The History Blog

An extremely rare gold double-aureus from the reign of the Emperor Volusianus has been discovered in Hungary. Volusianus ruled as co-emperor with his father Trebonianus Gallus for less than two years (November 251 – August 253) before they were both assassinated by their own soldiers, so coins from his reign are already rare. Gold Volusianus coins are even more rare, with the rarest of all being the binio, double the weight and value of a standard aureus.

Minted in Rome, the coin weighs 5.62 grams and is 23 mm (.9 inches) in diameter. It features a draped and cuirassed bust of the emperor wearing a radiate crown on the obverse. The obverse legend reads IMP CAE C VIB VOLVSIANO AVG (Imperator Caesar Caius Vibius Volusianus Augustus). On the reverse is the deity Libertas standing with one bent leg in front the other leaning on a column. She wears a draped garment and holds a pileus (the freedman’s cap) in her right hand and a long scepter in her left. The reverse legend reads LIBERTAS AVGG, meaning Liberty of/as brought by the two emperors.

The coin was discovered by a volunteer metal detectorist working for the Rippl-Rónai Museum in an archaeological investigation at the site of highway expansion in Somogy County, southwestern Hungary. The excavation yielded bronze and silver coins, a round glass fibula with a checkerboard pattern, an inscribed silver ring and a bronze key.

Few Roman gold coins have been unearthed in Hungary, which was part of the province of Pannonia Superior when this binio was minted. The capital of the province was in Carnutum, now part of Austria, 200 miles northwest of the coin’s find site. Today Somogy County is the least densely populated county in Hungary, and it was even more remote in the 3rd century. Only one other Roman gold coin, minted under the Emperor Valens (r. 364-378), has been found in the county. An extremely valuable and rare coin like a double-aureus wasn’t likely to be owned by a local. It was probably lost by someone moving through the area.

The coin is now at the Rippl-Rónai Museum where it will be assayed to determine its gold content. It will then join the museum’s permanent collection of around 50 Roman coins, including the only other gold coin found in Somogy.

Archaeologists have discovered an ancient stone worker’s supply chest in the large reception room of the House of the Library in Pompeii. The extraordinary remains of a large wooden chest containing slabs of giallo antico (ancient yellow) marble quarried in Numidia and of green serpentine porphyry from the Peloponnese peninsula in Greece, among other fine marble imports, were unearthed still tidily arranged like hanging file folders.

The wooden chest was gone, but archaeologists were able to recreate a perfect model of it by making a plaster cast of the hole the chest left in the hardened ash when it decayed. Another object of organic materials, a basket that had been placed on top of the chest, was also captured in a plaster cast.

The villa was in the Insula Occidentalis neighborhood that was originally just outside Pompeii at the Porta Occidentalis gate. It was a multi-storey luxury home, one of four built into part of the city’s ancient walls overlooking the sparking blue waters of the Bay of Naples. The House of the Library had been partially excavated before, but large sections were still under the volcanic debris.

An excavation team opened up new ground in the villa as part of a project to restore and stabilize the buildings in the Insula Occidentalis. The dig revealed previously-unexplored parts of the mansion, unearthing the large reception room on the first floor. The room was elegantly appointed with a black-and-white floor mosaic of a wide meander border around a central panel of white tile. The detail work down the orientation of tesserae in the central white panel is of high quality.

Archaeologists believe the house was damaged in a major earthquake that struck the city in 62 A.D. and subsequent seismic swarms, one of the smaller side-effects of living under the shadow of an active volcano. Several rooms of the villa were affected and there were repairs and refurbishment works in progress. The marble slabs in the chest were neatly tucked against the wall on the outer perimeter of the mosaic. They were likely replacements for slabs that were broken in the earthquake, probably in rooms adjacent to the reception room that haven’t been excavated yet.

The remains of an exceptionally rare Republican-era bridge have been discovered on the 12th kilometer of the Via Tiburtina, the ancient Roman road that leads northeast out of the Eternal City. Pottery findings and the type of masonry work seen on the large tufa blocks used in its construction date the bridge to the 2nd century B.C.

The bridge was discovered during a preventative archaeology investigation in advance of the enlargement of the Via Tiburtina within the municipality of Rome.  It crossed the Fosso di Pratolungo, a small tributary of the Aniene river. The one-time existence of an ancient bridge over the Fosso di Pratolungo was recorded by cartographers in the Renaissance, but its precise location was lost as this is the first time material remains of the Roman structure have been discovered.

The road, initially known as the Via Valeria, was first built around 300 B.C. by the censor M. Valerius Maximus. There are two surviving bridges on the Tiburtina, the Ponte Scutonico at the 58th kilometer, a single span arch bridge made of limestone blocks, and the Ponte San Giorgio at the 63rd kilometer. Both were built by the emperor Nerva when he restored the road in 97 A.D.

The newly-discovered bridge was built during the initial construction of the road, which makes it an incredibly rare example of a bridge from the middle Republic. By contrast, the oldest bridge in the city of Rome today is the Pons Fabricius which dates to 62 B.C. when the Republican era was almost at an end.

“This is a find of great archaeological interest,” declares Daniela Porro, Special Superintendent of Rome, “and historical and topographical as well. Investigations will continue in the next few days to obtain a more complete knowledge of the structure and its phases of use. Once again Rome gives us precious testimonies of its past, which will allow us to better understand its millenary history.”

The bridge will be mapped and surveyed in detail. After investigations are complete, it will be reburied for its own protection as the enlargement of the Tiburtina moves forward.

Analysis of a ceramic pot from the 5th century A.D. discovered in Gerace, Sicily, has revealed the presence of whipworm eggs confirming that it originally contained human feces. This is the first direct evidence that this type of vessel was used a chamber pot in the Roman era.

Roman pottery shapes and sizes have been extensively documented and categorized since the 19th century, but the diverse typologies only began to include identifications of possible chamber pots in the 1990s based on discoveries made in bathroom-related archaeological contexts like ancient latrines. The chamber pot type is plain ware pottery of local production with sloped sides and a flat bottom, however there was no proof that they had been used to hold excreta rather than as storage vessels for grains or fluids, cinerary urns or as simple containers, as in the case of one pot that at some point at least held builder’s lime.

Archeologists at the University of Cambridge turned to mineralized concretions for answers. A small proportion of the sloped ceramic vessels contain mineral build-up that clung to the sides and bottoms of the pot over repeated usage. The team sampled concretions inside one of five vessels unearthed in the former bath-house of a Roman villa at Gerance in 2019. The bath house had been filled in after it was damaged severely in an earthquake in the mid-5th century. The five pots were part of the fill, which dates them to between 450 and 500 A.D.

The research team employed a digital light microscope to identify any intestinal parasite eggs trapped in the deposits. They were successful, discovering multiple parasite eggs. Based on the shape, color, size, smooth sutface and polar plugs of the eggs found, they were identified as the intestinal nematode Trichuris trichiura, ie, whipworm. This is the first time the presence of parasite eggs has been identified from concretions in a Roman ceramic vessel.

The success of the study opens up the possibility of a systematic analysis of all of the pots containing mineralized concretions. This new information could greatly expand our knowledge of the diet, health and hygiene of the people who pooped in these pots 1,500 years ago.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has at long last acquired an exceptional Renaissance parcel-gilt bronze roundel 18 years after it first tried and failed to buy it at auction. At 16.5 inches in diameter, rimmed and embellished with gilded accents and silver inlay, it is the largest bronze roundel known from the Renaissance, and one of the most if not the most technically sophisticated, which is why the Met was more than willing to pay 27 million dollars and wait a year to not let this masterpiece slip through its fingers again.

It depicts Venus and her lover Mars flirting while her husband Vulcan labors at the forge. Venus sits in the center with Cupid on her lap driving his arrow into her breast. She has wings, the right one outstretched and fully visible, the left mostly hidden behind Mars’ shield. Mars is armed with a sword and scabbard. Vulcan is making a helmet embossed with a horse, his hammer raised mid-strike.

In the exergue below the scene is a Latin inscription reading “CYPRIA MARS ET AMOR GAVDENT VVLCANE LABORAS,” meaning “Venus, Mars and Cupid enjoy themselves while Vulcan works.” This was a popular motif in the art of northern Italy in the late 15th, early 16th centuries.

The exceptional quality of the rendering from the masks on Venus’ sandals, Mars’ decorated scabbard, even the wrinkles on Vulcan’s face delicately gilded for emphasis indicate this work was cast by a master goldsmith. Metallurgic analysis of the bronze alloy found it has an unusually high copper content comparable to Renaissance medals now in the National Gallery in Washington.

There is no definitive information about its origins and ownership history. The roundel first burst on the scene in 2003 at a Christie’s auction in London. Appraisers discovered it, unpublished and unrecognized, in an estate belonging to the heirs of George Treby III, a lawyer and MP in the first half of the 18th century. Treby was an avid collector of art and antiquities and is known to have Grand Toured in Rome in 1746. There is no documentation of his acquisition of the roundel, but given that his descendants had it for centuries, he is almost certainly the source.

The 2003 sellers had no idea it was a Renaissance piece. They assumed it was of relatively late manufacture. Christie’s experts recognized it as having been made in the late 15th century for the Gonzaga court in Mantua, Italy. There are no other versions of it known to exist, nor any roundels of this size crafted by this hand. The only cognate is a plaster relief from the Bardini Collection in Florence, and its attribution is uncertain.

Christie’s leading candidate for the master craftsman who made the roundel was Gian Marco Cavalli, known from the documentary record as having made bronzes for the Gonzaga family, but there are no works firmly attributed to him. His details fit the bill, though. He was a goldsmith, he did a commission of four silver roundels with the signs of the zodiac for the Gonzaga. His last name may even appear on the roundel in disguise. “Cavalli” means horses, and he called himself “Cavallino” in one letter, so that disproportionately large rearing horse on the helmet Vulcan is hammering out may be a sort of secret signature.

Even with an unknown maker, the roundel roused enormous interest at the 2003 auction. The Met was an active bidder, but ultimately lost out to a private collector who bought it for £6.9 million, setting a new world record for a Renaissance bronze. The buyer’s family sold the roundel to a UK art dealer in 2019 for an undisclosed amount. The dealer gave the Met a second bite at the apple, and this time money was evidently no object because the museum dropped £17 million plus £3.4 million VAT) to buy the bronze, contingent on the granting of an export license.

The UK Ministry of Culture imposed a temporary export ban to give a British institution a chance to acquire the piece for the purchase price including VAT. When nobody could be found with such deep pockets by the end of 2021, the UK granted the export license.

“The bronze roundel is an absolute masterpiece, standing apart for its historical significance, artistic virtuosity, and unique composition,” said Max Hollein, the Museum’s Marina Kellen French Director. “It is a truly transformational acquisition for The Met’s collection of Italian Renaissance sculpture. We look forward to further studying and displaying this magnificent work, one that establishes Cavalli as one of the ingenious creators of the Gonzaga court style.”

Cavalli (born about 1454, died after 1508) collaborated for over 30 years with Andrea Mantegna (1430/31–1506), the principal painter to the Gonzaga court in Mantua, and with Antico (ca. 1460–1528), the Gonzaga family’s principal sculptor. Yet the attribution of works to Cavalli remained challenging until the discovery of the roundel in a British country house in 2003. The roundel may have been made for Isabella d’Este, Marchioness of Mantua (1474–1539), the most important woman patron of the Italian Renaissance.

Dr. Sarah E. Lawrence, the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Curator in Charge of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, stated, “While The Met is rich in paintings and prints by Mantegna, and holds the largest collection of Antico’s gilt and silvered bronze sculptures outside Europe, there was no equivalent example in bronze relief in our collection. With this exciting acquisition, The Met is now one of the only museums in the world that can illustrate the fundamental collaboration between Mantegna, Antico, and Cavalli under the patronage of Isabella d’Este.” Denise Allen, Curator in the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, added: “The Mantuan roundel’s sumptuous gilding, meticulously inlaid silvering, and masterfully varied chasing identify the roundel as a masterpiece in which Cavalli expressed his superlative abilities as a goldsmith and sculptor.”

A joint team of Jordanian-French archaeologists have discovered a Neolithic ritual complex in the Jibal al-Khashabiyeh area of Jordan’s southeastern desert. The site includes anthropomorphic stele, the remains of semi-subterranean circular dwellings, lithics indicative of a rich stone tool crafting industry, animal bones and marine fossils.

The complex was discovered near sites known as “Desert kites,” gigantic traps used by the Neolithic population for the mass hunting of wild gazelles. They consist of at least two long guiding walls that converge towards each other, narrowing down like a funnel and culminating in an enclosure at the end. The walls can be several miles long and some of them are daisy chained into massive contiguous structures. Pottery fragments found at the Jibal al-Khashabiyeh desert kites date them to around 7,000 B.C., making them the earliest known large-scale structures built by humans.

Desert kites are found throughout the Middle East from Saudi Arabia to Turkey and extending into southwest Asia. The Jibal al-Khashabiyeh ritual complex is the first archaeological evidence of a human occupation area directly connected to desert kites. The gazelle hunters, dubbed Ghassanians, employed the ritual complex as a campsite where they lived, worked and butchered their kill. They dwelled in circular huts, made razor-sharp stone knives and used them to process the gazelles captured in the desert kites. The huge quantity of gazelle bones found at the shrine confirms that they were highly effective and specialized hunters whose nutritional, economic and even religious lives revolved around gazelle trapping.

The site was found in an excellent state of preservation last October. It consists of two free-standing stele with human-like faces carved on them. The tallest of the two is about 3.7 feet high and is carved with a representation of the converging guide walls of a desert kite along with the human face. The smaller one is 2.3 feet high and finely modeled. Behind the stones was a carefully laid-out deposit of 150 marine fossils, many of them arranged vertically and placed in a specific orientation. The deposition field also includes stones of different shapes and sizes and artifacts like animal figurines, meticulously crafted flint objects and an altar stone associated with a hearth.

As if all this weren’t astonishing enough, the deposits and altar were installed inside a small-scale model of a desert kite built with stones in the middle of the campsite. This is the only Neolithic architectural model ever discovered.

The ritual nature of the deposit is compelling including an unexpected use of natural marine fossils in the symbolic and spiritual realm through the Neolithic. The altar and associated hearth suggest that some kind of sacrificial offerings must have been involved in the ritual process. The reminiscence of symbolism referring to the “Desert kites”, evidenced by the depiction on one of the steles and even more in the three dimensional architectural model at the core of the installation indicates that mass hunting using the “Desert kites” was at the root of the ritual activities involved. The sacral symbolism and ritual performance evidenced were most likely devoted to invoke the supranatural forces for successful hunts and abundance of preys to capture. In this respect, the discovered installation is not only unique due to its exceptional state of preservation, but also due to the fact that it sheds an entire new light on the symbolism, artistic expression as well as spiritual culture of these hitherto unknown Neolithic populations specialized in mass hunting of gazelles using the “Desert kites”.

Archaeologists have unearthed the largest Roman mosaic discovered in London in more than 50 years. The mosaic geometric shapes, floral and knot designs in black, white and red tesserae set in a red tiled floor of a large room eight meters (26 feet) long that was likely a triclinium (a Roman dining room). A second, smaller panel is believed to have decorated a recess in the room. The main mosaic dates to the late 2nd, early 3rd century and was installed over the traces of an earlier mosaic.

The main mosaic features lotus flowers surrounded by guilloche borders. Between the lotus squares are black triangles, diamond shapes, smaller guilloche rectangles and to the side, a Solomon’s knot (a horizontal and a vertical loop enlaced with each other through the middle) inset in a black circle bracketed by a black lozenge-shaped outline. Archaeologists believe it is the work of a team of local mosaicists known as the Acanthus group who developed a characteristic style.

The second panel is more simple design. It is primarily black against white tile background with red tile accents. There are two Solomon’s knots, two flowers with four petals inside circles and small four-leafed clovers in between. This mosaic is virtually identical to one found in Trier, Germany, which suggests itinerant mosaicists traveled across the Roman Empire to decorate the homes of the wealthy even in far-flung cities like London.

A team from Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) made the discovery near London Bridge in Southwark, at the site of a new multi-use development. Excavations began in June 2021 and until last month, only small artifacts had been recovered, including harness fittings and bone game dice. A few weeks ago, archaeologists encountered a few tesserae from a Roman mosaic, which is not unusual in a dig of this scale, but when they continued to clear around they tiles, archaeologists quickly realized this was a mosaic floor of large size, not just a few tiles left behind.

The remains of a substantial Roman building was found at the site in 1988, and later excavations revealed additional architectural elements, including a tesselated terracotta floor and fragments of painted wall plaster. The building was made of multiple rooms around an internal courtyard and a well-landscaped exterior garden. It was built ca. 72 A.D., just 25 years after the founding of Londinium, but was later modified, including the creation of the mosaic floor discovered last month.

Archaeologists thought at the time of the initial discoveries in the late 80s that the building was a mansio,  the upscale Roman version of a motel where traveling military officers and government officials would stay when visiting London. What is now London Bridge was an important Thames crossing in Roman times too, part of the road network that traversed Londinium, so the perfect location for a mansio just across the river from the city center of the capital of Roman Britian. While it’s still possible the structure was a private villa urbana, recent findings support the mansio hypothesis. Objects like phallic pendants, high-end pottery, coins and other forms of portable wealth underscore that the site saw a great deal of traffic from elite members of military and civilian society.

A long stretch of a 13th century wooden plank causeway has been discovered in Berlin’s historic downtown.  So far the remains of a section of road 164 feet long and 20 feet wide have been unearthed. Tree ring analysis of wood samples taken from the Medieval road revealed the trees were felled in 1238, dating this causeway to the early founding era of Berlin.

Archaeologists from the Berlin State Monuments Office (LDA) discovered the plank road in a preventative excavation before the installation of new power and gas lines under the Stralauer Straße. Today the street is a multi-lane arterial road leading north out of the historic center of Old Berlin parallel to the river Spree. It wasn’t a broad artery at its inception in the Middle Ages, but it was essential to give travelers a safe, solid surface through the waterlogged ground around the Spree from the Mühlendamm embankment dam to the Stralauer Gate in Berlin’s first defensive city wall.

The causeway remains were found just over eight feet beneath the modern street surface. It was built from trunks of oak, pine and birch which have survived 700 years in exceptional condition thanks to the thick peat layer that covered the timbers and the anaerobic environment of the waterlogged soil. The road is structured in three layers: a top layer of logs with the bark removed laid side by side across the road in the direction of travel. Under the top layer are three parallel rows of beams going in the opposite direction — longitudinally along the embankment. The bottom layer is formed of thick trunks roughly worked. The two lower layers were packed over with sand and the uneven areas of the top layer were filled in with stones.

The excavation is ongoing and archaeologists hope to narrow down its age, original extent and the construction methods used to build it. The future fate of this rare survival is uncertain. The utility lines if installed according to plan will destroy the causeway. If the Berlin State Monuments Office plans to salvage it in some way, they have not announced it.

Researchers have discovered the first known evidence of ear surgery in a 5,300-year-old skull from the Dolmen of El Pendón, a megalithic tomb monument in the province of Burgos, north central Spain. The study has been published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Radiocarbon analysis has determined that the dolmen was built at the beginning of the 4th millennium B.C. It consists of a central funerary chamber with a long entrance passage. The enclosure was created with large standing stones around which a mound, now gone, was built out of stone and soil that was originally more than 80 feet in diameter.

A second phase of use in the last quarter of the 4th millennium B.C. saw the transformation of the funerary chamber into a collective burial ground and ossuary. About 100 bodies were added to the chamber over the next few centuries. Bodies were disarticulated and the remains repositioned, mixing up the skeletal remains. It was not a haphazard scattering. At least 15 different groupings of skulls and pelvises were found.

By the end of the millennium, only six of the original limestone megaliths were still standing, the entrance passage structures were gone and the former mound was just a few feet in diameter. At this point its funerary uses were over, but the site was still revered as a ceremonial and community center.

In July of 2018, archaeologists unearthed a skull from the second phase of funerary use at the Dolmen of El Pendón. It was broken and missing some parts, but the neurocranium was complete and in place, as were the nasal bone, cheek bones and lower maxilla. The skull was found lying on its right side facing the entrance of the burial chamber. Examination of the skull revealed that it belonged to a woman, likely of advanced age as she had lost all of her teeth and her thyroid cartilage was fully ossified.

Osteological examination and CT scans found that the external auditory canals of both ears had been enlarged. The edges of the cavities are smooth with no fractures or calluses. These cavities were enlarged by trepanation, the oldest surgical technique on the archaeological record. Seven cut marks on the edge of the trepanation cavity on the left ear are further evidence of surgical intervention. Given the early date of this find, metal was not involved here. The trepanation and the cuts were done with stone tools.

The inner surfaces of the cavities show evidence of the bone resorption changes often seen in mastoiditis, an infection of the mastoid bone just behind the ear, and in mastoid abscesses. An untreated middle ear infection can easily spread to the porous, honeycomb-like mastoid bone, and before the advent of antibiotics, mastoiditis from ear infections was a leading cause of death in children who are more prone to middle ear infections. The damage suffered in this skull, however, lacks the features seen in childhood ear infections. This was a recent illness.

Evidence of ear bone damage from mastoiditis or abscesses has been found before in ancient skulls, but there were no signs of any attempted surgical intervention nor of bone regrowth after recovery. This skull shows clear evidence of bone regeneration and remodeling.

The hypothesis proposed in this research is that the individual to whom the skull belonged was probably surgically intervened on both ears, with an undetermined period between both interventions. Based on the differences in bone remodelling between the two temporals, it appears that the procedure was first conducted on the right ear, due to an ear pathology sufficiently alarming to require an intervention, which this prehistoric woman survived. Subsequently, the left ear would have been intervened; however, it is not possible to determine whether both interventions were performed back-to-back or several months, or even years had passed. It is thus the earliest documented evidence of a surgery on both temporal bones, and, therefore, most likely, the first known radical mastoidectomy in the history of humankind.

The mummies of six children have been discovered in the tomb of the pre-Inca nobleman found at the Cajamarquilla archaeological site east of Lima, Peru, last November. Archaeologists found the set of six funerary bundles around the entrance of the tomb, plus scattered non-mummified skeletal remains of seven adults, at least three of them women, and one more child. These burials are believed to have been sacrifices. Dating to between 1,000 and 1,200 years old, this is the oldest mass sacrifice of children ever been found in Peru.

The man discovered last year was first estimated to be about 20 years old when he died, but follow-up examinations indicate he was older, between 35 and 40 years of age. His skull shows evidence of artificial cranial deformation. He was mummified in a tight crouch position with his hands over his face, bound in cloth and tied up with intricately knotted rope. The large tomb, just short of 10 feet long, and grave goods found with the bound mummy indicated he was someone of high status in Cajamarquilla society. The discovery of sacrificial human remains confirms he must have been a member of the elite, perhaps a ruler.

The children were deliberately mummified and cocooned tightly in cotton bundles tied with ropes, albeit in a different style of binding than the nobleman’s mummy. They may have been relatives and/or servants of the man in the central burial, and were likely sacrificed to accompany him to the afterlife. Inside some of the clay pots buried in the tomb are animal offerings — remains of guinea pigs, fish and camelids — and plants, including chili seeds, purple corn and peanuts.

Cajamarquilla was an important pivot of commerce between coastal Peru and the Andean highlands before the arrival of the Incas. Only a tiny fraction of the 170-hectare ancient mud brick city has been excavated, but recent discoveries indicate it was a prosperous, multi-cultural city with a population between 10,000 and 20,000 of diverse ethnicities from different areas of Peru.

The discovery occurred a few days ago in the area outside the tomb of the Cajamarquilla mummy, where extension work is being carried out on the excavations of the research project led by the bachelor Yomira Silvia Huamán, for her undergraduate thesis in Archeology of the National University of San Marcos (UNMSM), with the collaboration of archaeologists from the San Cristóbal de Huamanga University, Ayacucho.

“This finding will enrich the investigation that began last October, because, unlike the Cajamarquilla mummy found wrapped in ropes, the conditions of these 13 people show a change in traditions, a more coastal ritual,” Yomira said, after specifying that at first glance can be identified or will ratify the hypothesis that Cajamarquilla has been a place of cultural clash between people who came from the mountains with those who came from the coast.

All of the archaeological materials have been transported to the UNMSM laboratory. Select samples will be sent to laboratories in other countries for specialized DNA, strontium isotope and radiocarbon analysis.