There is only one known gladiator graveyard. It’s in Ephesus, Turkey, and dates to around 200 AD. More than 60 gladiators are buried in a small cemetery on the road to the Temple of Artemis.

A study of the bones interred there has turned up some unexpected facts about the gladiatorial diet. No feasting on entire sides of beef whatsoever.

Contemporary accounts of gladiator life sometimes refer to the warriors as hordearii–literally, “barley men.” Grossschmidt and collaborator Fabian Kanz subjected bits of the bone to isotopic analysis, a technique that measures trace chemical elements such as calcium, strontium, and zinc, to see if they could find out why. They turned up some surprising results. Compared to the average inhabitant of Ephesus, gladiators ate more plants and very little animal protein. The vegetarian diet had nothing to do with poverty or animal rights. Gladiators, it seems, were fat. Consuming a lot of simple carbohydrates, such as barley, and legumes, like beans, was designed for survival in the arena. Packing in the carbs also packed on the pounds. “Gladiators needed subcutaneous fat,” Grossschmidt explains. “A fat cushion protects you from cut wounds and shields nerves and blood vessels in a fight.” Not only would a lean gladiator have been dead meat, he would have made for a bad show. Surface wounds “look more spectacular,” says Grossschmidt. “If I get wounded but just in the fatty layer, I can fight on,” he adds. “It doesn’t hurt much, and it looks great for the spectators.”

They made up for the inevitable calcium deficiency by taking vitamins. Since it was then instead of now, the supplements took on the form of something disgustingly unpalatable: brews of charred wood or bone ash. It did the trick, though. The bones found have enormously higher concentrations of calcium than the general population.

The skull bones indicate gladiators received serious but non-fatal head blows often, despite the fact that all of the combat styles but one used helmets. Three of the skulls had holes from a trident in them.

The marks of a four-skewer dagger found in a knee bone explain how this weapon — heretofore only known from inscriptions — was actually used.

Archaeologists digging in the oldest part of Jerusalem have uncovered a 79-foot-wide wall dating back to the 17th c. BC. That’s back in the Bronze Age, when it was a small, heavily fortified Canaanite town known today as the City of David.

The 26-foot-high wall seems to have been part of a passageway from the City of David to the sole source of water in the area, the Siloam Spring, so it was vitally important that it be secure.

No fortifications of this size have ever before been discovered from the time of the First Temple, considered the zenith of Jerusalem’s development in the biblical period. The next period of such massive construction would not be for another 1,700 years, during the time of King Herod in the Roman period.

The Canaanite walls the archaeologists discovered are about two meters apart, rise to a height of some eight meters in some places and are made of gigantic stones, three to four meters thick. About 24 meters have been exposed, but excavators say this is only one-third of their original length.

A small portion of the wall was first discovered in 1909, but nobody had any idea of how massive it was. Now that this 79-foot section has been found, archaeologists hope that there is a great deal more still to be uncovered.

The unexpectedly massive construction suggests a stronger, larger Bronze Age town than people realized.

The wall is open to the public starting today.