The remains of a tortoise and the egg she never laid have been discovered in Pompeii, but here’s a twist: she was not killed in the eruption of Vesuvius, but rather of natural causes sometime between the earthquake that struck the city in 62 A.D. and its destruction in 79 A.D. This is not the first tortoise found in Pompeii, but the others have been found in wealthy homes or gardens. She was found in a shop.

The discovery was made in an excavation of the Stabian baths on the Via dell’Abbondanza, Pompeii’s longest and busiest street. The site had once been a small building adjacent to the baths, but it was reduced to rubble by the earthquake. Eventually, the rubble was removed or compacted and the building was reconstructed as a shopfront attached to the baths.

In the southwest corner of the shop, behind a square basin that survived the earthquake, archaeologists found the remains of a female Testudo hermanni. She made tunneled her way into the room looking for a secure place to lay her one egg. She died there, likely as a result of dystocia, or egg retention, caused by a deficiency in the environment — lack of appropriate nesting materials, unpropitious climate — or her diet. Unless the egg is laid (or removed by human intervention), the animal dies.

The discovery of the tortoise is evidence that even the houses in the very heart of the city’s busiest thoroughfare were not immediately rebuilt after they were reduced to rubble by the earthquake. Instead, they were abandoned and so devoid of human presence that wild animals made homes for themselves there instead. When the shopfront was rebuilt after the earthquake, nobody noticed the poor deceased tortoise in the corner and she was buried in the construction fill that raised the floor level.

The tortoise was removed in three phases. First the carapace, which at just 5.5 inches long indicates the specimen was immature. (Adult carapaces are in the 8-10 inch range. Her youth could have also played a role in her inability to lay her egg.) The egg was removed with the carapace. The skeleton of the tortoise was removed next, and the plastron, the ventral part of the shell, last. The remains were transferred to Pompeii’s Applied Research Laboratory for further study by archaeozoologists.

Divers exploring the 1st century B.C. shipwreck off the islet of Antikythera, iconic as the source of the oldest analog computer in the world, have recovered the head of a Hercules statue whose body was found by the sponge divers who first discovered the wreck in 1900. The marble head is heroically scaled (twice life-sized) and even encrusted with sediment and marine life, the thick hair, curly beard and facial features identify it as a Hercules of the Farnese type. The headless body is in the permanent collection of the National Archaeological Museum of Athens.

The Farnese type depicts a Hercules leaning against his club that is draped in the skin of the Nemean lion. In his right hand behind his back he holds the apples of the Hesperides, the recovery of which was the last of his Twelve Labors. This, presumably, is why he is weary. A copy of a 4th century B.C. bronze original by Lysippos, the type was hugely popular and copied throughout the Greco-Roman world in different materials and sizes. The Farnese marble is signed by a Greek sculptor, Glykon, and dates to the early 3rd century A.D. It’s not known whether Glykon was working in Greece or if he had a shop in Rome catering to its wealthy elite who had an endless thirst for copies of Classical Greek originals.

The 2022 season of underwater archaeological research on the Antikythera shipwreck also recovered the plinth of a marble statue with legs still attached and numerous pieces of the ancient ship itself, including many nails and the lead collar of a wooden anchor. The divers also recovered extremely rare human remains: two teeth embedded in thick clumps of concretion. If all goes well, genetic and stable isotope analysis of the teeth will shed new light on the crew who sailed the merchant vessel 2,000+ years ago.

These finds were only made this year because the team was able to remove two enormous 8.5-ton boulders covering a portion of the wreck, a challenging proposition under the easiest conditions, never mind 165 feet under the sea. Divers can only remain at that depth for 30 minutes, so moving giant boulders is both mechanically difficult and dangerous. It was necessary, however, to give archaeologists access to previously unexplored areas of the wreck.

The remains of a 1st century Roman sanctuary have been discovered in the town of Herwen-Hemeling on the Roman Limes in the eastern Netherlands. While Roman sanctuaries have been found before in the Netherlands, this is the first discovered on the Lower German Limes. It is also by far the most complete, with surviving altars, structures, sculptures and sacrifice pits.

The first remains were encountered late last year by archaeological volunteers surveying a clay mining area. They reported the find to the Dutch Cultural Heritage Agency which stopped clay extraction and arranged for a professional excavation. The dig immediately revealed several intact fibulae of different types, followed by an avalanche of archaeological materials like fragments of weapons, harness fittings, roof tiles stamped with the maker’s names and votive altars both intact and in fragments.

The sanctuary was used mainly by soldiers. This is clear from the many stamps on the roof tiles, because the manufacture of roof tiles was a military activity at that time. Many fragments of horse harnesses, armour and the tips of spears and lances have also been found at the site. High-ranking Roman officers erected dozens of votive stones to give thanks to a god or goddess for fulfilling their wishes. These did not always relate to winning battles. Simply surviving a stay in these northern regions, sometimes far from home, was often reason enough to give thanks.

What the sanctuary at Herwen-Hemeling demonstrates very well is how much migration there was during that period. The men who came here to offer sacrifices had been in Hungary, Spain and Africa. And they brought their gods with them.

Architectural finds include a well with a large stone staircase leading down into the water. Thanks to coins and inscription fragments found within, archaeologists were able to date the well to an impressively tight range of 220-230 A.D. These are rare survivals, having somehow managed to dodge the fate of so many other Roman structures in the Netherlands and elsewhere: being recycled as building materials after the collapse of imperial rule.

Dating of the artifacts indicates the temple complex was in constant use from the 1st century through the 4th. The unprecedented number of stone fragments from hundreds of years of votive altars and statues have been found, many with legible inscriptions that name deities and the men who dedicated the altars to them to fulfill a vow made and/or in gratitude for an answered prayer. Among the named deities are Hercules Magusanus (a syncretic Romanized local god), Jupiter-Serapis and Mercury.

There were at least two temples in the sanctuary, one larger and one smaller in Romano-Celtic fanum style. The larger temple had a tiled roof. Fragments of reliefs and painted plaster indicate both were vividly painted with polychrome walls. The sanctuary was built at the junction of the Rhine and Waal rivers on a natural hill that the builders then heightened artificially. It was a stone’s throw from the Castellum Carvium, an auxiliary fort on the south bank of the Lower Rhine, and a slightly longer stone-throw from the next Roman auxiliary fort six miles away in the village of Loo. (Both of those sites are known only from portable archaeological material — bronze vessels, bricks, horse fittings — because whatever was left of the forts after the structures were used as quarries was destroyed by Rhine floods.) Interesting note: the name Carvium was a Latinized derivative of the Germanic word Harh-wiha meaning “sacred space” and archaeologists have long hypothesized that it may have been a reference to a nearby sanctuary. Hypothesis confirmed!

The artifacts recovered from the site are going on display in a dedicated exhibition at the Valkhof Museum in Nijmegen from June 24th through the 30th of September.