Archaeological potpourri

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Hmm, so the sword's design is legit. That part checks out. Doesn't mean it's not a reproduction. Hard to believe the bronze would not have corroded, and the design of the arrowheads is still suspect to me. 

[Genava55]

59 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Hard to believe the bronze would not have corroded

It is green so it is corroded. It is not that rare to find well preserved bronze sword:

see at 2m30s

[Gurken Khan]

[alre]

17 hours ago, Gurken Khan said:

I had to cross-check this. actually, the latin inscription is not very ironic and basically says that the giver couldn't afford bringing a better gift.

still, very nice discovery. I felt it.

[Gurken Khan]

@alre I like that you cross-checked it. But I'm not sure if we can discern from the written Latin how ironic it was meant. When I think of all the dongs on Hadrian's wall or the graffiti in Pompeii I get the feeling they were a pretty mischievous bunch.

(Reading up on the dongs they supposedly were meant to ward off bad luck...)

[Genava55]

https://phys.org/news/2024-09-archaeologists-southern-army-fought-europe.html

 

[Gurken Khan]

@Genava55 I heard about it yesterday on Deutschlandfunk and also meant to post about it.

What I found interesting is A: that finds are skewed because flintstone arrowheads can't be found with metal detectors. And B: they figured from the arrowheads that the group from the south attacked at a bridge, were repelled, fled downstream where they were shot down with northern arrows.

Here's the Antiquity article: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/warriors-from-the-south-arrowheads-from-the-tollense-valley-and-central-europe/C4F6ECB759833BFD337D37ADAE564C4B#article

[Gurken Khan]

Previously unknown Neolithic society in Morocco discovered

Multi-disciplinary archaeological survey at the site of Oued Beht, Morocco, reveals a previously unknown 3400–2900 BC farming society, shedding new light on North Africa’s role in Mediterranean prehistory. 

[Gurken Khan]

Archeologists have discovered an undisturbed tomb in Petra: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/12/science/petra-tomb-indiana-jones-discovery/index.html

There's been an episode of “Expedition Unknown.” on Discovery Channel about it yesterday.

[Genava55]

 

[Gurken Khan]

Archäologischer Sensationsfund "Der älteste Christ nördlich der Alpen war Frankfurter"

Es ist ein Fund, der die Geschichtsschreibung verändern könnte: In Frankfurt wurde ein 1.800 Jahre altes Amulett mit Inschrift gefunden. Experten halten es für das älteste Zeugnis christlichen Glaubens nördlich der Alpen.

They found a 1,800 year old Roman silver amulet with a Christian inscription, believed to be the oldest evidence of Christianity north of the Alps.

[Lion.Kanzen]

1 hour ago, Gurken Khan said:

Archäologischer Sensationsfund "Der älteste Christ nördlich der Alpen war Frankfurter"

Es ist ein Fund, der die Geschichtsschreibung verändern könnte: In Frankfurt wurde ein 1.800 Jahre altes Amulett mit Inschrift gefunden. Experten halten es für das älteste Zeugnis christlichen Glaubens nördlich der Alpen.

They found a 1,800 year old Roman silver amulet with a Christian inscription, believed to be the oldest evidence of Christianity north of the Alps.

What was in the inscription?

[Gurken Khan]

@Lion.Kanzen Frankfurt silver inscription

[Genava55]

 

[Gurken Khan]

Vier Männer wegen Diebstahls von Keltengold vor Gericht

Court hearings began, accused are four men of robbing the biggest Celtic gold treasure found in the 20th century; of the 3,7 Kg of coins so far only 500g were found: smelted. Barbarians.

[Genava55]

10 hours ago, Gurken Khan said:

Vier Männer wegen Diebstahls von Keltengold vor Gericht

Court hearings began, accused are four men of robbing the biggest Celtic gold treasure found in the 20th century; of the 3,7 Kg of coins so far only 500g were found: smelted. Barbarians.

[Gurken Khan]

 

Hobbyarchäologen entdecken Münzschatz aus der Römerzeit

Mehr als 400 Silber- und Goldmünzen aus dem frühen 1. Jahrhundert n. Chr. haben Archäologen in den Niederlanden gefunden. Die Sammlung ist die erste ihrer Art auf dem europäischen Festland und nun im Museum zu sehen.

 

More than 400 gold and silver coins from the first century CE were found in the Netherlands. The mix - including British coins with Cunobelinus' name and Roman coins with Claudius' name - counts as a first on he European continent and sheds a new light on the importance of that region for Roman campaigns.

[Gurken Khan]

How one language family took over the world: ancient DNA traces its spread

Millennia-old genomes suggest Indo–European tongues originated from the Caucasus mountain region.

[Genava55]

Awesome documentary about the Etruscans, check for subtitles and dubbed versions on Arte's website:

https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/101362-000-A/les-etrusques-une-civilisation-mysterieuse-de-mediterranee/

 

[Gurken Khan]

Lost tomb of Thutmose II discovered near Luxor

It's the first discovery of a royal tomb belonging to an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh since the discovery of King Tutankhamun in 1922 and the last royal grave from the 18th dynasty.

[Genava55]

 

[Gurken Khan]

More about the dagger from my first post (and alien glass):

 

[Genava55]

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-58581-0

A comparison of income inequality in the Roman and Chinese Han empires

The emergence of vast territorial empires is a recurring development in the history of human civilization. Their ability to extract resources from their subjects, and to redistribute them, also increases the potential of higher levels of economic inequality. Here we explore how imperial structures contributed to set the level of inequality in two ancient empires, the Roman Empire ca. 165 CE and the Chinese Han Empire ca. 2 CE. We estimate the overall levels of imperial inequality as the combination of inequality between and within regions. We find that the Han Empire was, overall, more unequal and extractive than the Roman Empire. Other empires, however, were even more extractive, as shown by a comparison with the Aztec Empire ca. 1492. We argue that higher inequality increased the potential for political instability and the collapse of empires.

[Genava55]

 

[Genava55]

https://www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2025/05/evidence-of-the-use-of-a-polybolos-the-mythical-greek-repeating-weapon-at-pompeii-in-89-bce-discovered/

 Evidence of the Use of a Polybolos, the Mythical Greek Repeating Weapon, at Pompeii in 89 BCE Discovered

A team of Italian researchers has discovered markings on the walls of Pompeii that could be the first known evidence of the use of an ancient and sophisticated weapon of war: the polybolos, a type of automatic crossbow capable of launching multiple arrows without needing to be reloaded, similar to modern machine guns.

Its invention is attributed to Dionysius of Alexandria, a Greek engineer who worked in the arsenal of Rhodes in the 3rd century BCE. It wasn’t a crossbow in the traditional sense but used a torsion mechanism based on bundles of twisted sinew, and we only know about it from the description left by Philo of Byzantium, who wrote between 280 and 220 BCE.

Philo recounts how one of these weapons was found and provided a detailed description of the gears that powered a chain drive to position bolt after bolt into its firing groove. This is the earliest known application of such a mechanism.

The study published in the Nexus Network Journal focuses on a section of the northern wall of Pompeii near the gates of Vesuvius and Herculaneum, where the researchers, led by Adriana Rossi from the University of Campania, found and analyzed small holes in the stones.

These marks are square or diamond-shaped and do not match the impact patterns of stones launched by conventional catapults. Instead, they appear to have been caused by arrows or metal projectiles.

They appear in groups of four or five, as if the projectiles that caused them had been fired in bursts, something difficult to achieve with handheld weapons or traditional crossbows.

The precision and frequency suggest the use of a repeating machine, the researchers assert, believing that they could be the work of a polybolos used during the siege of Pompeii in 89 BCE, when the troops of the Roman general Sulla conquered the city. Although no physical remains of the weapon have been found, the markings on the walls would match its historical description.

To confirm their theory, the team used 3D scanning techniques and digital reconstructions. Through virtual models, they calculated the speed and force of the impacts, estimating that the arrows that could have made the marks reached a speed of around 109 meters per second, a rather surprising speed for the time. They also confirmed that the depth and shape of the holes matched models of Roman arrowheads kept in European museums.
Why Shoot Arrows at the Walls?

But why would the Roman army besieging the city have fired arrows at the stone walls instead of at the defenders? The researchers offer two fairly evident theories.

The first is that they simply missed their shots—that is, they were aiming at soldiers on top of the wall but missed, perhaps because the weapon was hard to handle or simply wasn’t as effective as it should have been.

And the second is that they were simply testing, practicing and calibrating the polybolos before using it against the enemy.

In this regard, an episode of the popular show MythBusters aired in 2010 built and fine-tuned a replica of the polybolos based on Philo’s description, concluding that its existence as a historical weapon was plausible, despite being prone to constant mechanical failures.

The team now plans to analyze more sections of the walls of Pompeii and collaborate with museums to cross-reference their findings. They also hope this discovery will attract interest to Pompeii not just as a city frozen in time, but also as a battlefield where Roman military engineering left its mark.

SOURCES

Rossi, A., Gonizzi Barsanti, S. & Bertacchi, S. Use of Polybolos on the City Walls of Ancient Pompeii: Assessment on the Anthropic Cavities. Nexus Netw J 27, 243–272 (2025). doi.org/10.1007/s00004-024-00803-x

 

Reconstruction of a polybolos. Credit: Diels and Schramm 1919 / AR and archives of Archeotecnica / archeotecnica.com