Gladiator School Discovery Reveals Hard Lives of Ancient Warriors.

Archaeologists have mapped an ancient gladiator school, where the famed warriors lived, trained, and fought.

Ancient Rome's gladiators lived and trained in fortress prisons, according to an international team of archaeologists who mapped a school for the famed fighters.

Discovered at the site of Carnuntum outside Vienna, Austria, the gladiatorial school, or ludus gladiatorius, is the first one discovered outside the city of Rome. Now hidden beneath a pasture, the gladiator school was entirely mapped with noninvasive earth-sensing technologies. (See "Gladiator Training Camp.")

The discovery, reported Tuesday evening by the journal Antiquity, makes clear what sort of lives these famous ancient warriors led during the second century A.D. in the Roman Empire.

"It was a prison; they were prisoners," says University of Vienna archaeologist Wolfgang Neubauer, who led the study team. "They lived in cells, in a fortress with only one gate out."

The discovery shows that even outside Rome gladiators were "big business," Neubauer says. At least 80 gladiators, likely more, lived in the large, two-story facility equipped with a practice arena in its central courtyard. The site also included heated floors for winter training, baths, infirmaries, plumbing, and a nearby graveyard.

Prisoners of Rome

The gladiators were clearly valued slaves, Neubauer says, kept apart and separate from the town of Carnuntum, which was founded on the Danube River by the Emperor Hadrian in A.D. 124 and later became a Roman stronghold.

"The find at Carnuntum gives us a vivid impression of what it was like to live and train as a gladiator on the chilly northern border of the Roman Empire," says gladiator expert Kathleen Coleman of Harvard, who was not part of the study team.

Although more than 100 gladiator schools were built throughout the Roman Empire, the only known remnants are in Rome, Carnuntum, and Pompeii (which had small, private gladiatorial grounds). Within the 118,400-square-foot (11,000-square-meter) walled compound at the Austrian site, gladiators trained year-round for combat at a nearby public amphitheater.

"They weren't killed very often, they were too valuable," Neubauer says. "Lots of other people were likely killed at the amphitheater, people not trained to fight. And there was lots of bloodshed. But the combat between gladiators was the point of them performing, not them killing each other."

This map of the gladiator school reveals that it was like a fortress or prison.

Tight Quarters

The gladiators slept in 32-square-foot (3-square-meter) cells, home to one or two people. Those cells were kept separate from a wing holding bigger rooms for their trainers, known as magistri, themselves retired survivors of gladiatorial combat who specialized in teaching one style of weaponry and fighting.

"The similarities show that gladiators were housed and trained in the provinces in the same way as in the metropolis [of Rome]," Coleman says. The one gate exiting the compound faced a road leading to the town's public amphitheater, reportedly the fourth largest in the empire.

The fortress prison also undermines the image of gladiators as traveling from town to town in a circus-like setting, as seen in the movie Gladiatorreleased in 2000. (Another film set in the ancient Roman era, Pompeii, is opening this week.)

"They weren't a team," Neubauer says. "Each one was on his own, training to fight, and learning who they would combat at a central post we can see the remains of in our survey."

Neubauer expects to continue aboveground mapping efforts at Carnuntum, which is proving to have been a surprisingly large town.

Analysis of bones from a gladiator graveyard in Ephesus, Turkey, suggests that gladiators ate a largely vegetarian diet, Neubauer notes. The team hopes to eventually perform a similar analysis on bones from the gladiator graveyard in Carnuntum, in a further attempt to explore the real lives of these ancient warriors.

Source: National Geographic

Japanese archaeologists discover 3,000-year-old tomb with vivid murals in Egypt.

Japanese archaeologists have unearthed a near-pristine tomb of a high-ranking Egyptian official who served as a temple's chief brewer 3,000 years ago.

The site, on the west bank of the Nile near Luxor, dates from the 12th century B.C. and has beautifully preserved murals in vivid colors.

Jiro Kondo, who led the dig on behalf of Waseda University’s Institute of Egyptology in Tokyo, said, "In recent years, it has become extremely rare to discover a tomb with paintings on the walls and ceiling that remain in such a good condition."

The site is part of a necropolis that contains 1,000 or so grotto tombs that were first excavated nearly 200 years ago. Only a few dozen of the tombs have such well-preserved murals.

The university's Institute of Egyptology has been searching for tombs of ranking officials in the New Kingdom period (between the 16th century B.C. and the 11th century B.C.) since 2007.

The tomb's owner was identified as Khonsuemheb, who oversaw offerings of beer and foods to the temple of Mut. The tomb contains images of him as well as his wife and daughter.

The chamber is about 2 meters wide and 5 meters long. Its actual height has yet to be determined due to a buildup of sand.

Aside from paintings on the walls, the ceiling is emblazoned with images of Khonsuemheb's funerary procession and the couple at prayers.

The researchers said the paintings provide new insight into the way tombs at that time were constructed as well as details on the how funeral services were conducted.

They also found a pit inside the tomb that they believe leads to the burial chamber. They hope to uncover the sarcophagus and excavate the mummy during their next expedition.

The find came after the discovery of a separate tomb last December, which also had colorful paintings.

Source: The Asahi Shimbun

Shield-wearing skeleton, necklace and grave goods found in early Saxon inhumations.

The discovery of nine bodies in Cambridgeshire could reveal much about the little-known early Saxon period

An early Saxon man who fell on his shield has been found buried with a knife and spear alongside a jewellery-clad woman during a dig on a residential site in a Cambridgeshire village.

Grave goods, weaponry and everyday items from the 6th century surfaced during the excavation in Haddenham, where similar remains – including a double burial of a man and a woman – were first identified more than 20 years ago.

“A total of nine inhumations were discovered, ranging from the very young to fully grown adults,” says Jon House, of Pre-Construct Archaeology, thanking local residents for their “great interest” and “warm and welcoming” approach to the team during unfavourable weather conditions.

“The burials included an adult male, found lying upon a decorative shield and with a knife and a spear.

“A beaded necklace was found around the neck and upper torso of an adult female, who was also buried with a belt or girdle with copper and iron fittings.

“Projects such as these prove how even the smallest developments can yield a wealth of archaeological information and, in the case of this particular site, details not only of how people lived but also of their treatment towards the dead over 1,400 years ago.

“This is especially important during those periods, such as the early Saxon era, which have left little or no historical data.”

Source: Culture 24

Is treasure hoard found in Germany linked to Nibelung legend?

An amateur treasure hunter equipped with a metal detector has discovered a hoard of gold and silver dating back to late Roman times in a German forest.  The finding has prompted speculation that it could be the legendary Nibelung treasure. The unnamed treasure seeker came across the buried treasure, estimated to be worth more than €1 million, while searching a wooded area in southern Rhineland-Palatinate with a metal detector.  The trove includes numerous leaf-shaped solid gold brooches, which are thought to have formed part of the decorations from a coat of a Roman ruler, as well as a solid silver bowl set with gold and stones set within it, and a set of gold and silver plated statuettes which formed part of a military commander’s portable chair. 

Experts say the treasure, some of which appears Eastern European in style, was buried around 1,500 years ago, about the time when Germanic Teutons were plundering and pillaging their way through the crumbling Roman Empire. “In terms of timing and geography, the find fits in with the epoch of the Nibelung legend,” said Axel von Berg, the state’s chief archaeologist. “But we cannot say whether it actually belongs to the Nibelung treasure,” he said, adding that whoever owned it had “lived well” and could have been a prince. The Nibelungs is the most famous Epic in Norse mythology and is said to be based on the Royal family of Burgundy. The story begins when a treasure of the Burgundians falls into the hands of Siegfried. After helping King Gunther woo Brunhild, Siegfried marries Kriemhild, Gunther's sister. Ultimately, a row between the Queens leads to the death of both Siegfried and Kriemhild, and the loss of the treasure. Whether the treasure is the famous “Rhinegold” or not, it seems to have been buried in haste by its owner or by robbers in around 406-407 AD, when the Roman Empire was falling apart in the area along the Rhine. Prosecutors have begun an inquiry into the hobbyist who discovered the treasure because they suspect he may have sold some of it, possibly to a buyer abroad. 

Source: Ancient Origins

(VIDEO) 10 Words in Mysterious Voynich Manuscript Decoded.

A researcher claims he's decoded 10 possible words in the famously unreadable Voynich manuscript, which has eluded interpretation for a century.

The book's 250 vellum pages are filled with writings in an unknown alphabet and elaborate drawings depicting a range of subjects from female nudes to medicinal herbs to Zodiac symbols. The medieval text was discovered by an antique book dealer in 1912, and it has been rather stingy in giving up its secrets ever since.

Now Stephen Bax, a professor of applied linguistics at the University of Bedfordshire in England, says he's deciphered 14 characters of the script and can read a handful of items in the Voynich text, such as the words for coriander, hellebore and juniper next to drawings of the plants. He says he's also picked out the word for Taurus written beside an illustration of the Pleiades, a star cluster in the constellation Taurus. [Voynich Manuscript: Images of the Unreadable Medieval Book]

"I hit on the idea of identifying proper names in the text, following historic approaches which successfully deciphered Egyptianhieroglyphs and other mystery scripts, and I then used those names to work out part of the script," Bax said in a statement.

"The manuscript has a lot of illustrations of stars and plants," Bax added. "I was able to identify some of these, with their names, by looking at mediaeval herbal manuscripts in Arabic and other languages, and I then made a start on a decoding, with some exciting results."

The Voynich manuscipt now sits in a rare books library at Yale University. Carbon dating proved that it dates back to the 15th century, and researchers believe it was written in Central Europe. While some scholars have written it off as a Renaissance-era hoax full of nonsense text, others say the pattern of the letters and words suggest the book was written in a real language or at least an invented cipher. A recent statistical study published in the journal PLOS ONE found that "Voynichese" adheres to linguistic rules.

Bax notes that the manuscript is still a long way from being understood, and that he is coming forward with what he's found thus far in the hopes that other linguists will work with him to crack the code. For now, he thinks the book is "probably a treatise on nature, perhaps in a Near Eastern or Asian language."

Bax has explained his ideas in a manuscript and in a YouTube video on his website.

Source: Live Science

Monster Surf Exposes Rare Petroglyphs in Hawaii.

Epic winter swells just off of Oahu, Hawaii, have churned up monster waves more than 7 meters high, sent seawater surging around the foundations of beachfront homes, and gnawed away at sandy cliffs along the island’s North Shore.

They’ve also exposed rare petroglyphs that have not been seen in years.

The unusually strong seasonal surf has washed away layers of sand all along Pupukea Beach, just east of the big-surf mecca of Waimea, to reveal dozens of large glyphs carved into the bench of lava rock.

More than 70 carvings have been exposed, mostly depicting human-like figures and dogs, according to the Historic Hawaii Foundation, whose workers are documenting the images.

A public safety officer reported the find to the foundation in late January, but social media have been rife with reports by surfers, beachcombers, and rock-art enthusiasts who have been sharing pictures of the glyphs since shortly after the new year when the swell started.

By most accounts, the North Shore petroglyphs were last seen in 2010, when similar winter weather exposed some of them. Before that, they had not been observed since 2004.

The appearance of the markings seems to coincide with El Niño, the periodic climate anomaly that causes unusually warm waters in the equatorial Pacific, and huge surf off of Oahu.

A weaker version of this cycle occurred in 2004, while 2010′s was particularly strong, as this year’s is shaping up to be.

Because they’re seen so rarely, the petroglyphs do not seem to have been the subject of very thorough study; they were reportedly first documented by archaeologists in 1970, and new ones have been identified as recently as 1983.

But previous research into Hawaiian petroglyphs, known locally as kii pohaku, has suggested that such carvings were used to document travels around and among the islands, to commemorate important events, and to mark trails and boundaries.

At Pu’u Loa, a vast field of more than 23,000 petroglyphs on Hawaii’s Big Island, many of the motifs are notable for featuring holes in which Native Hawaiians deposited the umbilical cords of newborn babies.

Back on O’ahu, depictions of dogs are particularly prevalent.

In addition to those newly exposed on the North Shore, canines appear often at the Nu’uanu rock art site near Honolulu, where they have been said to depict a wicked, cannibalistic dog-like beast known as Kaupe.

Source: Western Diggs

The Apollo of Gaza: One fisherman's amazing catch

A statue thought to be an ancient bronze of Apollo, Greek God of poetry and love, has dropped off the radar after being found in the sea off Gaza last summer and surfacing briefly on eBay. It is 2,500 years old and priceless.

Jawdat Abu Ghurab used to be a builder but in 2007 Israel restricted the delivery of building materials to the Gaza strip, so he became a fisherman like his father.

He only has a small boat so never goes out far, and catches only small fish. One day last August, though, the 29-year-old from Deir al-Balah ended up with a very different haul.

His uncle was also fishing that day, but gave up early. Ghurab kept going.

"I stayed alone in the sea with a small boat and paddle, I waited for hours and did not imagine what fate had in store for me in the depths of the sea," he says.

"Sometimes waves move the bottom of the sea, small fish go to that spot in search of food, I saw the fish congregate in an area not far from the coast, only 100m out, so I rowed out there and, immersed in the sea, I saw the body of a person, half-buried under the sand."

At first Ghurab was scared. He stared into the water but did not recognise the man's face. When he dived in and touched the body it felt like stone.

"I tried to move it, to make sure that it was a statue, but it was too heavy," he says. "The colour was golden so it was easy to think it was gold."

Ghurab marked the spot and went back to the beach to fetch his relatives. They returned and dived down together - it was at a depth of about four metres, Ghurab estimates.

"We were able to slide it under the water for a metre or two metres and then go up again to take a breath and try again," he says.

After four hours they succeeded in getting the object out of the water. It was the statue of a naked man. They loaded it on to a cart and took it to Ghurab's house.

"My wife covered her face when she saw him lying naked in the house. She begged me to cover it," he says, laughing.

Ghurab's uncle, Atef, proposed cutting the statue into small pieces and selling it.

"After I saw the yellow colour at the head of the statue I thought it was made of gold, but one of my sons

suggested cutting off the finger and taking it to the market to check.We remembered that one of our relatives worked in the neighbourhood selling gold. We called him and he examined the statue and told us that it was made of bronze."

But he also said the bronze statue could be even more precious than if it had been made of gold.

Ghurab considered trying to smuggle the statue into Egypt to sell it, but the smugglers' tunnels - dug to circumvent restrictions put in place by Israel and Egypt after the Islamist movement Hamas came to power in Gaza - have been out of action since they were closed by the Egyptian army last summer.

Neighbours started asking questions, so Ghurab asked a relative - a commander in Hamas's military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades - to help him hide it.

"The people who took the statue said they would send me a handsome reward after they sell it, but we have not got anything yet," he says.

For a while it was for sale on eBay, with an asking price of $500,000. Then the listing disappeared.

Ahmed Elburch, an official at the Hamas-run Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities in Gaza, says he last saw the statue in October. He was concerned about its condition, he says, as the colour appeared to be changing, and one of the eyes had been cut out.

He says a request from the Louvre to borrow the 500kg, 1.75m statue is currently being studied.

Hamas police refused my request to see it.

People living in the north of the Gaza Strip say it is still being held by militants, who have refused to hand it over to the Hamas government.

But no-one can be sure.

Listen to Shahdi Alkashif's report on the missing statue on The Fifth Floor, on the BBC World Service, or download the podcast.