An Iron Age necropolis that predates the rise of Rome has been discovered in the town of Amorosi, 30 miles northeast of Naples. A preventative archaeology excavation before construction of a power plant at a site near the Volturno river unearthed a large funerary area in use between the third quarter of the 8th century B.C. and the late 7th century B.C. Archaeologists excavated a total of 88 tombs, both cinerary and inhumation burials, replete with grave goods identifying them as belonging to the Culture of the Pit Tombs, a pre-Samnite people that inhabited the interior of the region that is today known as Campania.

The grave goods evince distinct gender differences. Males were buried with weapons, while women’s graves contained jewelry and ornaments made of bronze, amber and worked bone. Both men and women were buried with pottery of various shapes and sizes, usually placed at the feet of the deceased. Some burials were notable for the exceptional objects, for example a large, richly decorated bronze belt found in one grave. In addition to the pit tombs, two stand-out graves in the literal sense were large mound burials 50 feet in diameter that must have belonged to the highest ranking elites of the community at that time.

The archaeological team recovered several parts of the graves in soil blocks. The local Superintendency of Archaeology of Caserta has enlisted experts to carry out micro-excavations of the soil blocks in a warehouse laboratory specially set up for this task. The materials they recover will be analyzed, as will the bone remains and the soil itself.

The municipality of Amorosi has begun to plan a museum to exhibit the archaeological treasures found in the excavation (and future ones) in the hope of attracting cultural heritage tourism. Next year is a Jubilee year, and millions of visitors are expected to descend on Italy. The town is moving quickly to get a museum up and running to take advantage of the influx of Jubilee crowds.

A volunteer at this season’s excavation of the Roman auxiliary fort of Vindolanda just south of Hadrian’s Wall uncovered a brightly-colored disc brooch with catchplate, pin lugs and pin intact. The pin is still sharp and still fits neatly into its clasp. It dates to the late 3rd, early 4th century.

The brooch is round with a low wall outlining a round central setting and a ridge around the outer edge. It is made of brass and would originally have been gilded. The molded glass inset mounted into the central setting is of the donut-shaped type: a flattened hemisphere with a dimple in the center topped by a small plug of glass that forms a nipple. It is multi-colored, with red, blue and yellow stripes swirling out from a yellow nipple.

Round brooches like this one have been found before, often with the glass inset missing. (The mounts on the round design appear to have been prone to loss; more insets have survived in the oval form.) They were of British manufacture and have been found almost entirely in Britain at varied sites (military, urban, religious, rural, etc.). Only about a dozen of the donut-shaped disc brooches are known in Britain, and of more than 600 oval and round brooches found, only 26 of them were discovered in archaeologically excavated and stratigraphically dated contexts.

The object is so beautiful and in such excellent condition, that even when it was freshly excavated it was clear that it was the stand-out find of the season. After it is cleaned and conserved, it will go on display at the Vindolanda museum.

See Marta Alberti-Dunn, Deputy Director of excavations, discuss the brooch with the volunteer who found it in this video:

An incredibly rare chunk of Tyrian purple dye, the first one of its kind ever discovered in northern Europe and maybe the whole Roman Empire, has been unearthed in the remains of the Roman bathhouse at the Carlisle Cricket Club. The soft purple lump about the size of a squashed golf ball was found in the drains of the 3rd century bathhouse last October. The unknown substance was tested by experts from Newcastle University who determined that it was an organic material containing Bromine and beeswax, indicating that it is vanishingly rare and prohibitively expensive pigment strongly associated with Rome’s imperial court.

Tyrian purple was derived from the mucus of the hypobranchial glands of the two species of Murex sea snails. Enormous quantities of snails were required to make the dye. About 12,000 of them needed to be collected and processed to produce less than two grams of pigment. The production was so time, labor and cost-intensive that the pigment was worth more than gold; as much as three times more, according to some ancient sources. Garments dyed with Tyrian purple were so expensive that they were the exclusive province of the wealthiest elites. In Rome, even going back to the days of the Republic sumptuary laws controlled who was allowed to wear purple clothes, and by the 4th century A.D., only the emperor was allowed to wear garments dyed with the precious pigment.

Solid samples of Tyrian purple have been found only in small bits in frescoes at Pompeii and some Egyptian sarcophagi, but these were just accidental areas of concentrated paint particles, not an unused chunk of the raw pigment. The Carlisle Tyrian purple lump may very well be unique, the only archaeological example found anywhere in the former Roman Empire.

Previous finds from the Carlisle Cricket Club excavations — an inscription dedicated to Julia Domna, wife of Septimius Severus and mother of Caracalla, tiles stamped with the IMP mark, giant statue heads, the sheer size of the bathhouse which is the largest building on Hadrian’s Wall– strongly suggest an imperial presence at the Roman cavalry fort of Uxelodunum. The discovery of the Tyrian purple, which was literally a metaphor for royalty (as in, “ascending to the purple” meaning taking the throne), is even stronger evidence.

Frank Giecco, Technical Director at [contract archaeology company] Wardell Armstrong, said:

“For millennia, Tyrian Purple was the world’s most expensive and sought after colour. It’s presence in Carlisle combined with other evidence from the excavation all strengthens the hypothesis that the building was in some way associated with the Imperial Court of the Emperor Septimius Severus which was located in York and possibly relates to a Imperial visit to Carlisle.

“Other evidence being an inscription stone to the Empress Julia Domna, the date of the monumental building – among the largest on Hadrian’s Wall – coinciding with Emperor Septimius Severus campaigns in Scotland, and an ancient source stating Septimius Severus was in Carlisle, and the high quality of the objects discovered at the bathhouse, granting of civic status to the local Celtic tribal capital at Carlisle; which in effect is the beginning of the city of Carlisle.

The unusually large and pristine Roman copper alloy dodecahedron found at Norton Disney last June is returning to Lincolnshire for the first time since its discovery. It will go on display at Lincoln Museum starting this Saturday as part of the Festival of History, a city-wide celebration of Lincoln’s heritage, as a centerpiece of the city’s Roman history.

Alongside the dodecahedron display, as part of the festival visitors can meet the mighty Romans themselves in the museum’s atrium, where the legion has returned to ‘Lindum Colonia’. And explore some of the many other Roman treasures that have been unearthed across the city and county in the archaeology gallery.

For those craving a deeper dive into Lincoln’s history, don’t miss out on a guided tour of Posterngate, where you can explore the hidden Roman gateway beneath the city streets[…]

Lincoln’s Festival of History events will take place over the long weekend (May 4-6th), which is a holiday in Britain, but the dodecahedron will remain on display until early September.

It is sure to be a big draw to the museum. The discovery of the dodecahedron made headlines around the world, and the North Disney History and Archaeology Group, the community archaeology organization that unearthed it, has gotten a barrage of messages from people sharing their theories about how the objects may have been used and why. The organization will return to the find site in June to pick up where the excavation left off when they ran out of time and money. While odds are slim that they’ll find a key clue to answer all the questions about the Gallo-Roman dodecahedra, the Norton Disney example is one of the only ones to have been found in its original depositional context and archaeologically excavated, so there’s at least a chance of finding out more about these intriguing artifacts.