A Roman necropolis from 1st through the 3rd centuries A.D. has been uncovered in Hyères in the Var department of southeastern France. Located outside the walls of ancient Olbia along a Roman coastal road, the burial ground contains at least 160 cremation structures.

The city was founded in 325 B.C. on the site of a former Phoenician settlement as the colony of Olbia by the Greek Massiliotes (inhabitants of ancient Marseilles). It was established as a fortified port, providing shelter and military protection for Massalian shipping. It remained a sparsely populated fortress town until Julius Caesar’s capture of Massalia in 49 B.C. Under Roman control, it separated from its mother colony and grew as a port town in its own right. It was inhabited until the 7th century A.D. when its residence fled to higher ground due to severe flooding.

When the burial complex was in use, Olbia was part of the Roman colony of Arles. Typical of Roman funerary practices of the time, only cremation burials have been found there. They consisted of pyres built over rectangular pits. The deceased’s body was placed on the pyre with pottery and grave goods arranged around them. The hot fire burned the logs of the pyre, whitened and cracked the bones, melted glass bottles and bronze artifacts, and everything collapsed into the pit.

After the cremation fire stopped burning, sometimes unburned grave goods were added to the pits. Other times the pits were emptied of grave goods and the cremated remains placed inside in piles.

Unburned objects such as glass perfume bottles, vases, etc., were placed in these tombs. A distinctive feature of Olbia is that most of them are surmounted by a libation channel for liquid offerings (wine, beer, mead) to honor the deceased or ensure their protection. Indeed, perfume, coins, lamps, and libations could also be offered to the deities. These makeshift channels were mostly fashioned from amphorae, evidence of maritime trade in Olbia.

The libation channels were placed in the pit or mounted to a roof of tiles installed over the grave to protect the remains. The pit was then filled up to the head of the deceased. The soil fill doubled as structural support for the new libation conduit, keeping the semi-circular tiles vertical and facing each other.

A 2,200-year-old Celtic gold coin discovered near Leipzig by a metal detectorist is the oldest coin found in Saxony. It is one of only 11 Celtic coins ever found in Saxony, and one of those is lost. Out of the ten remaining, only one of them is gold and it is worn smooth, unlike this one which is in like-new condition.

The coin was discovered in July by metal detectorist Daniel Fest. He is certified by the Saxon State Office for Archaeology (LfA) to scan for archaeological materials which he turns over to cultural heritage authorities when he finds any. It was examined by State Archaeologist Dr. Regina Smolnik who identified it a gold quarter stater originating in the Celtic settlement area of Bohemia.

It is half the diameter of a penny and weighing just two grams. Also known as a rainbow cup coin, the quarter stater is domed and legend has it that these coins fell out of the sky at the end of a rainbow. It is incredibly pure, composed of 99% gold, and in near-mint condition. It dates to the 3rd century B.C.

The obverse depicts a stylized head of an animal facing forward with eyes on each side of a long nose, horns and a large forehead bump. The reverse of the coin has an open circle shape with widened ends: a torc with trumpet terminals. Inside the torc is a five-pointed star with rounded points, and a sphere at the bottom center of the star above the torc terminals. Torcs were powerful protective amulets and symbols of aristocracy in Celtic society. They were used as an artistic motif as well, and appear on five denominations of gold and silver coins minted in Bohemia starting in the late 3rd century B.C.

Gold quarter staters are very rare, only minted in the early phase of Celtic coin production in northern Bohemia. They were soon replaced by 1/3 staters, fed by the trade in high-value Baltic amber. Only a handful of examples of the few documented types of Bohemian gold quarter staters are known to exist.

State archaeologist Regina Smolnik: “Celtic coins are a rarity in Saxony. Although Saxony lies outside the Celtic settlement area, this valuable new find is further evidence that there were regular contacts and connections. While we refer to the object as a ‘coin,’ it can be assumed that this almost mint-fresh new find was hardly in circulation in the sense of a coin economy. Rather, it was likely a status symbol or a store of value for an upper class with trade relations with the Celts.”

The coin will be transferred to the LfA Museum in Chemnitz and will be put on public display.

The tomb of an Avar warrior containing a rare luxury saber with an intact blade and hilt has been discovered near Székesfehérvár in central Hungary. The burial dates to around 670-690 A.D., and was damaged in antiquity, but in a break from the norm, only the human remains were targeted, not the valuable grave goods.

The head, chest and abdomen of the buried warrior had been mutilated during the Avar period, with only the arms and lower body bones remaining in anatomical order. However, the “perpetrators” of the Avar period disturbance were not interested in the saber, the arrowheads that were probably once in a quiver, the long knife that was perhaps also used as a weapon, or the man’s silver belt fittings, gilded braid ties and glass bead earrings; they left all of these in the grave, some of them untouched and without moving them.

A team of archaeologists from the Szent István Király Museum excavated the grave in late August. Recovering the saber proved a challenging task because it had become brittle over the centuries, and could easily have been damaged in the attempt. The museum’s volunteers solved the problem by creating a bespoke wooden cradle to lift the saber in a soil block, keeping it safely intact for transport to the conservation lab where it could be excavated in controlled conditions.

Once fully liberated from the soil block, the saber’s quality leapt to the fore. It is long, with an elegant sweeping curve and traces of decoration on the blade. Its design and ornamentation make it one of the rarest examples of Avar swords ever discovered. The elaborate decoration of the gilded and silver jewelry and belt ornaments confirm the wealth and status of the deceased.

The Pannonian Avars appeared in what is now Hungary in the middle of the 6th century. By the beginning of the 7th, they had settled the Danube basin and established the Avar Khaganate from what is today Austria to the Pontic steppe. The burial dates to the Middle Avar period, when the khaganate was at its zenith. The grave and its contents attest to the exceptional metalworking skill available to the elite in the Avar kingdom of the late 7th century.

An excavation earlier this year of the Pertosa-Auletta Caves in the province of Salerno, southern Italy, unearthed thousands of artifacts, including an extremely rare Bronze Age chisel with its wooden handle still intact and attached.

The Pertosa-Auletta Caves is the only cave system in Italy with a navigable river, and visitors are taken on guided tours by boat to an underground waterfall and the Great Hall, an enormous chamber 80 feet high. There is evidence of human occupation of the cave going back 8,000 years. The presence of the river has preserved organic materials in the cave, and previous excavations unearthed a prehistoric pile dwelling from the 2nd millennium B.C., a unique example on the European archaeological record of a pile house built in a subterranean environment.

Many of the artifacts recovered in the most recent campaign had a ritual purpose. Archaeologists identified coins, ornaments, unguent vessels, incense burners, sculpted figures and burned plant remains as deposits for an important cult structure built in the Hellenistic era (4th-1st century B.C.) in the underground riverbed. Among the notable objects found in the sacred area were a large piece of precious amber and a terracotta sculpture of a female head. They also found an extension of the 3,500-year-old pile dwelling.

The January-February excavation was part of a new three-year campaign that is scheduled to resume next month. For the first time, high school students will participate in the fieldwork thanks to a work training program that will give them the very special opportunity to learn about speleo-archaeological processes first-hand.