Romulus Murder Site to be On Display

Romulus and brother Remus and the she-wolf from an image on an ancient Roman coin.


After a half-century of being hidden beneath a slab of concrete, people will be able to view the black marble paving stones ~ called the “Lapis Niger” ~ where Romulus, the first king of Rome, was brutally murdered.

Professor Angelo Bottini, Superintendent of Archeology in Rome, said the underground spot where Romulus is traditionally said to have been killed and dismembered, had been covered over with cement since the 1950s. Recent rains had damaged the covering, and he’s decided to remove it.

According to legend the twins Romulus and Remus jointly founded Rome in the eighth century BC. Romulus became sole ruler after killing Remus in a dispute over omens indicating which of them had the support of the gods. However, Romulus fell foul of the Senate, and was murdered at the age of 53 in 717 BC. According to the historian Plutarch, the senators were "exasperated by the imperious behaviour of Romulus toward them, and plotted against his life.”

She-Wolf or Prostitute?

Legend has it that Romulus and Remus were the grandsons of Numitor, ruler of the kingdom of Alba Longa who was deposed by his brother Amulius. The brother ordered a slave to kill the twins, but instead they were cast into a river in a basket and saved by a she-wolf, who suckled them until a shepherd found them.

Some scholars believe the word "Lupa" refers not to a wild animal but to a woman, since it was the nickname for a prostitute.

Click here for the Times of London article.

Ancient Welsh Fortress is Digitally Unearthed

The digital re-creation of the fort, minus the overgrowth.

The fortress today, hidden beneath centuries of trees and undergrowth.


A massive Iron Age hill fortress that once loomed over the Welsh countryside now has been digitally reconstructed. The Iron Age hill fort in central Wales was a major feat of civil engineering, researchers say.

Gaer Fawr, a 2,900-year-old structure, has been consumed by woods and foliage. "Because Gaer Fawr is densely wooded, it's been little understood in the past," said Royal Commission archaeologist Toby Driver."Our new survey has shown what a very impressive and advanced building it was. This was a very bold architectural statement by Iron Age people."

The survey undertaken by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales. It involved thousands of measurements taken in 2007, which were used build a digital terrain model of the 21-acre site. Measurements were made manually using lasers beamed to handheld posts, each bearing a reflector, Driver said.

"The thought behind the survey was that if we could map the contours underneath the woods, we could then strip the trees off and then see what the fort looked like in the landscape," he added.

The results show the oval-shaped stronghold was defended by five tiers of stone-faced earthen ramparts, each measuring up to 26 feet in height.

Click here for the National Geographic article.

Peruvian Ruins Said to be 5,500 Years Old

The ancient Peruvian settlement ruins were unearthed about nine miles from Palpa, above, south of Lima.

Peruvian and German archaeologists has discovered a 5,500-year-old human settlement near the southern town of Nazca, south of Lima.

"The find consists of a group of homes in which 19 graves were found, including the remains of a child younger than one with possible evidence of having been mummified," reported the newspaper El Comercio.

The article also said the find is the first discovery in southern Peru of an inhabited site corresponding to the late portion of the archaic period some 3,500 years before Christ.

Ornaments in Graves

One of the project researchers said that the excavations made at the site since last October enabled the team to find the remains of eight small oval-shaped and circular homes made by digging deep pits in the ground. Also found were up to 19 graves of children and adults interred individually inside the homes, which would seem to indicate that they were buried there after the homes were abandoned.

In some of the graves, archaeologists found carved bones and snail-shells, deer horns, necklaces and bracelets made from shells, but there was no concrete evidence of offerings to the dead or to dieties.

The researchers are seeking to expand their knowledge about the culture of southern Peru in the early epochs from about 5,500 years ago up to the Inca civilization in the 16th century.

Click here for the Latin American Herald Tribune article.

Chinese May Have Worn Red 15,000 Years Ago

Researchers believe the color red could have been used in Chinese clothing 15,000 years ago.

According to Li Zhanyang, a researcher with Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, an excavation team at the Xuchang ruins recently found from the soil strata dating back 15,000 years ~ the late Paleolithic Era ~ more than 20 pieces of hematite, one of iron oxides commonly used as a dyestuff, alongside three dozen thin instruments made of animal tooth enamel, plus seven needles made of the upper cheek tooth enamel of a rhinoceros sub-species now extinct.

It is the first time in China that iron oxide of such high concentration has been excavated from the ruins of the late Paleolithic Era, said Li. "Through excavation, we are confident that these hematite were deliberately brought to the Xuchang ruins from afar by ancient people, as Xuchang does not produce such minerals."

The Xuchang ruins made headlines in foreign media in January when Chinese archaeologists found a human skull dating back at least 80,000 years in the ruins.

"I believe the people who lived there might have used hematite to dye clothes, which was quite different from Upper Cave Man at Zhoukoudian of Beijing who used hematite as a sacrifice to the dead, or from Europe, where ancient people there used hematite to draw cave murals."

Li said lab work proved the thin instruments made of animal tooth enamel might have be used as articles similar to buttons in present times.

"There has been evidence suggesting people dating back 15,000 years could have made advanced fur apparel. If that is true, the most popular color might have been red," said the Chinese archaeologist.

Click here for the China View article.

Fable Number 173 ~ The Man Bitten by the Dog

A man who had just been badly bitten by a dog was looking for someone who could heal his wound. He ran into a man who told him, “Here is what you need to do: Let the blood from your wound drip onto a piece of bread and then feed the bread to the dog who bit you. If you do that, your wound will be cured.” 

The man who had been bitten by the dog replied, “But if I do that, every single dog in the city will want to bite me!”

Moral: If someone honors a wicked man, the wicked man will not return the favor, since his only friends are other wicked men like himself.

Ornate Thracian Chariot Found in Bulgaria

The ornamental chariot is about four feet wide with its wheels.

Archaeologists unearth the chariot at the site of the Thracian aristocrat's tomb.

 
Archaeologists have unearthed an elaborately decorated 1,800-year-old chariot at an ancient Thracian tomb in southeastern Bulgaria.

"The lavishly ornamented four-wheel chariot dates back to the end of the second century AD.," Veselin Ignatov, who heads the excavation, told The Associated Press from the site near the village of Karanovo.

The bronze-plated wooden chariot is decorated with scenes from Thracian mythology, including figures of a jumping panther and the carving of a mythological animal with the body of a panther and the tail of a dolphin. With wheels, it measures four feet across. It was found during excavations in a funerary mound believed to be the grave of a wealthy Thracian aristocrat.

First mentioned in Homer's Iliad as allies of Troy, the Thracians were an Indo-European nomadic people who settled in the Balkans 5,000 years ago. They were conquered by Rome in the 1st century and were assimilated by invading Slav peoples in the 6th century. They had no written language, and so left no records. Fierce warriors and horse-breeders, the Thracians were also skilled goldsmiths. They established a powerful kingdom in the 5th century BC.

Click here for the Associated Press article.

Iron Age Slab Indicates Soul Separate from Body

The stone slab with the inscription saying the cremated man's soul continued to live in the stone itself.

Archaeologists in southeastern Turkey have discovered an Iron Age chiseled stone slab that provides the first written evidence in the region that people believed the soul was separate from the body.

Part of an expedition sponsored by the University of Chicago, the archaeologists found the 800-pound basalt stele ~ 3 feet tall and 2 feet wide ~ at Zincirli, site of the ancient city of Sam’al. Once the capital of a prosperous kingdom, it is now one of the most important Iron Age sites under excavation.

The stele is the first of its kind to be found intact in its original location, enabling scholars to learn about funerary customs and life in the eighth century BC. At the time, vast empires emerged in the ancient Middle East, and cultures such as the Israelites and Phoenicians became part of a vibrant mix.

Cremation Was Common

The man featured on the stele was probably cremated, a practice that Jewish and other cultures shun because of a belief in the unity of body and soul. According to the inscription, the soul of the deceased resided in the stele. It was discovered last summer in a small room that had been converted into a mortuary shrine for the royal official Kuttamuwa, self-described in the inscription as a “servant” of King Panamuwa of the eighth century BC. The inscription reads in part:

“I, Kuttamuwa, servant of Panamuwa, am the one who oversaw the production of this stele for myself while still living. I placed it in an eternal chamber(?) and established a feast at this chamber(?): a bull for [the storm-god] Hadad, ... a ram for [the sun-god] Shamash, ... and a ram for my soul that is in this stele. …”

It was written in a script derived from the Phoenician alphabet and in a local West Semitic dialect similar to Aramaic and Hebrew.

The finding sheds a striking new light on Iron Age beliefs about the afterlife. In this case, it was the belief that the enduring identity or “soul” of the deceased inhabited the monument on which his image was carved and on which his final words were recorded.

Click here for the complete University of Chicago new release.

Remains of King Herod's Tomb Are Unearthed

Remains of the sarcophagus believed to be King Herod's.

Excavations at Herod's tomb at Herodium.

An Israeli archaeologist believes he has unearthed the 2,000-year-old remains of two limestone sarcophagi that contained remains of one of Herod's wives, Malthace, and a daughter-in-law.

Other findings announced by Ehud Netzer of Jerusalem's Hebrew University provided new evidence of the lavish lifestyle of the Roman-era monarch known as the "King of the Jews." Herod, a Roman-anointed king who ruled Judea from 37 BC until his death in 4 BC.

The Gospel of Matthew accuses Herod of ordering the Massacre of the Innocents ~ the slaughter of male infants in Jesus' birthplace of Bethlehem ~ out of fear of losing his throne.

At a visit to the dig site in Herodium, outside Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank, where one of Herod's palaces once stood, Netzer on Wednesday showed reporters evidence of what he said was a mausoleum at the site where the remains of the sacrophagi had been found. Some bones were also found nearby but Netzer could not verify they belonged to any of the Herod dynasty.

Jewish Rebels Destroyed Casket

After Herod's death in the 1st century B.C., Herodium became a stronghold for Jewish rebels fighting Roman occupation, and the palace site suffered significant battle damage before it was destroyed by Roman soldiers in A.D. 71, a year after they razed the Second Temple in Jerusalem.




The insurgents reviled the memory of Herod as a Roman puppet. Netzer and his team believe that the violence inflicted on the first stone casket they found suggests the rebels knew it held the king's bones.


"That sarcophagus was found shattered all over the place. It seems it was taken from its place and was destroyed in a fit of rage," said Roi Porat, one of Netzer's assistants on the digs. "That, among other things, is what tells us it was the sarcophagus of Herod."

Netzer said the remains of the monarch and his relatives likely disappeared when their tombs were smashed, possibly by Jewish rebels against the Romans from 66 to 72 AD.

Frescos Depict Farm Scenes

Netzer (shown at left) said his team was surprised when they came across further evidence of Herod's cushy lifestyle, a well-preserved mural of gazelles decorating walls of what Netzer believes was luxury seating for a theater.

“What we found here, spread all around, are architectural fragments that enable us to restore a monument of 25 meters high, 75 feet high, very elegant, which fits Herod's taste and status," he said.

In Herod's private box at the auditorium, diggers discovered delicate frescoes depicting windows opening on to painted landscapes, one of which shows what appears to be a southern Italian farm, said Porat. Just visible in the paintings, dating between 15 and 10 B.C., are a dog, bushes and what looks like a country villa.


Site surveyor Rachel Chachy-Laureys said the paintings were executed using techniques unknown in the Holy Land at the time and must have been done by artisans imported from Rome.
"There has been no other discovery of this type of painting in the Middle East, as far as we know, until now,” she said.

Click here for the Reuters article.

Click here for the Associated Press article.

Click here for Herod info ~ plus a video ~ from National Geographic.

View from lower Herodium.

View of the fortress at upper Herodium.

Herodium also was a pleasure palace for Herod.

Internal Ramp Might Explain Pyramid's Mystery

This 4-minute video explains the internal-ramp theory.

A French architect may have solved the mystery of how ancient Egyptians were able to move two million stone blocks ~ each weighing about 2.5 tons ~ to construct the Great Pyramid.

A little-known cavity spiraling upward inside the pyramid’s structure seems to support the theory that the 4,500-year-old monument to Pharaoh Khufu was constructed from the inside out.

The presence of a spiraling inclined interior tunnel contradicts the prevailing wisdom that the monuments were built using an external ramp. "The paradigm was wrong," French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin said recently. "The idea that the pyramids were built from the outside was just wrong. How can you resolve a problem when the first element you introduce in your thinking is wrong?"

He says for centuries Egyptologists have ignored evidence of an internal ramp.To deliver blocks to the 481-foot peak at a reasonable grade, the ramp would extend a mile, and workers would have had to continually increase its height and length as the pyramid rose.

Click here for the full National Geographic article.

Ancient Earrings Found in Spain & Jerusalem

Ancient earrings are in the news these days, with two significant finds within days of each other.

A 2,300-year-old pair of earrings (at left in photo) was discovered in Spain during archaeological excavation work at the necropolis Coimbra del Barranco Ancho in Jumilla.  Archaeologists believe the grape-cluster design on the earrings is related to the millennia-old winemaking activities in the region.

In Jerusalem, archeologists have discovered a 2,000-year-old gold earring (at right in photo) beneath a parking lot next to the walls of Jerusalem's old city. It is inlaid with pearls and emeralds and was made sometime between the first century BC and the beginning of the fourth century AD.

The earring was discovered during excavation of the ruins of a building from the Byzantine period, dating from around the fifth century AD. It appears to have been crafted using a technique similar to that depicted in portraits from Roman-era Egypt.

"Did You Hear the One About . . . "

A man buys a slave and a little while later wants to return him. The seller wants to know why and the buyer says because the slave is dead.

"By the gods," answers the slave's seller, "when he was with me, he never did any such thing!"

You might recognize this joke from a 4th Century AD joke book as reminiscent of the popular Monty Python sketch involving a man returning a dead parrot to a pet shop. The 1,600-year-old Philogelos: The Laugh Addict is one of the world's oldest joke books. Many of its 265 gags prove that sex, dimwits, nagging wives and flatulence have been topics of jokes for centuries.

According to a Reuters report:

In many of the jokes, a slow-witted figure known as the "student dunce" is the butt of the jokes. In one, the student dunce goes to the city and a friend asks him to buy two 15-year-old slaves: "No problem," responds the dunce. "If I don't find two 15-year-olds, I'll get one 30-year-old."

In another, someone asks to borrow the student's cloak to go down to the country. "I have a cloak to go down to your ankle, but I don't have one that reaches to the country," he replies.

The manuscript is attributed to a pair of ancient comedians named Hierocles and Philagrius. Little is known about them except that they were most likely the compilers of the jokes, not the original writers, according to Reuters.

Other one-liners in Philogelos may baffle a modern audience, such as a series of jokes about a lettuce, which only make sense in light of the ancient belief it was an aphrodisiac.

Click here for the Reuters article.

Stash of Phoenician Jugs Found in Lebanon

An archeologist extracting a Phoenician earthenware jug.

Documenting locations of some of the 100 jugs unearthed so far.

Archaeologists in southern Lebanon have unearthed more than 100 Phoenician pottery jars dating back 2,900 years. The jars were used to hold human remains following cremation. "The big jars are like individual tombs. The smaller jars are left empty, but symbolically represent that a soul is stored in them," Ali Badawi, the archaeologist in charge in Tire, told Reuters.

Lebanese and Spanish archaeologists discovered the jars at a Phoenician site in the southern coastal city of Tire. Phoenicians are known to have thrived from 1500 B.C. to 300 B.C and were also headquartered in the coastal area of present-day Syria. The Phoenicians' earliest cities included Byblos, Tire and Sidon on Lebanon's coast. From Tire, Phoenicians are thought to have expanded into other colonies on the Mediterranean coast.

"These discoveries help researchers who work on past Phoenician colonies in Spain, Italy and Tunisia, to pin down a large number of their habits and traditions," said Maria Eugenia Aubet, who leads the Spanish archaeological team.

"Especially since there are few studies of the Phoenicians in their motherland of Lebanon," Aubet said, adding that the remains proved that the Phoenicians had a vision for life after death.