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A PhD candidate at Rice University translated the letter in its entirety, as part of his work in papyrology. In 2012, when Grant Adamson was still a student at Rice University in Houston, he finished deciphering the contents of the letter that an Egyptian soldier named Aurelius Polion (a volunteer in the Roman legions) sent his family 1,800 years ago.If it is surprising that Aurelius was able to read and write (the letter is written in koine Greek, the lingua franca of the Mediterranean colonies of the Roman Empire), the content of the letter is all the more touching. The...

I recently went to the Getty Villa on the Malibu coastline in California, and wandered around looking at the antiquities of ancient Rome and Greece. Currently, the display features some very intricate mosaics, decorated vases, and several funereal portraits that would apparently decorate the mummies of the aristocratic dead. What struck me most is how detailed, beautiful, and lifelike were the renditions of humans and animals. The lions snarled, the snakes writhed, the warriors flexed, and the portraits of the dead, almost all of them tragically young, gazed with hope and eagerness, and bright expressive eyes. Western art has always...

The eyes of a visiting archaeologist lit up when he was shown the 10 tiny, tarnished discs that had sat unnoticed in storage for two and a half years at a dig on a southern Japan island. He had been to archaeological sites in Italy and Egypt, and recognized the “little round things” as old coins, including a few likely dating to the Roman Empire. “I was so excited I almost forgot what I was there for, and the coins were all we talked about,” said Toshio Tsukamoto of the Gangoji Institute for Research of Cultural Property in Nara, an...

The coins were excavated from the ruins of Katsuren Castle in Okinawa Prefecture, according to the Japan Times, noting that this is the country’s first discovery of its kind. Citing the Board of Education in the city of Uruma, the Japan Times reports that the four copper coins are believed to be from the third to fourth centuries. ... X-ray analysis of the coins has apparently revealed the image of Emperor Constantine I and a soldier carrying a spear. Each coin measures 0.6 inches to 0.8 inches in diameter, according to the report.

Japanese archaeologists said Wednesday they have for the first time unearthed ancient Roman coins at the ruins of an old castle. The discovery of 10 bronze and copper coins -- the oldest dating from about 300-400 AD -- in southern Okinawa caught researchers by surprise. It was the first time Roman Empire coins have been discovered in Japan, thousands of kilometres from where they were likely minted. "At first I thought they were one cent coins dropped by US soldiers," archaeologist Hiroki Miyagi told AFP. "But after washing them in water I realised they were much older. I was really...

Rome’s all-conquering military machine holds a special place in our minds. Its efficiency and discipline made a small city on the Italian peninsula rule over most of the Western world, from the British Isles to the Near East and from the Rhine to North Africa. This list offers some interesting facts about the Roman army, some of which can explain part of its success and also its failures. 10 Seasonality And War During the Romans’ early history, the logistical challenges of conducting a war meant that the Romans only fought between sowing and harvest (during the summer). Rome was an...

Researchers led by Gordon Noble of the University of Aberdeen returned to a farmer’s field in northeastern Scotland where a hand pin, chain, and spiral bangle all made of silver in the fourth or fifth centuries A.D. had been found more than 170 years ago. According to a report in Live Science, on the second day of the investigation, the team, which had the assistance of metal detectorists, found three Roman silver coins, a silver strap end, a piece of a silver bracelet, and pieces of hack silver. Over a period of 18 months, they gathered a total of 100...

A recently completed restoration and exhibit shows how Christians put their mark on Rome after the emperors exited the stage.For 1200 years the Roman Forum thrived as the legislative, religious and administrative nerve center of Rome. From the little kingdom founded in 753 BC to the SPQR of the Roman Republic to the mighty Empire, the little open area grew from marketplace to city center to hub of the world. But then what happened? When the Empire fell in 476, did the Forum just cease to be? No, it did not. Despite the implosion of the Roman government, the Forum...

JP Morgan may cut up to 4,000 UK jobs if there is a vote to leave the European Union, its chief executive has warned. Jamie Dimon said that Brexit would "be a terrible deal" for the UK economy.

An archaeological dig has turned up the earliest known handwritten documents in Britain among hundreds of Roman waxed writing tablets. Some 410 wooden tablets have been discovered, 87 of which have been deciphered to reveal names, events, business and legal dealings and evidence of someone practising writing the alphabet and numerals. With only 19 legible tablets previously known from London, the find from the first decades of Roman rule in Britain provides a wealth of new information about the city's earliest Romans.

The geraniums grew in an oblong stone vessel, and no one ever thought much about it. But when Luke Irwin, a rug designer in the county of Wiltshire, England, hired workmen to lay electric cables under his yard, so that his son could have light in a barn when the family played table tennis, they uncovered an intricate mosaic floor of red, blue and white tiles only 18 inches down. Mr. Irwin called the local council, which sent archaeologists who discovered the remains of a lavish Roman villa under his extensive yard, and told him that the flowers were growing...

That sincere dialogue among men and women of different faiths may produce the fruits of peace and justice...

Made from ancient grape varieties grown in Pompeii, 'Villa dei Misteri' has to be one of the world's most exclusive wines. The grapes are planted in exactly the same position, grown using identical techniques and grow from the same soil the city's wine-makers exploited until Vesuvius buried the city and its inhabitants in AD 79. In the late 1800s, archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli first excavated some of the city's vineyards from beneath three metres of solid ash. The digs turned up an almost perfect snapshot of ancient wine-growing - and thirteen petrified corpses, huddled against a wall. Casts were made of...

Aerial flood maps of Britain are revealing more than just at-risk regions - they have also led to the discovery of several Roman roads. Amateur archaeologists have been able to use the flood-mapping technology to trace the paths of Roman roads which have remained buried under the land for some 1,600 years. The aerial flood maps were created by aircraft equipped with laser scanners which measure the distance between the aircraft and the ground. Using light detection and ranging (Lidar) technology, the Environment Agency was able to detect the areas of Britain which are most at risk of flooding. The...

A GOP leader in the Miami-Dade community has bucked conventional wisdom by endorsing a Republican presidential candidate that isn't Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio.In a letter published on Christmas Day in the Miami Herald, the Republican Party of Miami-Dade's Vice Chairman, Manny Roman, throws his support behind Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Both Bush and Rubio call the Miami-Dade County area home.Roman writes he "had every reason to support Senator Rubio," calling him "well-liked," and acknowledges him as a colleague at Florida International University, where Rubio often teaches politics.Instead, Roman writes that Cruz breaks through the noise and the "overwhelming indirect...

Researchers, led by Jovan Hutton Pulitzer, claim they have evidence that Roman ships visited North America 'during the first century or earlier.' Their theory centers on the discovery of what they believe to be a Roman sword on Oak Island, off Nova Scotia.

A stained glass portrait of St Augustine After Mary Beard's list of important Romans, here's mine...Mary Beard has done more than anyone else, I think, to bring ancient Rome alive, and over at the Guardian she provides us with her list of the ten best ancient Romans. Lists are very personal things, and everyone will have a rival version, so I cannot resist submitting my own. Here are ten people we call all learn from, indeed need to learn from, in the order in which they popped into my head.1. Aurelius Augustinus, better known as St Augustine of Hippo,...

Aerial Image of the foundation of a Roman stone building. Length of the leveling staff (White) at the upper edge of the Picture: 5 meters. Credit: Dennis Braks ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- During their first Gernsheim dig last year, Frankfurt University archaeologists suspected that a small Roman settlement must have also existed here in the Hessian Ried. Now they have discovered clear relics of a Roman village, built in part on the foundations of the fort after the soldiers left. This probably occurred around 120 AD. At the time the cohort (about 500 soldiers) was transferred from the Rhine to the Limes, and...

A Roman-built ampitheatre has been used for the public execution of captured prisoners of war before an audience for the first time in perhaps 1,500 years, after ISIS forces captured the classical ruins at Palmyra last week. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports twenty prisoners, thought to be captured Syrian soldiers who had attempted to defend the ancient city from the Islamic State, were put to death before an audience of militants and locals. The observatory reports the ampitheatre dead were just a few of the near-70 executed in the area so far, on suspicion of being enemy forces,...

An ancient god has resurfaced in Israel thanks to what archaeologists say is a one-of-a-kind discovery. University of Haifa researchers were digging at what's believed to be an ancient basalt armory outside Sussita—which the Jerusalem Post reports was once the Roman city of Antiochia Hippos—when a ball from a ballista, an ancient missile weapon, appeared two weeks ago. As it was made of limestone rather than basalt, archaeologists suspected it was an enemy missile and turned to a metal detector to search for a coin that might date the projectile. It found something far bigger: a 2,000-year-old bronze mask larger...