Free Republic

Scenes of gladiators battling wild beasts before packed crowds in Roman arenas are common in today's popular culture. Ancient written sources record that one animal commonly chosen for these contests was the brown bear (Ursus arctos), though no direct physical evidence of this had ever been found. However, La Brújula Verde reports, a multidisciplinary research team led by Nemanja Marković of Serbia's Institute of Archaeology has recently confirmed that a fragmented animal skull recovered from the Roman city of Viminacium in eastern Serbia belonged to a brown bear that had suffered years in captivity. The animal bone was originally unearthed...

Archaeologists in Serbia have unearthed an ancient Roman triumphal arch dating back to the third century at Viminacium, a Roman city near the town of Kostolac, 70 km (45 miles) east of Belgrade.Viminacium (Viminacium) or Viminatium, was a major city (provincial capital) and military camp of the Roman province of Moesia (today’s Serbia), and the capital of Moesia Superior.It included most of the territory of modern eastern Serbia, Kosovo, north-eastern Albania, northern parts of North Macedonia (Moesia Superior), Northern Bulgaria, Romanian Dobruja, and small parts of Southern Ukraine (Moesia Inferior).Professor Miomir Korac, one of Serbia’s leading archaeologists, said that the...

The ship was discovered by an excavator crew at the Drmno mine. It is the second such discovery in the area, which contains the Roman settlement known as Viminacium.Lead archaeologist Miomir Korac said previous findings suggest the ship may date back as far as the third or fourth century, when Viminacium was the capital of the Roman province of Moesia Superior and had a port near a tributary of the Danube River.Mladen Jovicic, who is part of the team working on the newly discovered ship, said moving the 13-meter hull without breaking it will be tough. "Our engineer friends...will prepare...