Archaeological excavations at Piazza Pia in Vatican City in anticipation of 2025’s Jubilee Year have uncovered the remains of a colonnaded portico that Caligula built in what had once been his mother’s garden. The remains were found under a later fullonica (laundry) that is being relocated to the nearby Castel Sant-Angelo to make way for a new underpass. The structure consists of a wall of travertine blocks in the opus quadratum (squared) technique terracing the right bank of the Tiber. Behind the wall was the colonnaded portico of which only the foundations remains and a large garden.

This was part of the Horti Agrippinae, the gardens of Agrippina the Elder, Caligula’s mother, at her grand suburban villa outside the ancient walls of Rome. Agrippina’s gardens occupied much of today’s Vatican City. Last year archaeologists unearthed the remains of the theater Agrippina’s grandson Nero built on the grounds. Now they’ve found part of the garden Caligula took over.

One lead pipe identifies this as Caligula’s renovation of his mother’s villa and gardens complex. It is stamped “C(ai) Cæsaris Aug (usti) Germanici,” or Caius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, the full name of the son of Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder, grandson of Augustus Caesar. He was known as Caligula after the nickname his father’s soldiers gave him when he was a boy wearing a kid’s version of a military uniform, including the caligae, the hobnailed sandal boots of the legions.

Also from Piazza Pia, but from excavations at the beginning of the last century, come other lead pipes inscribed with the name of Iulia Augusta, presumably Livia Drusilla, the second wife of Augustus and grandmother of Germanicus. It is probable, therefore, that this luxurious residence was first inherited by Germanicus and then, upon his death, to his wife Agrippina the elder and then to his emperor son.

The excavation also revealed an important series of Campana slabs, figurative terracottas used for the decoration of roofs, with unusual mythological scenes, reused as covers for the sewers of the fullonica, but originally probably made for the covering of some structure in the garden, perhaps from the same portico.

There’s a notable reference to Caligula’s use of the Horti Agrippinae in Legatio ad Gaium (The Embassy to Gaius) by Philo of Alexandria, a philosopher and leader of the Jewish community in Alexandria. Philo was one of a delegation of Alexandrian Jews who went to Rome in 39 A.D. to petition for the emperor’s protection after riots targeting Jews in Alexandria the year before had destroyed the synagogues and driven much of the community out of the city. The petition was not ultimately successful, to put it mildly, (Caligula ordered a statue of himself as Jupiter be erected in the Temple in Jerusalem, although he was ultimately talked out of it by his old friend, the last Jewish king of Judea, Herod Agrippa) but the delegation’s first meeting with Caligula seemed to go rather well. From Legatio ad Gaium, XXVIII, 181:

[R]eceiving us favourably at first, in the plains on the banks of the Tiber (for he happened to be walking about in his mother’s garden), he conversed with us formally, and waved his right hand to us in a protecting manner, giving us significant tokens of his good will, and having sent to us the secretary, whose duty it was to attend to the embassies that arrived, Obulus by name, he said, “I myself will listen to what you have to say at the first favourable opportunity.”

The next time they met was in his palace on the Esquiline and there was no nice walk in mother’s garden and definitely no listening to what they had to say, just a lot of anger about Jews’ refusal to accept Caligula was a god.

A Bronze Age metal hoard of weapons and jewelry has been discovered in Budyně nad Ohří, a town in north Bohemia about 25 miles northwest of Prague, Czech Republic. Experts are still analyzing the artifacts, but the design style of the objects date them to the Middle Bronze Age, approximately 3,500 years ago. One of the axes is older than the rest of the pieces; it dates to the Early Bronze Age (2000-1500 B.C.).

The hoard was discovered last year by a metal detectorist in a field on the outskirts of the town. He brought the objects to the Podřipské Museum in Roudnice nad Labem where they were examined by archaeologists who confirmed they were Bronze Age artifacts.

The treasure consists of eight bangles (bracelets or anklets), eight axe heads, two long ball-headed pins and a spearhead. They are all made of bronze. The axe heads would originally have been mounted to a piece of wood that naturally bent at a right angle so the blade could be used as a hatchet.

The hoard was transported to the Brno Institute of Archeology and Museology for further study. They were subjected to X-ray fluorescence analysis to determine the composition of the metal. Depending on the results, it may be possible to narrow down the origin of the metal based on its composition. Researchers will also use microscopic photography on the axe head to discover any damage on the surface that might attest to how the blade was used.

The hoard was deliberately buried. They may have been left as a votive offering for a deity, or in reaction to danger in the village like an enemy raid. The metal alone was very valuable, and the finely worked tools may have been cached to prevent them being stolen. They may also have been intended for sale by the manufacturer or by a merchant and placed in the ground for temporary storage.

The artifacts are currently undergoing conservation. When treatment is complete, they will go on display at the Podřipsko Museum in early 2025.

As if the fact that Tracy and Rory Vorster found a hidden trap door on a ledge above their toilet in their home in Lincoln weren’t cool enough, when they opened it, they found a slab of stone carved with a grotesque face bearing a striking resemblance to local icon, the Lincoln Imp. A hole in the open mouth suggested it had been a drain of some sort, or perhaps a urinal. When it was examined by an expert at the Lincoln Civic Trust, the initial impression was confirmed: it was a drain from the middle or late 14th century.

[The couple] said the discovery is an example of why Lincoln is “amazing”, adding they are “proud” of their house’s history.

Mrs Vorster said: “You look at the outside of the house and that is historical enough but to now find something inside is amazing.”

Mr Vorster added: “The whole of the house has kind of a hollow walling, so we immediately thought there could be more. In fact, we’re almost certain now.

“The previous occupant had been here for over 20 years, so surely they knew. But we had absolutely no clue it was there.”

The Lincoln Imp is a carved stone grotesque with cow ears, cow horns, taloned hands, a hirsute body with crossed legs perched atop a pillar overlooking the Angel Choir of Lincoln Cathedral. Probably carved in the 13th century, the imp soon became the popular favorite of the cathedral’s grotesques. Legends rose around the charismatic little devil. In one account, he and an imp friend were sent by Satan to wreak havoc in northern England. They were breaking furniture, smashing stained glass and bullying the Bishop in Lincoln Cathedral when an angel rose from a hymn book and turned the most defiant, rowdiest imp to stone.

Today the Lincoln Imp is the mascot of the city. The city soccer team is nicknamed “The Imps” and feature the Imp on their logo. Copies of the Imp are found all over the city, and it even reached Oxford University where a reproduction of the Imp was mounted to the wall of the Front Quad of Lincoln College.

The Vorsters’ house is on Vicar’s Court, a building founded by the college of priests in the 13th century in the Minster Yard just south of the cathedral. Part of it was demolished in the English Civil War, but among the remains today are a select group of rental homes owned by Lincoln Cathedral. A survey of the historic homes in Lincoln published in 1987 records “grotesque mask which forms the drain” in a Vicar’s Court house.

The remains of an imposing Greco-Roman era public structure have been unearthed in the small village of Tripi, in the Messina area of northeast Sicily. The stone block construction and a terrace identify the structure as the stoa, the open passage between colonnades that overlooked the agora, the political and commercial center of the Greek city. This discovery is key evidence confirming that modern-day Tripi was the location of the ancient city of Abakainon (Abacaenum to the Romans).

Unlike many other cities in Magna Graecia (the regions of southern Italy colonized and influenced by Greek settlers), Abakainon was not founded by colonists from Greece. It was part of the Greek sphere of influence, but it was a city of the Siculi, the local tribe of eastern Sicily and the island’s namesake. The date of its founding is unknown, but may go back as far as 1100 B.C. Ancient sources and numismatic evidence record the city as a thriving concern by the 5th century B.C. It was an important city, rich in agriculture and trade, and controlled a large territory from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the foothills of Mount Etna. It minted its own coins and was allied to Carthage in the First Punic War, putting it in the crosshairs of Rome.

Its alliance with Carthage and later its submission to Rome led to its destruction and subsequent disappearance. This was the accepted narrative until recent times. However, the discovery of coins during recent excavations seems to challenge this established story. Since the second half of the last century, there had been credible speculation about the true location of Abakainon in the territory of Tripi and its actual size. Excavation campaigns promoted by the current municipal administration have now unequivocally confirmed the presence of an ancient city of significant size and wealth, shedding new light on the history of this site.

Tripi has a population of just 750 today, and the mayor is leaning heavily into its glorious ancient history as a means to stimulate tourist interest and a revival of population and business.

In Tripi, every corner of the village evokes the ancient grandeur of Abakainon, from the triumphal entrance surrounded by ceramics and fountains, to the bar in the heart of the old town, a community meeting point, to the traditional summer symposium. The castle, a witness to past eras and legends, offers spectacular views of the Aeolian Islands, while the urban architecture scattered throughout the hamlets of Casale, San Cono and Campogrande recalls the ancient layout of the town. Monumental necropolises from the late Classical and Hellenistic periods, such as that of Contrada Cardusa, testify to Abakainon’s prosperity and flourishing past. Here, early excavations uncovered gold jewelry and fine ornaments, evidence of the wealth and taste of the ancient inhabitants. The museum, currently being refunctionalized, preserves these artifacts, transforming itself into a kind of thousand-year-old jewelry store.

Today, with the holding of the referendum to change the town’s name to Tripi-Abakainon, the village also wants to definitively revive its social, economic and cultural development, thus sealing its rediscovered identity.

A colossal telamon (an architectural support shaped like a man, also called atlas or atlantid) that once held up the entablature of the Temple of Olympian Zeus in Agrigento, Sicily, stands again. One of only two almost complete remaining telamons of nearly 40 that had supported the 5th century B.C. Doric temple, this statue is the only one to be reinstalled in its original location. The other survivor looms large inside the Regional Archaeological Museum of Agrigento.

Construction of the Temple of Zeus began around 480 B.C. after the allied Greek colonies of Sicily defeated Carthage. Agrigento deployed thousands of enslaved Carthaginian prisoners on massive public works projects, the Temple of Zeus first and foremost. Construction came to an end when the city was conquered by Hiero I of Syracuse around 472 B.C. The temple was never completed, but even with the roof unfinished, it was the largest Doric temple ever built.

The structure was damaged when Carthage besieged the city in 406 B.C. and sacked it after their victory. Earthquakes took their toll too, and in the 18th century the sandstone blocks, unusually small for such a monumental building, were plundered to build the pier of Porto Empedocle.

Only a few walls, scattered stones and column capitals survive today at the temple site. In 2004, a team from the German Archaeological Institute of Rome undertook an extensive cataloging project to record every single element of the temple still in situ. More than 90 stones were identified as parts of at least eight telamons. One telamon had about two thirds of its original stone elements found among the grouping. Those stones were used to reconstruct the telamon.

Architects designed a 40-foot steel structure with shelves on which the stones are placed. There are only small gaps between the blocks so this is an ingenious solution to display the colossus in vertical position with a roof over his bent arms just as he would have been when the temple was still standing.

This is a video of the unveiling to give you a sense of its great scale.