffins, which were now only identifiable by their nails. More than half were buried alongside offerings such as ceramic jugs and goblets.
Sometimes a coin was placed in the coffin, or even in the mouth of the dead, a common practice at the time called Charon’s obol.
In Greek mythology, Charon is the ferryman of Hades, and the coin was considered a bribe to carry the souls of the dead across the river Styx. The archaeologists also found shoes inside the graves, identifying them by the small nails that would be been in the soles.
Colonna said the shoes were placed “either at the feet of the dead or next to them, like an offering”.
Jewellery, hairpins, and belts were also discovered.
The entire skeleton of a pig and another small animal was discovered in a pit where animals were thought to have been sacrificed to the gods. Unlike the excavation in the 1800s, this time the team plans to remove everything from the necropolis for analysis.
“This will allow us to understand the life of the Parisii through their funeral rites, as well as their health by studying their DNA,” Colonna said.
Garcia said that the ancient history of Paris was “generally not well known”.
The unearthed graves open “a window into the world of Paris during antiquity,” he added.
Lavish ancient Roman winery found at ruins of Villa of the Quintilii near Rome
View of the excavated winery from the northern dining hall of the Villa of the Quintilii outside Rome. Photograph: Stefano Castellani
Of all the Roman ruins that populate what is now a pleasant landscape of pine trees and meadows, under the distant gaze of the Alban Hills, the Villa of the Quintilii is perhaps the most impressive – almost a city in miniature, covering up to 24 hectares.
Lying on the ancient Appian Way as it runs south-east from Rome, the villa had its own theatre, an arena for chariot races and a baths complex with walls and floors lined in sumptuous marble.
But the story of the villa, whose origins lie in the second century AD, has just become even more remarkable, with the discovery of an elaborate winery unparalleled in the Roman world for lavishness.
The facility included a series of luxurious dining rooms with a view on to fountains gushing with young wine. There were also marble-lined treading areas where enslaved workers would stamp down the newly harvested fruit, while the emperor perhaps looked on as he feasted with his retinue.
The winery, just beyond the city limits of Rome during antiquity, was set in what was once a landscape of orchards and agricultural lands, dotted with monumental tombs – and the villas of the super-rich.
“[The Villa of the Quintilii] was an amazing mini city completed by a luxury winery for the emperor himself to indulge his Bacchic tendencies,” said archaeologist Dr Emlyn Dodd, assistant director at the British School at Rome and an expert on ancient wine production. He has published the archaeologists’ findings in an article for the scholarly journal Antiquity.
The discovery of the ancient Roman winery came by chance, when archaeologists from the Italian ministry of culture were trying to find one of the starting posts for the villa’s arena. The chariot-racing track was built by the emperor Commodus, who reigned from AD177-192. The later winery, it turned out, had been built over one of these starting gates.
Multicoloured decorative marble flooring from one of the dining rooms set around the winery.
It was the notoriously violent Commodus who had the original owners of the villa, the wealthy Quintilii brothers, killed in AD182-3. After that the imperial rulers took personal ownership of the complex, expanding and modifying it over the centuries.
The fact that the name Gordian is stamped into a vast wine-collection vat means that the emperor likely either built the winery or renovated it. That would almost certainly be Gordian III, giving a date of AD238-244, since the first and second emperors of that name reigned only for a matter of days.
At the villa, which is open to the public, Dodd pointed out the recently excavated rectangular wine-treading areas.
“Usually these treading areas would be covered in a waterproof concrete,” he said. “But these were covered in red marble. Which isn’t ideal, as marble gets incredibly slippery when wet. But it shows that whoever built this was prioritising the extravagant nature of the winery over practical considerations.”
After being trodden, the crushed grapes were then taken to the two mechanical presses, 2 metres in diameter, that stood nearby. The resulting grape must was then sent into three fountains, which gushed out of semicircular niches set into a courtyard wall. There were in fact five fountains, with two outer spouts producing water.
The grape must, having cascaded out of the fountains, then flowed along open channels into vast ceramic dolia, or storage jars, set into the ground – a standard winemaking technique in ancient Rome, since they created a stable microenvironment in which fermentation would take place.
Covered dining rooms with wide, open entrances were set around three sides of this open courtyard area. Dodd’s hypothesis is that here the emperor would have feasted and enjoyed the full theatrical spectacle of wine production.
Only one of these dining rooms is excavated – Dodd would like to find funding to uncover them all – and its walls and floors were covered in multicoloured inlaid marble veneers in elaborate geometrical patterns.
The whole facility seems to have been designed with both the practical matter of wine production and the sheer theatre of it in mind.
Letters by a previous emperor, Marcus Aurelius, attest to his having banqueted while watching the work of winemaking going on – perhaps at a luxury winemaking facility at the Villa Magna 30 miles away to the south-east, which is the only parallel to the newly discovered winery in the archaeological record.
Dodd’s hypothesis is that the emperor and his retinue might have visited the Villa of the Quintilii annually to inaugurate that year’s vintage with a ritual and a spectacular – and surely drunken – banquet.
