The excavation of the Roman bridges over the Penkalas river in the ancient city of Aizanoi in western Turkey have unearthed a larger-than-life-sized statue of a man. This is the first complete statue unearthed in Aizanoi. The total height of the statue is 2.10 meters (6’11”) and it was found in two parts — the whole body and the head severed at the neck. The man is wearing a himation, a Greek woolen cloak that was draped over a tunic like a lighter-weight version of the Roman toga, over his shoulders forming a sling for his right arm, a posture associated with scholars and orators. Its style marks it as about 2,000 years old.

Expressing that they were very excited about the statue they found in the recent excavations, [excavation director Gökhan] Coşkun said, “This statue is almost the only intact statue we have found so far. It is a statue of a man with a height of 2 meters and 10 centimeters, missing only half of its pedestal and one foot. Other parts are completely preserved. I hope that we will find this missing piece in 2023.”

The earliest archaeological evidence of settlement at the site dates back the third millennium B.C. The ancient city of Aizanoi established itself as a regional capital in the later Kingdom of Phrygia (ca. 1200-700 B.C.). It took on additional political importance during the Hellenistic period, playing the rope in the tug of war between the Attalid Kingdom of Pergamum and the Kingdom of Bithynia. The game ended in 133 B.C. when Aizanoi was bequeathed to the Roman Republic by the last king of Pergamum, Attalus III.

Under the Roman Empire it achieved its greatest prosperity. It was already a metropolis in terms of population in the 1st century B.C., but the city’s monumental public buildings and major infrastructure were built by the Roman Emperors. The Temple of Zeus, the macellum (market) inscribed with the Price Edict of Diocletian that is considered the first commercial stock exchange in the world, a combined theater and stadium seating 33,500 that is unique in the Roman world, two public baths and five bridges, two of them still standing today, were built between the 1st and 3rd centuries.

Statue pieces, mostly heads, have been found in the excavations of the riverbed where the two Roman bridges are being restored, including fragments of very large statues that would have been more than 10 feet high when intact. Earlier this year a rare intact white marble sundial was discovered.

The excavation of a prehistoric necropolis in Aubagne, southeastern France, has unearthed an individual from the 1st millennium B.C. bedecked in copper jewelry.

The necropolis, in use from around 900 – 600 B.C., bookending the late Bronze and early Iron ages, was first excavated in 2021. At that time, archaeologists unearthed 10 burials, eight of them under a tumulus, and three cremation deposits. This years’ dig encountered three more burials, one under a large tumulus 33 feet in diameter. While the tumulus is notable — it was surrounded by a deep ditch and likely originally marked by a ring of stones — the burial within it was not furnished. The two other burials excavated this season were.

The first of the two contained the skeletal remains of an individual wearing a twisted copper alloy bracelet and a pearl and stone jewel on the left shoulder. Two ceramic pots were buried near the deceased’s head.

The second non-tumulus burial is the richest that has been found so far in this necropolis. The person was buried with a tubular torc with rolled terminals around their neck, three bangles on each ankle and three toe rings. Next to the deceased was a brooch and a large ceramic urn.

The tumulus and first burial are in close proximity. The third was distant from the other two. Each space was clearly and intentionally delimited with structures, now long-gone. The tumulus and first inhumation are bound by a line of postholes, indicating a linear structure once formed the boundary line of space reserved for the dead. The second burial was delimited by an alignment of stone blocks more than six feet long.

The discovery of these three burials adds significantly to our understanding of the funerary practices of protohistoric southern France. They also reveal that the necropolis extended far beyond archaeologists’ early estimates for the size of the burial ground. The new data indicates the necropolis covered at least 1.3 hectares, and probably extends even further than that.

A massive hoard of 1.5 tons of bronze coins dating to the Tang (618-907) and Song (960-1279) dynasties has been unearthed in the village of Shuangdun in eastern China’s Jiangsu province. The coins were strong together with straw ropes and arranged in tidy stacks.

The uncovered coins were well-preserved, and most of them had clear inscriptions, suggesting important value for further research.

In ancient China, such hoards were often buried in the ground so as to preserve precious porcelain, coins, metal tools, and other valuables, said the researchers.

Seventy wells were also found around the coin hoard, which was near the battle frontline of the Song and Jin troops, making the researchers wonder whether the excavation site belonged to a hutted camp.

Most of the coins in the hoard are from the Song dynasty wens. Bronze wens were the common currency of the period until a severe copper shortage forced the Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279) to issue coins of lower quality and value. Iron was hard to mint and rusted too easily once in circulation. Due to the scarcity of bronze coinage, the government was forced to cut military wages in half in 1161, ultimately leading to the emergence of paper money. In 1170, the state began to require that half of all taxes be paid with Huizi paper currency stepped into the breach.