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The haunting mystery of Britain's headless Romans may have been solved at last, thanks to scars from a lion's bite and hammer marks on decapitated skulls.

The results of forensic work, announced today, on more than 80 skeletons of well-built young men, gradually exhumed from the gardens of a York terrace over a decade, suggests that the world's best-preserved gladiator graveyard has been found.

Many of the 1,800-year-old remains indicate much stronger muscles in the right arm, a condition noted by Roman writers in slaves trained from their teens to fight in the arena. Advanced mineral testing of tooth enamel also links the men to a wide variety of Roman provinces, including North Africa, which was another a feature of gladiator recruitment.

The conclusions are consistent with York's importance in the Roman world as a provincial capital and major military base for years of campaigning north of Hadrian's Wall. Many senior generals and politicians held posts in the city and Constantine appointed himself emperor there in 306AD. Such distinguished residents would have required a high standard of social life, according to the York Archaeological Trust, which has supervised the excavations in Driffield Terrace.

via Scars from lion bite suggest headless Romans found in York were gladiators | Science | The Guardian.

Ancient Mesoamerican peoples manufactured rubber from latex some 3,500 years before the modern invention of vulcanization and even compounded it for different applications, says new research from a Massachusetts Institute of Technology research team.

According to archaeology professor Dorothy Hosler and technical instructor Michael Tarkanian of MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, pre-Hispanic peoples not only invented rubber, but they perfected a system of chemical processing to enhance rubber’s properties.

The result was strong, wear-resistant rubber for sandal soles, resilient, bouncy rubber for game balls, and rubber optimized for resilience and strength for wide bands used to attach handles to axe heads.

via Mesoamericans Were The First Polymer Scientists : Discovery News.

Egyptian archeologists said Sunday that they have discovered a 3,300-year-old tomb that belongs to a high-profile army commander in south Cairo.

The tomb dating back to Egypt's 19th Dynasty (about 1,320 B.C. – 1,200 B.C.) was unearthed during excavation work by a Cairo University archeological team in the cemetery of dignitaries in Saqqara necropolis, south Cairo, a statement by Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) said.

SCA chief Zahi Hawwas said the team has discovered a number of patios and chambers attached to the 70-meter-long cemetery which extends from east to west.

Ola el-Egaizi, head of the team, told Xinhua that the team has also found a number of murals, including one that features tomb owner Ptahmes praying to the Trinity of Thebes (God Amun, his wife Goddess Mut and their son God Khonsu.)

The mission is still carrying out excavations in the area to discover the tomb's main well which, she said, might lead the team to the burial chamber of the army commander and his spouse where their caskets could be found.

Ahmed Said, deputy head of the team, said the archeological team has also discovered several parts of statues belonging to Ptahmes and his spouse. The discovered artifacts also included pottery, amulets, statues of goddesses made of semi-precious stones and an offering table.

via 3,300 year-old tomb of army chief discovered in Egypt.

A prehistoric town that had remained untouched beneath the ground near Syria for 6,000 years is now revealing clues about the first cities in the Middle East prior to the invention of the wheel.The town, called Tell Zeidan, dates from between 6000 B.C. and 4000 B.C., and immediately preceded the world's first urban civilizations in the ancient Middle East. It is one of the largest sites of the Ubaid culture in northern Mesopotamia.Now archaeologists from the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute and their Syrian colleagues are studying the town, which sits below a mound in an area of irrigated fields at the junction of the Euphrates and Balikh Rivers in what is now northern Syria.

via Lost city in Syria predates the wheel – Science- msnbc.com.

Very old artworks provide a fascinating glimpse of ancient life, but not without limitations: They typically portray the lifestyles of the rich and famous (rulers, royals, generals, and priests), abandoning the masses to the mists of history.

That’s why the recent discovery of a 1,300-year-old mural at Calakmul, Mexico, is so significant. It is the only known pre-Columbian artwork depicting ordinary Maya engaged in everyday activities, rather than serving the wealthy.

Archaeologists first unearthed the pyramid bearing the painted exterior walls in 2004 and are still in the process of restoring it. The murals show Maya of both sexes preparing and dispensing food, or carrying baskets, sacks, and large vessels. (Previously discovered images mainly show men.) The women wear face paint, and both sexes sport broad-brimmed hats, earrings, necklaces, and pendants. Hieroglyphic captions identify some people by their trades: salt person, tobacco person, and maize-gruel person, for example.

via Ancient Mural Portrays Ordinary Mayans | LiveScience.

Wine in Roman society had a long and changeable history. At certain times prohibited to certain social groups, it was believed to be a health drink. It was also enjoyed in a variety of different ways.

The Romans and Alcohol

Wine was the Roman’s alcoholic drink of choice. Viticulture was established in long before the influence of the Greeks. The Romans had their own god of wine, Liber, a deity with very particular Roman characteristics which were incompatible with the Greek wine God Dionysus. This indicates that Liber developed separately and could not be directly associated with any Greek gods.

Beer was available but regarded as an inferior drink. Roman beer was made from rye and was extremely cheap, half the price of the worst kinds of wine. It was not a drink for the sophisticated although beer foam was used in the cosmetics of roman ladies.

via Wine Drinking in the Roman World: The History of Roman Wine.

30 January 1948, Gandhi is assassinated. The above is his speech on non-violence, in South Africa, taken from the movie “Gandhi“.

His actual voice, 1931 – speaking about god:

Roman engineers chipped an aqueduct through more than 100 kilometers of stone to connect water to cities in the ancient province of Syria. The monumental effort took more than a century, says the German researcher who discovered it.

via Rome’s Tremendous Tunnel: The Ancient World’s Longest Underground Aqueduct – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News – International.

Read the whole article – fascinating!

British newspapers have been thumbing their noses at the Italians this week, following an announcement by researchers that they have discovered lasagne is in fact an English dish that was described in “the world’s oldest recipe book”.

via World Wide Words: Lasagne.

[Read the whole article....]