Month: January 2026

First Roman marching camps discovered in Saxony-Anhalt

Ancient

The remains of four Roman marching camps have been discovered in Saxony-Anhalt, the first archaeological evidence of Roman legions reaching the Elbe River in the 3rd century. They are the northeasternmost camps ever found in Germania.

After the Emperor Augustus (r. 27 B.C. – 14 A.D.) tried and failed to conquer the Germanic tribes east of the Rhine, meeting Rome’s Waterloo at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 A.D., Roman military campaigns in Germania were largely kept within the boundary lines (Limes) of the Empire. They were defensive in response to incursions and punitive to deter future incursions.

Ancient sources do document campaigns in Germania libera (“free Germany”), but they’re sparse and of questionable reliability. Archaeological evidence is of paramount importance, therefore, to determine the accuracy of the historical accounts and get a fuller picture of Roman campaigns in Germany beyond the Limes.

Working with volunteer archaeologists, the State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt (LDA) used satellite imagery followed by aerial surveys to identify marching camps by marks left on the landscape.

Roman camps were highly standardized facilities. The typical rectangular camp enclosure had rounded corners. From the gates, the main camp roads, laid out at right angles, led into the interior. At the intersection of these roads stood the headquarters building, the principia. A characteristic feature of marching camps is the so-called titulum – a segment of ditch with a rampart located in front of the gate passages. The standardized ground plans can be clearly distinguished from other prehistoric or historic structures recorded in aerial photographs.

By examining aerial and satellite images, archaeologists identified two potential marching camps near Aken, one near Trabitz and one near Deersheim. They followed up with geophysical surveys and metal detector exploration of the sites.

During the metal prospecting, over 1,500 individual finds were detected and recorded. The majority of the finds are iron objects. The proportion of clearly identifiable modern material can be described as relatively small. The high number of nails and bolts is striking. Several fibula fragments and coins, which aid in dating the sites, were also recovered.

The geophysical measurements not only confirmed the information obtained from the aerial photographs but also substantially expanded it. While the entire structure was captured in the survey image in Deersheim, the presence of a titulum and a rounded corner of the ditch was confirmed in Trabitz.

Targeted excavations confirmed the findings, uncovering Roman V-shaped defensive ditches at all four locations. Radiocarbon dating results revealed the camps were created at the beginning of the 3rd century. Coins found there date to the same period.

The State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt is continuing its intensive research on the newly discovered Roman marching camps, promising entirely new insights into the presence of Roman troops in the Middle Elbe-Saale region. Should it be confirmed that the campaigns date back to the time of Emperor Caracalla, then the views of historians—who place Caracalla’s Germanic wars only in the immediate vicinity of the Limes—would need to be revised.

1,400-year-old Zapotec tomb found in southern Mexico

Ancient

A 1,400-year-old Zapotec tomb in exceptional condition has been unearthed in southern Mexico’s state of Oaxaca. According to President of Mexico Claudia Sheinbaum, the quality of the decoration, its excellent preservation and the new information it provides about Zapotec ritual, social hierarchy and ancestor worship make the tomb “the most important archaeological discovery of the last decade in Mexico.”

Archaeologists with the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) discovered the tomb in the municipality of San Pablo Huitzo in central Oaxaca when following up on an anonymous complaint for looting made in 2025. It contains reliefs, paintings and murals depicting motifs symbolizing death and power in Zapotec culture.

Over the entrance to the tomb is a large relief of an owl, symbol of night, power and death. The hooked upper mandible of its beak curves down over a red painted stucco face of a Zapotec lord bearing his teeth in a fierce expression. Archaeologists believe the face may have belong to an ancestor to whom the tomb was dedicated. The entrance is flanked by two large jambs, each of them carved with a female and a male figure wearing headdresses and carrying artifacts in both hands. They may be guardians of the tomb.

Inside the tomb is an antechamber with doorway leading into the burial chamber. A frieze above the lintel made of different stones engraved with calendrical names. Another pair of monumental jambs intricately carved with guarding figures flank the doorway under the lintel. The burial chamber walls are covered in a polychrome mural of a procession of people carrying bags of copal (a tree resin used as incense) towards the entrance. It is painted in ochre, white, green, red and blue pigments.

An interdisciplinary team from INAH Oaxaca is currently working to conserve and study the site. One of the most urgent challenges is stabilizing the mural paintings, which are threatened by roots, insects, and sudden changes in temperature and humidity.

At the same time, researchers are conducting ceramic, iconographic, and epigraphic analyses, as well as physical anthropology studies of the human remains. Together, these investigations aim to deepen understanding of the rituals, symbols, and burial practices associated with this elite Zapotec tomb.

Extraordinary find: 10th c. bronze wheel cross matches mold found 43 years ago

Medieval

A bronze wheel cross dating to the 10th or 11th century has been discovered in western Havelland, in Brandenburg, Germany. The small devotional object is extraordinary due to its age, bearing witness to the early Christianization of the Brandenburg region, but most remarkably, it exactly matches a casting mold found 43 years ago.

The cross was found by volunteer archaeological monument conservator Juliane Rangnow during an authorized metal detecting survey. She discovered several artifacts from the same period — coins, fragments of gilded jewelry and iron weapons — at the site. The mold it fits was unearthed in a 1983 excavation of a Slavic hillfort in Spandau. It was found next to the remains of a wooden church, and is one of the oldest Christian artifacts found in the region. No casting of the mold was discovered there or anywhere else, until now.

The cross was conserved and documented at the Brandenburg State Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeological State Museum (BLDAM). When precise measurements were taken, conservators realized it might be a match to the Spandau casting mold, now on display at the Museum of Prehistory and Early History in Berlin. When the two were compared, they were found to be a precise fit.

The casting mold and cross bear witness to the early Christianization of the region , one of the most fascinating periods in its history. In the early 10th century, the area of ​​present-day Berlin and Brandenburg, then inhabited by non-Christian Slavic tribes, fell under the influence of the East Frankish Kingdom, the precursor to the later Holy Roman Empire, through campaigns of conquest. The new elites brought with them not only a political reorganization but also a new faith. However, evidence of this initial Christianization is primarily preserved in historical written sources, as the majority of the Slavic tribes apparently deeply rejected the new religion. In 983, they rose up against East Frankish rule in the so-called Lutician Revolt and won their political and religious independence for approximately 150 years. A sustained Christianization did not occur until the 12th and 13th centuries, after the region had finally become part of the Holy Roman Empire as the Margraviate of Brandenburg.

The mold and the cross will be exhibited together at the Brandenburg State Archaeological Museum on January 24th through March 11th.

Regicide judge’s cool oak table chair up for auction

Modern(ish)

A handsome oak chair that converts into a table once owned by the judge who presided over the treason trial and death sentence of King Charles I is going under the hammer.

The chair is up for auction at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury, Wiltshire, on Tuesday, and is expected to be sold for between £1,500 and £2,500.

The inscription on the underside reads: “This chair belonged to John Bradshawe of Bradshawe Hall Derby SH presiding judge of the trial of King Charles I.” […]

Furniture specialist Mark Yuan Richards commented: “This is a powerful survival from one of the most turbulent moments in British history. Table chairs are rare in themselves, but one with a direct and explicit association to John Bradshaw is exceptional.

The House of Commons passed an act on January 6, 1649, creating a High Court of Justice specifically to adjudicate the charges of treason against King Charles I and there was little question of what their judgement would be. The court was to consist of 135 jurists. Many of them were Cromwell’s military officers, who had already an expressed preference to just kill the king directly without the pretense of a trial. There were MPs from 39 counties, and a few dozen members of Parliament who had attended Inns of Court (where student lawyers were trained) but had only learned the rudiments of law to attend to their business and political offices, and a handful of barristers of no distinction. Not a single peer was on the court.

Monarchs had been deposed before — Edward II, Richard II — simply by articles written by a bishop or by committees of legal luminaries/lords. Royalty we were tried an executed — two of Henry VIII’s wives, Lady Jane Grey, Mary Queen of Scots — were tried by nobles and ecclesiastical leaders. None of these precedents would do for the Cromwellian purpose, because the peerage, clergy and professional judiciary were vocally opposed to the execution of King Charles and considered the whole tribunal illegal.

Obviously the royalist supporters of the king who had fought on the Cavalier side of the civil war held this “court” to be nothing but a blatant attempt to cloak violence under guise of legality that had zero legitimacy under the norms of English law. They weren’t the only ones opposed, however. Even allies like the Scottish Presbyterians who had fought on the Parliamentarian side were horrified by this ginned-up court and its predetermined outcome.

In the end, only one actual practicing judge was willing to serve on the tribunal: John Bradshaw, Chief Justice of Chester. He presided over 21 of the 23 sessions as Lord President (he missed the first two). The majority of the membership were not present at the sessions. Records name 87 commissioners who attended the sessions with regularity. The most reliable faction to attend the sessions were the contingent of officers, and of course their commander-in-chief Oliver Cromwell.

The King was found guilty of treason on January 27th, 1649. Fewer than half of the appointed commissioners (57 of them) were present and stood in agreement to convict the King of being a “Tyrant, Traitor, Murderer, and a public enemy.” Only 59 signed his death warrant on January 30th. King Charles I was beheaded that same day.

Bradshaw benefited greatly from his role as regicidal judge. He presided over trials of other aristocratic Cavaliers, condemning them to death as well. He was elected President of the Council of State, the executive branch of government that replaced the executed King and his Privy Council, and appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, then as now a huge cash cow. He was opposed in principle to the Protectorate and in 1654 lost the Lancaster, but was reinstated as Chancellor by Cromwell’s son and heir as Lord Protector, Richard, in 1659. Later that year, he died from an illness and was buried at Westminster Abbey.

His death turned out to be timely. On May 29th, 1660, Charles I’s eldest son Charles was asked to return to England as monarch and was restored to his father’s throne. Charles II was not in a forgiving mood. On January 30th, 1661, 12 years to the day after King Charles I’s beheading, Charles II had the bodies of Oliver Cromwell, John Bradshaw and Parliamentarian general Henry Ireton exhumed and their corpses hanged in irons on the Tyburn gallows. They were then beheaded and their heads put on pikes at Westminster Hall. The bodies were tossed in a mass grave, as was the body of Bradshaw’s wife who had been buried next to him in Westminster Abbey.

Roman wooden writing tablets from Belgium deciphered

Ancient

Traces of writing on the wooden remains of Roman wax tablets found in Tongeren, Belgium, have been deciphered. They reveal new information about the city on the northern edge of the Roman Empire, including who lived there, the presence of high-ranking officials that have rarely been recorded in northern provinces and some proper names that have never been found before.

The tablets were deciphered by archaeologist and inscription expert Professor Dr. Markus Scholz at Goethe University Frankfurt. He and his team made headlines in December 2024 when they deciphered the 3rd century Frankfurt Silver Inscription, revealing the tightly rolled sheet of silver to be the earliest archaeological evidence of Christianity north of the Alps.

Thought to be the oldest city in Belgium, Tongeren was founded as the military fort of Atuatuca Tungrorum in around 10 B.C. It was located between the Scheldt and the Meuse river basins in what is now eastern Belgium. As often happened with Roman army bases, local civilians (in this case the Tungri people) settled there for the commercial opportunities. After the legions left during the reign of Tiberius (14-37 A.D.), the city continued to grow and prosper.

Atuatuca Tungrorum did suffer at least three major fires, one in the 1st century, one in the 2nd and one in the 3rd, but by the 4th century it was in decline, under pressure by Germanic invaders from across the Rhine. A heavier defensive wall was built at that time, but it was unable to keep out the Huns who destroyed much of the ancient city in 451 A.D.

Wooden fragments that proved to be the remains of writing tablets were first found in the Roman layers by archaeologists in the 1930s. The wood was the base and frame of the tablet. It would be coated with a thin layer of wax that would be written into with a sharp stylus. The wax was long gone when the tablets were found, and in the 30s archaeologists thought no traces of the writing were left behind on the wood.

The wood fragments were put in storage and forgotten until they were rediscovered by Else Hartoch, director of the Gallo-Romains Museum Tongeren, in 2020. Hartoch brought Prof. Scholz in to investigate the possible inscriptions as a pandemic project. It was a major challenge. The wood is grained, dried and cracked, so it’s hard to tell whether a line was written or just part of the wood. Some of the tablets had been reused, the old wax stripped off and new layers applied, so what traces of writing did remain on the wood were palimpsests, layers of writing on top of each other.

After much painstaking work and with the aid of imaging technology, Scholz and Prof. Dr. Jürgen Blänsdorf, emeritus professor at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, were able to decipher the tablets.

The 85 surviving fragments came from two different archaeological contexts. One assemblage was recovered from a well near the forum and other public buildings, where the tablets appear to have been deliberately destroyed and discarded. Throwing them into the well likely ensured that the information they contained could no longer be read — perhaps an ancient form of data protection. As Scholz and Blänsdorf discovered, many of these texts were contracts or official records. “When drafting contracts, scribes deliberately applied strong pressure so that the writing would be deeply impressed into the wood,” Scholz explains. The second group of fragments came from a muddy depression that was apparently filled with worn-out tablets and other refuse to aid drainage. Here, researchers also identified different types of texts, including administrative copies and pupils’ writing exercises — often the final use of already reused tablets — as well as a draft inscription intended for a statue of the future Emperor Caracalla, dating to 207 CE. […]

Only about half of the 85 fragments preserve identifiable traces of writing. Even so, the deciphered letters, words, and names have yielded significant historical insights. Among them is evidence that high political offices were also held in the Roman provinces. The tablets mention a decemvir, a senior magistrate, as well as lictores, attendants to leading state or municipal officials — roles that had previously been very rarely documented in the northern provinces of the Roman Empire. The texts also shed light on the people who lived in the region. Some individuals appear to have settled in Tongeren after completing their service in the Roman military, including veterans of the Rhine fleet. The names recorded on the tablets point to a remarkably diverse population, encompassing Celtic, Roman, and Germanic origins. Several of these names were previously unknown from other sources.

The full results of the investigation have been published in an illustrated scholarly volume rich in detail about the research and the findings. In deliriously good news for anyone who could use a 424-page rabbit hole to go down right now, the full monograph has also been made available in open access and can be downloaded as a pdf or read online here.