To the map room, Indy!

archaeology:

Rome, an ancient supercity.

archaeologicalnews:

Good thermal springs are always likely to draw increasing numbers of people who have the means to tap their benefits. More often than not, they become popular resort destinations for the rich and famous. So it was with this location in the outskirts of the Sredna Gora mountain range near the present-day town of Hisarya of central southern Bulgaria.

Archaeological research indicates that this place was inhabited as long ago as 6,000 years BCE, then later by the Thracians. In the 1st century CE it was conquered by the Roman Empire, eventually becoming an affluent 4th century Roman resort, a place that emperor Septimius Severus himself, among others, was recorded to have visited. Today, the archaeological remains bear the unmistakable evidence of palaces, wide stone streets, marble baths, an amphitheater in circus style, and monumental fortification walls. The walls have been preserved in some places up to 14 m in height. Read more.

massimogienda:

Pompei, affresco 55-79 d.C., la cosiddetta Scriba o Saffo

(via archaeologistforhire)

Oh hey look, The Eagle is on.  I think it’s the director’s cut, though, because there are scenes I don’t remember and some mildly salty language that wasn’t there before.

connors-nipple:

lady-tyrell:

enjolux:

theplaceinsidetheblizzard:

elgin-marbles:

coleytangerina:

Some graffiti found in Pompeii’s ruins: 

• Weep, you girls. My penis has given you up. Now it penetrates men’s behinds. Goodbye, wondrous femininity!
• Restituta, take off your tunic, please, and show us your hairy privates.
• I screwed the barmaid.
• Apollinaris, the doctor of the emperor Titus, defecated well here.
• I screwed a lot of girls here.
• Sollemnes, you screw well!
• Theophilus, don’t perform oral sex on girls against the city wall like a dog.

Nice to see nothing has changed.

There is a website with all of the graffiti

I love this.

I am laughing so hard

someone basically wrote “secundus is gay” on the wall humankind has not changed at all

I fucking love my major jesus christ i love pompeii and roman graffiti and just the romans in general god bless em

(via thelhw)

archaeologicalnews:

CLEAR evidence of a Roman road has been found during an archaeological dig close to the home of a Welsh Prince.

A section of a metalled road on the line of the Roman road from Caerhun to Segontium (Caernarfon) was found during excavations at Cae Celyn, a field near  Garth Celyn at Abergwyngregyn.

 During a three-day dig locals joined volunteers from the Caer Alyn Archaeological Project and Wirral Archaeology to open up evaluation trenches to expose features at an important river crossing.

 Archaeologist Phil Cox, from the Caer Alyn Archaeological Project, who led the weekend investigation, said: “The area is already well known for its rich diversity of monuments and history and the excavations will only add to this. Read more.

(via classicalcivilisation)

ancientpeoples:

Roman Bathroom Habits

The Romans were not shy when it came to doing their “business”. Something that we today regard as an act that demands a certain level of privacy, in ancient Rome, bathroom habits were much more open and, to a great extent, totally lacking in privacy. In a city of over one-million people, ninety-five percent of them did not have access to a private bathroom. Only wealthy Romans could afford the luxury of having a private bathroom by tapping directly into the public aqueducts, which brought running water into their homes. However, for the majority of Romans lacking their own bathroom, there were two options available.

The first option was to go in any ordinary pot that you kept in your home or place of business; moreover, in the city of Rome itself, large urinal pots stood at several street corners. These “piss pots” actually had a very significant role in everyday life. The pots were collected by fullers because the urine functioned as an ancient form of bleach. Stale urine, known as wash, was a source of ammonium salts and assisted in cleansing and whitening cloth; urine made your whites white! In addition, tanners soaked animal skins in urine in order to remove hair fibers before tanning. Oddly enough these pots were eventually taxed by the emperor Vespasian which resulted in the piss pots being nicknamed after him. Flying waste was also a very common problem in Ancient Rome. Ancient writers mention anecdotes involving citizens emptying their pots from third or fourth-story windows on to whoever was walking in the street. There were laws enacted solely for the purpose of protecting those who had been hit by flying waste, “Damages to be paid by throwers of waste into the street if the person hit was injured, no damages paid for clothing or if hit outside of daylight hours.” Nevertheless, the simplest way of disposing of your waste was to throw it into the street, because the streets of Rome were naturally angled towards the center allowing waste to roll into the gutters. Some Insulae,(multi-story apartment buildings), however, could be linked by gravity-fed pipes that led to a main cesspit. Farmers would collect “night-soil” from these cesspits in order to fertilize their fields.

The second option available to the inhabitants of Rome was to head to a public bathroom. Ancient Roman public bathrooms were made out of long rows of massive stone with a hole cut into the stone every few feet. Located in front of the seating area is a channel or elongated basin where your sponge sticks are located. Sponge sticks you say, what the devil for? The Romans obviously did not use toilet paper, but used sponges soaked in water. You would grab a sponge attached to a stick and clean yourself, if you need more cleaning you could plunge the sponge stick back into the little stream and clean some more. Once you are finished with the sponge stick, you scrape the sponge against the side of the stone hole you are seated on and let it fall into the flowing water; quite a logical system reminiscent of modern day bidets. Underneath those Roman derrières flowed a system of plumbing that rivaled modern day cities like New York City. Constant running water flushes away the waste into an enormous sewage systems that runs under the streets of Rome, the Cloaca Maxima (Great Drain). This system is made possible by several aqueducts that flow into the city keeping it supplied with fresh flowing water. The Roman’s effective sewage system was not in place in order to combat the possibility of disease, but more so to combat smell; the role of impure water in causing disease seemed to be little understood by the Romans.

In some ancient bathrooms there is space for one-hundred people at a time. The bathrooms are open to all genders and all ages, so imagine men, women, and children all standing or sitting, doing their business next to one another in an open space. People are discussing business or gossiping to one another while going to the bathroom. Since for most Romans privacy is a unheard of aspect of life, why would it be different in this situation? However, the public bathrooms are not only visited by the common citizen, the wealthy also frequent them. Every location in ancient Rome where large crowds gather is an opportunity for wealthy Romans to pander to their constituents. Most upper-class Romans were running for some sort of political office, so the public bathrooms were a great location for mingling with the Roman people. Therefore, if you wished to hear the local gossip, chat with a friend or stranger, or simply do your business, the public bathrooms are always a good choice. Roman bathroom habits were communal, lacking in privacy, and surprisingly efficient, and they also allowed one to say, “I had a lovely conversation with a few people while sitting on the toilet the other day.”

(via thatlittleegyptologist)

archaeologicalnews:

Archaeologist Mike Haseler believes he has evidence to suggest that the battle of Mons Graupius took place in Moray.

Mons Graupius was a key battle for British independence against the repressive hand of Rome almost 2000 years ago.

According to the Romans, 10,000 Britons died that day at the hands of this first European super-state, while many others fled the scene.

Despite stringent efforts by experts, the site of the battle between the Romans and the Caledonians – in either 83AD or 84AD – has never been conclusively identified.

However, Mr Haseler believes his research strongly points to the battle taking place near Elgin, at Quarrelwood Hill to the north-west of the town. Read more.

Classical Civilisation: unpopulartextpost: i’m laughing so hard because my latin textbook has...

unpopulartextpost:

i’m laughing so hard because my latin textbook has this demon incantation for cursing charioteers and i just

like can you imagine a bunch of dudes in togas prancing around a pentagram in the floor and asking a bunch of demons to kill some dudes so their team wins in…

myvisagewasted:

Zenobia – Queen of the Palmyrene Empire

Zenobia had married Septimius Odaenathus, the King of Palmyra, by 258; she was his second wife. … Around 266, Zenobia and Odaenathus had a son, his second child, Lucius Julius Aurelius Septimius Vaballathus Athenodorus.

In 267, Zenobia’s husband and stepson were assassinated. The titled heir, Vaballathus, was only one year old, so his mother succeeded her husband and ruled Palmyra. Zenobia bestowed upon herself and her son the honorific titles of Augusta and Augustus. Zenobia conquered new territories and increased the Palmyrene Empire in the memory of her husband and as a legacy to her son. Her stated goal was to protect the Eastern Roman Empire from the Sassanid Empire, for the peace of Rome; however, her efforts significantly increased the power of her own throne.

In 269 Zenobia, her army, and the Palmyrene General Zabdas violently conquered Egypt with help from their Egyptian ally, Timagenes, and his army. The Roman prefect of Egypt, Tenagino Probus and his forces, tried to expel them from Egypt, but Zenobia’s forces captured and beheaded Probus. She then proclaimed herself Queen of Egypt. After these initial forays, Zenobia became known as a “Warrior Queen”. In leading her army, she displayed significant prowess: she was an able horse rider and would walk three or four miles with her foot soldiers.

Zenobia, with her large army, made expeditions and conquered Anatolia as far as Ancyra or Ankara and Chalcedon, followed by Syria, Palestine, and Lebanon. In her short-lived empire, Zenobia took the vital trade routes in these areas from the Romans. Roman Emperor Aurelian, who was at that time campaigning with his forces in the Gallic Empire, probably did recognise the authority of Zenobia and Vaballathus; however, this relationship began to break down when Aurelian began a military campaign to reunite the Roman Empire in 272–273. Aurelian and his forces left the Gallic Empire and arrived in Syria. The forces of Aurelian and Zenobia met and fought near Antioch. After a crushing defeat, the remaining Palmyrenes briefly fled into Antioch and then into Emesa.

Zenobia was unable to remove her treasury at Emesa before Aurelian successfully entered and besieged the city. Zenobia and her son escaped Emesa by camel with help from the Sassanids, but they were captured on the Euphrates River by Aurelian’s horsemen. Zenobia’s short-lived Egyptian kingdom and the Palmyrene Empire had ended.

Description from Wikipedia. Painting by Herbert Gustave Schmalz.

(via ladyfabulous)

archaeologicalnews:

Epiacum is a site full of buried treasure, which no-one can reach - no-one human at least.

Near Alston in Cumbria, close to the Northumberland border, where now there are fields, there was once a thriving Roman fort.

Unfortunately for archaeologists, they cannot access any of the historic artefacts beneath the ground - because the site is a scheduled ancient monument.

Moles, however, pay no heed to the land’s protected status.

The velvety creatures have not only been digging up the earth, but doing their bit for archaeology by inadvertently pushing ancient objects to the surface.

Paul Frodsham, an archaeologist with the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), runs a project called Altogether Archaeology, which has signed up 500 volunteers to take part in digs under professional supervision. Read more.

archaeologistforhire:

CANNOT. UNSEE.

[from reddit]

archaeologicalnews:

Archeologists investigating the site of a former Dominican monastery in Cluj have uncovered a remarkable tale of love, preserved in the bones of a medieval grave. Two skeletons, of a young man and a woman, were found clearly buried together with their hands clasped for eternity.

Dubbed Romeo and Juliet by the archeological team, the couple are thought to have lived between 1450 and 1550, as the grave’s position and proximity to the monastery are typical of this period.

Lead archeologist Adrian Rusu said that several graves from the period had been found in what was the courtyard of the monastery, including the couple buried together. Read more.

ancientpeoples:

Fayum-portrait of a man

The Fayum is an oasis in Egypt where people have always lived because of its fertile area. In the burial area over 750 of these Fayum-portraits were found on the mummies. These are individual paintings of people on wooded panels made during life. These portraits would hang in peoples houses untill their death and then used on the mummy. 

Made from wood, found in the oasis of Fayum in Egypt. 

Roman Period, 175 - 225 AD

Source: Leiden Museum of Antiquities 

curiousgeorgiana:

the—safest—sounds:

The Palatine Hill next to the Colosseum. (at Palatino)