Archaeology, features and articles | Educational Science

Aug 17, 2022

Photos: Gladiators of the Roman Empire

Gladiators of the Empire (Image credit: Razvy | Shutterstock) There were several different types of gladiators who fought at the time of the Roman Empire. Wearing different kinds of armor, and welding a mix of weapons, these fighters were pitted against each other in the arena and often enough met...

Aug 17, 2022

Head of Hercules and other treasures found on Roman 'Antikythera Mechanism' shipwreck

The 2,000-year-old Roman shipwreck that carried the Antikythera Mechanism — a precise mechanical model of the sun, moon and planets — is giving up new treasures, including a marble head thought to depict the Greek and Roman demigod Hercules. Scientists and divers made the new discoveries after creating the first...

Aug 17, 2022

Famed Roman Shipwreck Could Be Two

SEATTLE — A dive to the undersea cliff where a famous Roman shipwreck rests has turned up either evidence that the wreck is enormous — or a suggestion that, not one, but two sunken ships are resting off the Greek island of Antikythera. Either way, it's an exciting result, said...

Aug 31, 2022

The Roman Empire: Rulers, expansion and fall

The Roman Empire began in 27 B.C., when Octavian, Julius Caesar's adopted son and heir, was granted the title Augustus, meaning revered one, by the Roman senate. This new title signified Octavian's elevation to the position of emperor in all but name, ending the Roman Republic, according to many modern...

Aug 31, 2022

Amateur freedivers find gold treasure dating to the fall of the Roman Empire

Two amateur divers swimming along the Spanish coast have discovered a huge hoard of 1,500-year-old gold coins, one of the largest on record dating to the Roman Empire. The divers, brothers-in-law Luis Lens Pardo and César Gimeno Alcalá, discovered the gold stash while vacationing with their families in Xàbia, a...

Sep 2, 2022

Deformed 'alien' skulls offer clues about life during the Roman Empire’s collapse

Over decades, dozens of artificially deformed alien-like skulls that are more than 1,000 years old have been unearthed in a cemetery in Hungary. Now, these skulls are revealing how the collapse of the Roman Empire unleashed social changes in the region. During the fifth century A.D., people in central Europe...

Sep 24, 2022

Why did the Roman Empire split in two?

An old adage states that Rome wasn't built in a day, meaning that big projects take time to complete. The Roman Empire, as an example, was established gradually and grew over hundreds of years from a city-state to a colossal empire stretching from Britain to Egypt. And just as Rome...

Oct 17, 2022

1,600-year-old mosaic of Hercules and Neptune's 40 mistresses unearthed in war-torn Syria

Archaeologists in war-torn Syria have unearthed a stunning mosaic from the Roman era that features events from the Trojan War, the chiseled muscles of the Roman demigod Hercules and the powerful ancient Roman god Neptune alongside 40 of his mistresses. The General Directorate of Antiquities and Museums, a Syrian government...

Jan 26, 2023

Mysterious 12-sided Roman object found in Belgium may have been used for magical rituals

A metal detectorist in Belgium has unearthed a fragment of a mysterious bronze artifact known as a Roman dodecahedron that is thought to be more than 1,600 years old. More than a hundred of the puzzling objects — hollow, 12-sided geometric shells of cast metal about the size of baseballs,...

Jan 30, 2023

Vast subterranean aqueduct in Naples once 'served elite Roman villas'

Forty years ago, when children in Naples were playing in caves and tunnels under the hill of Posillipo in Italy, they didn't know their playground was actually a Roman aqueduct. When they shared their memories with archaeological authorities recently, it kicked off an exploration of one of the longest, most...

Feb 1, 2023

Stockpile of 2,000-year-old gemstones found in Roman bathhouse drain

Archaeologists recently uncovered a stockpile of 2,000-year-old glittering gemstones clogging the drain of a Roman bathhouse near Hadrian's Wall in Carlisle, England. The 30 engraved, semi-precious stones — known as intaglios — likely dropped out of the ring settings worn by bathers who took to the waters sometime during the...

Feb 3, 2023

When did Rome fall?

The Fall of Rome usually refers to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century A.D. But historians don't agree about the exact date, nor about its causes. And some historians argue that the Roman Empire lasted until it fell in the East, centuries later. At its...

Feb 6, 2023

Statue of slain Roman emperor dressed as Hercules found near sewer in Rome

A newly found statue in Rome appears to depict a slain Roman emperor dressed as Hercules. It may offer insight to the viewpoint of a Roman emperor who embraced traditional Greco-Roman gods at a time when Christianity was spreading throughout the empire. Gaius Messius Quintus Trajanus Decius, also known as...

Feb 28, 2023

Ancient Roman 'spike defenses' made famous by Julius Caesar found in Germany

In 52 B.C., Julius Caesar used an ingenious system of ditches and stakes to defend his soldiers from an encroaching Gallic army in modern-day central France. More than two millennia later, archaeologists have discovered the first preserved example of similar defensive stakes, which likely protected an ancient silver mine. A...

Mar 9, 2023

Gladiators fought in Roman Britain, action-packed cremation urn carvings reveal

Vivid depictions of battling gladiators on a clay vase are the first concrete evidence that these combatants duked it out in Roman Britain, new research finds. The vessel, known as the Colchester vase, is well known to researchers; it was discovered in a Roman-era grave in Britain in 1853 and...