A paved ford believed to be of Roman construction has been discovered near Evesham in Worcestershire, England. If the path is confirmed to be Roman, it will be the only of its kind in Britain. The exact location of the find is being kept under wraps to protect the site, but a Roman-era villa complex across the river from the ford was discovered four years ago. The precision stonework also bears the hallmarks of Roman road-building skills.

The tightly cobbled path was discovered during routine water utility work on private property. The ford crosses a small brook today. The surviving section is 10 meters (32.8 feet) long and three meters (9.8 feet) deep at the deepest point. Ruts in the stones indicate it was used by carts for a long time.

“The stonework is absolutely perfect,” he said. “It just ticks every box for being Roman,” [Aidan Smyth, archaeology officer from Wychavon District Council,] said.

“When I came down to look at it, honestly, I thought it’s too good to be true.

“But then you look at the alluvium [a deposit of silt] that it’s filled up, so that hasn’t happened in one or two centuries. That’s taken millennia to be able to get that deep.

“The only place I can see similar when I was doing some research is in Pompeii. I can’t find anything else anywhere like that.”

The council will bring an archaeologist in to do a test excavation at the ford in order to date it and confirm that it is Roman construction.

More than 1,200 ram skulls sacrificed for the cult of the Pharaoh Ramses II have been discovered at the Temple of Osiris in the ancient city of Abydos. One of them was still wearing a tiny bell tied around its neck. The cult bell was decorated with four animal heads representing the deities and it is in excellent condition with a well-preserved working clapper. Archaeologists were able to ring it and hear its rich sound 1,000 years after it was buried.

The temple was the first one built by Ramses II. Construction began in the first year of his ascension to the throne, 1279 B.C. Foundation deposits laid at the time of the construction ceremony were found at the southwest corner of the temple in 2020. The offerings include Rameses’ throne name, construction tool models made of copper, pottery and grindstones. That same 2020 excavation unearthed ten large mud brick storerooms attached to the temple palace. The rooms were stocked with supplies and provisions for the temple, pottery, tools and assorted equipment.

Votive bull heads from the Ptolemaic period were found in twelve niches in the storeroom walls, indicating that a thousand years after Rameses built the temple, it was held as sacred as a temple not just to Osiris, but for the cult of Rameses himself. The rams heads were also found in a storage area. Some were still wrapped in fabric.

The skull sacrifice, which dates from around 2,000 years ago, was found at the site of an ancient temple to Osiris, the Egyptian god of death and resurrection. It was the first temple to be built by Ramses II but large parts of the complex have remained excavated until now.

“Usually cults of other pharaohs last for two or three centuries,” added Dr Iskander. “This is a thousand years. It says a lot about how important this pharaoh was in the mindset of Egyptians.”

Archaeologists have discovered a 10,500-year old cremation grave in Lüchow, Schleswig-Holstein, that contains the oldest known human remains ever found in northern Germany. The remains were discovered in the Duvensee bog, a prehistoric inland lake which contains more than 20 Mesolithic and Neolithic archaeological sites. The anaerobic environment of the bog preserves organic remains, even bones that have been burned, but there was so little left that it wasn’t until the team unearthed a human thigh bone that they were able to confirm they had found a burial.

Burials of the hunter-gatherer-fisher people who inhabited Europe in the early Mesolithic era are extremely rare. Mesolithic burials have been found before in the north of Germany and southern Scandinavia, but only from the Late Mesolithic (7th-6th millennia B.C.). The only burial comparable in time frame was found in Jutland, Denmark. It too is a cremation burial, which is an indication that cremation may have been the predominant burial practice among the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers.

The excavation revealed the presence of several bone pieces that were not completely charred. Excavation director Harald Lübke hopes they may be able to retrieve archaeological DNA from them. The entire grave was raised in a soil block for further excavation and study in laboratory conditions.

The oldest known North German raises a lot of questions. For example, according to the circumstances of death. In the case of burned bones, it is difficult to determine the cause of death, says Lübke. The entire Duvenseer Moor is a hotspot for archaeologists. “We’ve only opened a new door here at the moment. But behind it there are only dark rooms at the moment.” Due to their spectacular cremation find, they will probably continue digging there in the coming year.

A huge Roman-era mosaic with scenes from the Trojan War has been unearthed in the city of al-Rastan in central Syria. Dating to the 4th century A.D., the mosaic is 20 meters (65.6 feet) long and six meters (19.7 feet) wide for a total surface area of 120 square meters (1300 square feet) and that’s only the part that has been excavated. Archaeologists believe it continues under neighboring properties.

The long mosaic is divided into two large figural panels surrounded by thick borders of geometric designs including meanders, lozenges and double and triple-strand guilloche patterns. One figural panel features the god Neptune encircled by the Nereids, the 50 sea-nymphs who rode the waves in his entourage. One of them, Thetis, was the mother of Achilles. He appears in the second panel with the other heroes of Troy, their names labelled in Greek. The Amazons are also represented, which is rare for a Roman mosaic.

Founded by Seleucus I Nicator in the 3rd century B.C. as the city of Arethusa, Rastan was the first capital of the Emesani kingdom, a Roman client state. Its importance faded when neighboring Homs, the ancient city of Emesa, became the new capital in the 1st century B.C., but the area rose to global prominence in the 3rd century after Emperor Septimius Severus, born in Leptis Magna in Roman Libya, married the formidable Julia Domna, descendant of the Emesani royal family and native-born Emesan. People of wealth and nobility, even of imperial rank, who could afford the price tag of such a splendid mosaic, either in their private homes or funding its installation in a public building, lived in Arethusa.

It’s a miracle that this masterpiece, which has no parallels in the country for its size, subject matter, quality and condition, survived the decade of war so unscathed. The lucky break is even more evidence because the mosaic was first found when ISIS’ murderous despoilers controlled the area in 2017. They planned to tear the mosaic up and sell it to the highest bidder, and had even gone so far as to list it on the internet, but thankfully Syrian military retook the city in May 2018 before the worst could happen.

The property was later acquired by private donors from the Nabu Museum in neighboring northern Lebanon and donated to Syria. Archaeologists from the General Directorate of Antiquities and Museums were then finally able to excavate the full mosaic. It’s not clear what type of building it was that housed so splendid a floor. Public baths are one likely possibility.

Sulaf Fawakherji, a famous actress in Syria and a member of the Nabu Museum’s board of trustees said she hopes they could purchase other buildings in Rastan, which she says is filled with heritage sites and artifacts waiting to be discovered.

“There are other buildings, and it’s clear that the mosaic extends far wider,” Fawkherji told the AP. “Rastan historically is an important city, and it could possibly be very important heritage city for tourism.”

Despite Rastan’s historical significance in the country, Saad says there have not been significant excavation efforts in the town prior to the country’s armed conflict.