Ancient History Magazine

In the modern world, with vast, industrial-scale agriculture providing food to supermarkets, it is easy to forget just how integral food is to the functioning of society. While urban sites certainly existed before the advent of agriculture, without agriculture, it is unlikely that societies with complex bureaucratic systems – and everything that followed – would have developed. Our understanding of ancient agriculture has only increased as technological advancements enable greater studies in archaeobotany. Recently, a study by Manning et al. in Nature has demonstrated that there was a significant drought in central Anatolia over three years, corresponding roughly to the dating of the Late Bronze Age collapse. The importance of agriculture was certainly not lost on the ancients. The many agricultural and fertility deities worshipped across multiple societies attests to…

How the Egyptians mummified bodies continues to intrigue, yet aspects about the process have remained elusive, until now. New research has revealed the actual ingredients and materials, and even some of the recipes used. Embalming a corpse was a chemical process. However, the roles of the various chemicals, as well as the overall procedure, have so far remained unclear. The opportunity to examine equipment from an ancient processing facility at Saqqara provided some much-needed answers. The building, located a few metres to the south of the pyramid of King Unas, featured a subterranean evisceration facility (wabet), a multifunctional aboveground structure (likely corresponding to the ibu in the ancient texts), and a communal burial space. Archaeologists at the wabet retrieved potsherds and both broken and complete vessels. Some of them showed…

Evidence of a mixed workforce at a Roman tilery Finding tiles at Roman sites is commonplace. Many have writing on them or the imprints of soles of shoes of workers employed at the brick factories. A site in the UK suggests that the people working at these industrial facilities were more diverse than previously thought. Over two seasons, members of Oxford Archaeology (OA) working at Priors Hall Park, Corby, Northamptonshire uncovered the remains of a Roman brick factory. They discovered that a temple/mausoleum had been converted into an industrial facility making pottery, brick, and tile sometime in the later third to mid-fourth century AD. Its customers were the local Roman villa owners. Some six tonnes of discarded tiles deemed as unsuitable for sale have already been recovered, and these are…

An exceptional image of the goddess Roma has been retrieved from a major mass transit construction project in the heart of the Eternal City. While working on the rescue dig on the Metro C Line in Rome, archaeologists found a round shard of glass. When cleaned, it was found to be an image of the ancient goddess of the city painted in gold on clear glass. The finely drawn goddess is depicted in profile, facing right. She wears martial garb and holds a spear with an elaborate spearhead. No other examples of Roma painted on glass are known. The rough edges suggest that it was probably once the bottom of a glass beaker. Clearly it was a valued object, and the base was saved by its owner after the sides…

A section of the ancient Aqua Augusta has been identified running under the modern city of Naples, Italy. It is one of ten branches of the extensive water distribution system that once supplied fresh water to cities in Campania. Residents have long known that there were Roman tunnels carrying water from its source at Serino, lying some 51 kilometres (32 miles) east of Naples. In the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, engineers were consulted to establish whether the eastern section of the Acquedotto romano del Serino could be brought back into use to supply fresh water to Naples. The western segment running beyond Naples, however, was barely known about. Leading the search has been Associazione “Cocceius”, an Italian not-for-profit group that undertakes speleo-archaeological work. Their explorations under the hill of Posillipo,…

A team of archaeologists has discovered a lost palace of the Sumerian kings of Girsu and a temple of the Sumerian god Ningirsu, at the site of Tablet Hill in modern Tello, southern Iraq. Dr Hartwig Fischer, Director of the British Museum, says the discoveries “hold enormous potential for our understanding of this important civilisation. The site, which was initially rediscovered in the nineteenth century, has been left exposed with no conservation work being done since the end of the Second World War. The Girsu Project, led by the British Museum and funded by the J. Paul Getty Trust, set out to raise awareness of the site and to provide archaeological and conservational training to Iraqi heritage professionals and students. Dr Sebastien Rey, Director of the Girsu Project, said the…