A large Roman villa was uncovered in Oxfordshire. Credit: Red River Archaeology Group The complex was adorned with intricate painted plaster and mosaics and housed a collection of small, tightly coiled lead scrolls. The Red River Archaeology Group (RRAG), the organization responsible for coordinating the excavation, announced in a press release that these elements suggest that the site may have been used for rituals or pilgrimages. Francesca Giarelli, the Red River Archaeology Group project officer and the site director, told CNN that the villa likely had multiple levels. The Roman ..read more

Today, Smallhythe Place in Kent is best known as a bohemian rural retreat once owned by the Victorian actress Ellen Terry and her daughter Edy Craig. As this month’s cover feature reveals, however, the surrounding fields preserve evidence of much earlier activity, including a medieval royal shipyard and a previously unknown Roman settlement (below, first image).   Our next feature comes from the heavy clays of the Humber Estuary, where excavations sparked by the construction of an offshore windfarm have opened a 40km transect through northern Lincolnshire, with illuminating results (bel ..read more

Tom Quad, Christ Church, Oxford University – image David Beard The Oxford Experience summer school is held at Christ Church, Oxford.  Participants stay in Christ Church and eat in the famous Dining Hall, that was the model for the Hall in the Harry Potter movies. This year there are twelve classes offered in archaeology. You can find the list of courses here ..read more

‘It was killing fields as far as the eye can see’ … the Latin-inscribed slabs crossing the site of the battle, which features in the British Museum show Legion. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian ‘Their heads were nailed to the trees’: what was life – and death – like for Roman legionaries? It was the defeat that traumatised Rome, leaving 15,000 soldiers slaughtered in a German field. As a major show explores this horror and more, our writer finds traces of the fallen by a forest near the Rhine It is one of the most chilling passages in Roman literature. Germanicus, the emperor Tiberius ..read more

Schematic drawing of the relationship between climatic change and sociological, physical, and biological factors influencing infectious disease outbreaks. Credit: Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adk1033 A team of geoscientists, Earth scientists and environmental scientists affiliated with several institutions in Germany, the U.S. and the Netherlands has found a link between cold snaps and pandemics during the Roman Empire. In their project, reported in the journal Science Advances, the group studied core samples taken from the seabed in the Gulf of Taranto and compared them wi ..read more

Buried Roman fermentation jars (dolia) from Villa Regina, Boscoreale.  Credit: E. Dodd, courtesy of the Ministero della Cultura – Parco Archaeologico di Pompei It's no secret that the ancient Romans were lovers of wine. So gripped by the grape were they, that they even worshiped a god—Bacchus—devoted to wine and merriment. But, little is known about what their wine actually tasted like. Was it bitter or sweet? Fruity or earthy? According to a pioneering new study, it was rather spicy and smelled like toast. The study, published on Jan. 23 in the journal Antiquity, analyzed Roman clay ..read more

Only one victim of crucifixion has ever been identified in Roman Britain: The man’s skeleton—with a two-inch nail driven through its heel bone—was discovered during a dig in Cambridgeshire in 2017. Now, researchers have released a facial reconstruction showing what he may have looked like 2,000 years ago. As Joe Mullins, a forensic scientist at Virginia’s George Mason University, says in the new BBC Four documentary The Cambridgeshire Crucifixion, “I am staring at a face from thousands of years ago, and staring at this face is something I will never forget.” Mullins’ work usually involves ..read more

Archaeologists at work uncovering evidence of a battle that was fought in the Julier Valley around 15 B.C.E. image: Archaeological Service Graubünden oday, the Julier Valley in Switzerland is an idyllic place with majestic mountains and wide, green fields. But some 2,000 years ago, archaeologists now believe that it was the site of a fierce battle between Roman soldiers and local warriors, one which changed the course of history and helped lead to the Roman occupation of modern-day Switzerland. During the examination of the site, which is located in the Crap-Ses gorge between the towns of T ..read more

The Romans ruled Britain for nearly four centuries, from 43 CE until the beginning of the fifth century. Most commentators agree that the actions of Magnus Maximus can be viewed as the beginning of the end of Roman rule over Britain. He withdrew a large portion of Roman troops when he proclaimed himself emperor and set off to attack Emperor Gratian on the continent. This was in 383, quite some time before the fifth century. But while acknowledging that it was a gradual process, many modern sources claim that one specific year can be cited as the final end. In 410 Emperor Honorius wrote a let ..read more

A bakery where enslaved people were imprisoned and exploited to produce bread has been discovered in the ruins of Pompeii in what has been described as the most shocking example of slavery in the ancient Roman city. The cramped bakery with small windows barred with iron was part of a home that emerged during excavations in the Regio IX area of the Pompeii archaeological park in southern Italy. The discovery provides more evidence on the daily life of Pompeii’s enslaved people, often forgotten about by historical sources but who made up most of the population and whose hard labour propped u ..read more