Free Republic

In 2009 or 2010, three looted sculptures were taken from the ancient city of Palmyra. Several years later, customs officers in Switzerland seized them at a Geneva freeport. At last, they’re heading home to Syria, the Art Newspaper reports. The three sculptures date back to the second and third centuries B.C.E., when Palmyra was still a nexus of trade, possibly during the rule of Queen Zenobia. One of the sculptures is a bust of a priest wearing a ceremonial headpiece. The sculpture was badly damaged by the looters when they removed it from the site, as the head once had...

...Skull binding spread across central Asia in the second century B.C., expanded into Europe around the second and third centuries A.D. and became increasingly popular in central Europe by the first half of the fifth century A.D., according to the authors... For the new study, researchers examined 51 elongated skulls from burials in the Mözs graveyard, in what was once a Roman province known as Pannonia Valeria. The graves, 96 in all, were divided into three groups and represented three generations, from A.D. 430 until the cemetery was abandoned in A.D. 470. The first burial group is thought to be...

Archaeologists have unearthed part of an unknown Roman Era public building in the southern Bulgarian city of Plovdiv which bears traces from the Invasion of the Roman Empire by the Goths in 250-251 AD when the Goths went as far south as Philipopolis (Plovdiv's predecessor) and ransacked it... emergency excavations at Plovdiv's Antiquity Odeon made headlines from the start when the archaeological team discovered a medieval grave from the 11th-12th century with an arrow in the chest of the buried person. Subsequent digs, however, revealed deeper a room from an unknown Antiquity building with three floor levels built one on...

Historians agree that some of the Roman military campaigns were motivated by the need to find and control ore reserves required for coinage. Monetary payments were made for a while using un-coined bronze called aes rude and cast bronze ingots called aes signatum. Rome eventually built its own mint and coined silver denarii and smaller coins of bronze. During Emperor Augustus’ reign, a gold coin called aureus was minted, which could be exchanged into silver denarii. Because the Greeks kept their silver drahms as a basis for their monetary system, money exchangers of various currencies were found in large cities....

We present the authentication and analysis of these beautiful Dacian bracelets of the first century BC, originally pillaged by treasure hunters and recovered thanks to an international crime chase. They were originally fashioned from gold panned from the rivers or dug from the mines of Transylvania and hammered into the form of coiled snakes. The lack of context is the greatest loss, but a votive purpose is likely given their proximity to the great sacred centre at Sarmizegetusa Regia. links to the PDF version of the article, if available.

Romanian archaeologists have unearthed an unknown Roman stronghold dating back more than 2,000 years in the southwest Mehedinti County, Romanian Rompres news agency reported on Wednesday. The archaeologists discovered that the fortification, in the Izvoarele locality, was from the time of the Roman emperor Diocletian, showing that it was built after the Romans withdrew their armies from Dacia (271-274 BC). The fortification was one of the strongholds in the defence system built by the Romans along the Danube. Manager of the local Iron Gates Region Museum Ion Stanga said the discovery was very important for Romanian history, "as it proves...

Amazon Warrior WomenThis painting on a Greek vase depicts an Amazon woman warrior on horseback engaged in battle.Amazons in myth: History's first mention of a race of warrior women comes in Homer's ILIAD, an account of the Trojan War, probably written in the 8th to the 7th century B.C. Homer's Amazons, a race of fierce women who mated with vanquished male foes and kept only the female children they bore, were believed to occupy the area around the Black Sea. Amazon women also crop up in other Greek myths. One of the labors of Hercules, for example, required him to...

Islamic State militants have blown up the Arch of Triumph, a major monument in the 2,000-year-old Roman city of Palmyra, Syria's antiquities chief said on Sunday, after they destroyed two ancient temples at the central Syrian site in recent months. Maamoun Abdulkarim told Reuters that sources in Palmyra had confirmed that the Arch of Triumph, a jewel in the exquisite collection of ruins in the oasis city, had been blown up.Islamic State militants have blown up temples at the Roman-era UNESCO World Heritage site, which it has controlled since capturing Palmyra from Syrian government forces in May and mined other...

Zoe Adjonyoh pulled her fedora down and made for Oxford in search of buried treasure. A very rare and exciting Roman discovery is now on show at Oxford's Ashmolean Museum. One year ago, 5000 Roman coins were found in a field in Oxfordshire. When British Museum experts examined the hoard, they were surprised to find a coin that confirms the existence of the ‘lost’ Emperor Domitianus. The coin was unearthed by local treasure hunter Brian Malin in April 2004, in a field ten miles south-east of Oxford with the aid of his trusty metal detector. Mr Malin swiftly took the...

Archeologists say they have traced the origins of the first Christmas to be celebrated on 25 December, 300 years before the birth of Christ. The original event marked the consecration of the ancient world's largest sun god statue, the 34m tall, 200 ton Colossus of Rhodes. It has long been known that 25 December was not the real date of Christ's birth and that the decision to turn it into Jesus's birthday was made by Constantine, the Roman Emperor, in the early 4th century AD. But experts believe the origins of that decision go back to 283 BC, when, in...

Dr. Rami Arav... is director of excavation and research at the University of Nebraska at Omaha's Bethsaida Excavations Project, a 24-year effort to uncover the archaeological mysteries of the biblical-era city. The coin, which weighs 7 grams, is 97.6 percent gold, Arav said. The find was unexpected because Bethsaida primarily was home to humble fishermen, he said. Arav said somebody must have been doing good business a little more than 100 years after the birth of Christ. The gold coin, about three-quarters of an inch in diameter, carries the image of Antoninus Pius, the 15th Roman emperor, who reigned between...

In 271 AD, Roman Emperor Aurelian (r. 270-275 AD) transformed the province of Moesia Superior into the province of Dacia Aureliana with its capital at Serdica (today's Sofia), after vacating Dacia Traiana beyond the Danube. Around 283 AD, Dacia Aureliana was divided into two provinces, Dacia Mediterranea, with its capital at Serdica, and Dacia Ripensis ("Dacia from the banks of the Danube") with its capital at Ratiaria (Colonia Ulpia Ratiaria)... In addition to the portico, i.e. a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, the archaeologists have also unearthed the stylobate, the platform upon...

The Alemanni, Juthungi and Marcomanni invaded the empire in force, before even the Vandals had finished withdrawing. Once more northern Italy had to endure a force of barbarians descending upon it from the Alps... Aurelian rushed back to... Placentia. But the legions were no match for the barbarians this time and Aurelian suffered a severe defeat (AD 271)... If Aurelian had suffered a setback, he was still far from beaten. The barbarians now made one crucial mistake. In order to cover more ground - and so reap more plunder - they split up their huge army into several smaller forces....

There are fears for the future of Rome's ancient Aurelian walls after chunks collapsed on Tuesday. A major street was closed in the Italian capital after bricks from the nearly 2000-year old wall fell down. The city's archaeological authorities want to save the historic treasure, but they claim protection and restoration is limited due to poor financial resources, according to the Italian daily, Il Messaggero. Authorities told the daily that whenever chunks of the walls collapse, the area is usually fenced off, but restoration work is almost never completed due to a lack of funds. "Their maintenance is a recurrent...