A beautifully decorated intact tomb from the Tang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.) has been discovered in Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province, Northern China. The site, formerly the playground of Xiaojingyu Primary School, is being redeveloped into a new sports field. At 8AM on August 16th, one of the workers partially exposed the tomb while digging new foundations. The team caught a glimpse of murals, pottery and a square stone, and alerted the Taiyuan City Cultural Relics and Archaeology Department.

The style of the murals and pottery identify the tomb as dating to the Tang Dynasty, specifically the period known as Sheng Tang, the dynasty’s peak of prosperity between 713 and 766 A.D., almost entirely under the rule of Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712–756). Later periods would look back on this time as a pinnacle of cultural achievement, setting an aspirational standard in art and literature.

The size and quality of the murals and the engravings on the tombstone indicate the tomb belonged to someone of significant rank, although his or her name and identity has yet to be determined. The mural on the side wall depicts a noble lady followed by three attendants playing instruments and making an offering. The tombstone — the stone square first seen by the construction crew — is placed at her feet.

It seems there is also a second tomb next to this one, visible through the exposed corner. Further construction has been put on hold for now, but excavations cannot commence immediately because of the proximity of the school buildings. The city and the school will hold talks to determine how to proceed. Given the apparent size of the tomb, it’s possible the school building itself would have to be demolished in order to excavate beneath it, which means the students would have to relocate before the tombs can be safely explored.

A small fragment of a ancient Roman bronze military diploma has been discovered in the ancient city of Deultum in southeastern Bulgaria. The diploma was a formal Roman document issued to a soldier from an auxiliary unit after he had completed 25 years of military service. It granted him a discharge from the army and full Roman citizenship. Any wives or children they had picked up along the way despite the prohibition against soldiers marrying would be legitimized and granted citizenship through this same diploma. The document was engraved on two bronze tablets joined by a hinge, which is the etymology of the word diploma, from the Greek “diploō” meaning to double or to fold in two.

The fragment discovered at Deultum is very small, measuring only 4 x 4 cm, but allows us to reveal much about the document it was part of. The diploma contained a copy of a decree by the Roman Emperor Hadrian, issued on July 17, AD 122, for honorary discharge of the soldiers from the auxiliary troops in the Roman province of Dacia Inferior, i.e. “Lower Dacia” (located in the central part of southern Romania). At that time, the province was governed by Cocceius Naso.

Deultum was founded around 70 A.D. as a settlement for veterans of the Legio VIII Augusta at a strategically significant location on the Sredetska River with direct access to the Bay of Burgas and the Black Sea. It was the first Roman colony established in what is now Bulgaria. One of the oldest legions in Rome, Legio VIII had served in Gaul, at Pharsalus and Egypt under Julius Caesar. It was reconstituted by his heir Augustus who gave it his cognomen. In 46 A.D., it fought under Claudius suppressing the anti-Roman revolt in Thrace and founded the military camp at Novae about 150 miles northwest of Deultum.

Emperor Vespasian settled the veterans of this venerable legion who had supported him during the upheavals of the Year of Four Emperors near an ancient Thracian town called Debelt or Develt, hence Deultum’s official name: Colonia Flavia Pacis Deultensium. The city grew and prospered, reaching its peak of territory and population during the Severan dynasty in the late 2nd, early 3rd century. It had large public baths, a well-planned city with excellent sewers, numerous temples dedicated to Greco-Roman deities and local gods and the right to mint coins. At least two emperors visited it in person.

 The newly discovered fragment reveals for the first time that even half a century after the founding of the colony, Roman emperors continued to settle veterans in Deultum in order to support the Roman presence and identity in a city surrounded by non-Roman population.

An inscription discovered at the site of the temple of Artemis on the Greek island of Euboea is the first to include the ancient name of the town: Amarynthos. This fragmentary inscription conclusively links the sanctuary of the goddess Artemis to the site mentioned by ancient sources and long sought by archaeologists.

The 1st century geographer Strabo identified the temple’s location as seven stades (about a mile) from the city of Eretria. Starting in the 19th century, archaeologists used Strabo’s directions as the departure point in what would prove a fruitless century-long search for the ancient temple. In 1964, a team from the Swiss Archaeological School working with the Greek Archaeological Service began excavating in Eretria looking for the Artemis sanctuary. They were as unsuccessful as their predecessors had been, until Swiss archaeologist Denis Knoepfler found a key clue: some stones typical of ancient Greek temple construction that had been reused in a Byzantine church. They suggested the sanctuary might not have been in the city of Eretria.

Starting in 2007, the Swiss mission moved further afield to study the surrounding territory of the city. At the foot of the Paleokeliski hill five miles east of Eretria, one mile east of the modern fishing village of Amarynthos, they unearthed a monumental portico from the 4th century B.C. In 2017, the team surveyed areas inside the portico and finally found hard evidence pointing to this having been the Artemis sanctuary. The most explicit source was an underground fountain made in the Roman era from recycled statue bases and architectural blocks. Those statue bases had surviving inscriptions, including one dedicated to Artemis, her twin brother Apollo and their mother Leto.

The newly unearthed inscription was also one of the statue bases reused to make the fountain. What remains of it reads “of Artemis in Amarynthos,” nailing down the identification of the temple complex as the famous sanctuary of Artemis which was one of the most important centers of worship in Greece from the 6th century through the 2nd century B.C.

In 2017 inscriptions and seals with the name of Artemis were found, but the [city] name is being read for the first time this year. The fact is particularly significant because the remains of the prehistoric settlement excavated in the 70s and 80s in the same area by the Greek Archaeological Service can be identified with the Mycenaean toponym “a-ma-ru-to” mentioned in Linear B tablets found in the Mycenaean palace of Thebes. The name “Amarynthos” has been in use in the same location for over 3000 years.

The 2019 excavation has been able to take advantage of the December 2018 demolition of a modern house that was infelicitously located above the central sanctuary of the temple. A geophysical survey revealed the foundations of monumental construction in an east-west orientation. Its state of conservation is poor making it difficult to identify, but archaeologists believe it was the main altar of the sanctuary.

An exceptional gold solidus of Emperor Constantine I, the first of its type ever discovered in Britain, will be sold at auction by the finder and landowner. It was discovered by a metal detector hobbyist in June of this year in Wanstrow, Somerset. June 7th was the first time he’d searched that field near an old Roman road. Wielding a second-hand metal detector, he first found a Roman brooch and some pieces of lead ore (the Roman road was used to transport lead from nearby mines). Then, a foot under the surface, he found a single gold coin.

Somerset Finds Liaison officers identified it as an extremely rare coin struck in Trier in ca. 313-15. The obverse features a laureate head of Constantine I facing right. It is inscribed CONSTANTI-NVS P[ius] F[elix] AVG[ustus] (“Constantine Pius and Blessed Revered One”).

The reverse depicts the emperor draped, cuirassed, with a spear in his right hand and a shield on his left arm. He rides a horse at the gallop against two enemy warriors, one trampled under the foot, the other about to be speared as he loses his shield. It is inscribed VIRTVS AUGSTI N(OSTRI) (“The valor of our Emperor”) and under the battle is the mint mark PTR which stands for Percussum Treveris, meaning “struck in Trier.”

Not only is this particular coin a unique find in Britain, only four gold coins from the Tetrarchy period (the system of four rulers, two Augusti, two Caesars, established by Domitian in 293 A.D.) have ever been found in Britain. Even more astonishing, the solidus is in near-mint uncirculated condition.

For comparison purposes, here’s an example of the same coin in one of the finest ancient coin collections in the world, the Münzkabinett of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. It has the same die axis alignment (in this case the alignment is 6 o’clock, meaning the reverse of the coin is upside down in relation to the obverse), but the Somerset coin is .42 grams heavier and .2 mm wider. It didn’t experience the wear and tear of circulation the way the Münzkabinett’s solidus did.

The solidus goes under the hammer on September 17th at Dix Noonan Webb. The pre-sale estimate is £10,000-£12,000 ($12,000-$14,500).