Archaeology
Excavation reveals new insights into last moments before Vesuvius eruption
Archaeologists conducting excavations in the Villa San Marco, a high status Roman villa on the outskirts of Stabia, are revealing new insights into the last moments before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
Stabiae was an ancient Roman town and seaside resort near Pompeii on the eastern end of the Bay of Naples. Like Pompeii and Herculanium, Stabiae was largely buried during the AD 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius in thick tephra and ash.
Pliny the Elder, a Roman author who wrote the encyclopedic Naturalis Historia (which became an editorial model for encyclopedias died at Stabiae during the eruptions, but many of the town inhabitants were spared and resettled. Publius Papinius Statius recites in a poem to his wife – “Stabias renatas”, meaning Stabiae reborn.
Recent excavations at the Villa San Marco, a large Roman villa complex which covers more than 11,000 square metres, have been investigating the previous building phases of the site to further understand the chronology and extent of the entire structure.
Image Credit : Pompeii Sites
The villa’s original construction dates back to the Augustan Age and was focused on a tetrastyle Ionic atrium. Later, during the Claudian period, expansions incorporated a panoramic garden and a swimming pool that were enclosed by a three-sided portico, topped with a colonnade featuring spiral columns.
As a result of these additions, the layout of the villa underwent significant changes, shifting away from the previous axial plan and decentralising the entrance and the original core.
The main entrance, now buried, used to open onto a porticoed courtyard that provided access to the tablinum. From there, one could proceed to a tetrastyle atrium, leading to four small cubicula. Additionally, the thermal baths were accessible from the atrium, but their alignment deviated from the villa’s main axis due to their connection with the pre-existing street running in front of the structure.
Since March 2023, archaeologists have excavated the end part of the upper portico, revealing paintings with seated figures and large parts of the collapsed walls. The portico was buried in lapilli tephra (volcanic rock), allowing the paintings to be preserved along with a flight of the spiral columns.
According to a press announcement: “Following the story provided by the stratigraphies of lapilli and collapses, and by the sequence of pyroclastic flows, it is also possible to reconstruct the last hours of the villa’s life.”
“Despite the dramatic destruction, the life and luxury of the villa resurface in the chromatic ranges of the paintings on the walls and ceilings, in the stuccos, in the capitals, in the precious coatings and crowning of columns and roofs,” added the researchers.”
Header Image Credit : Pompeii Sites
Archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences have been excavating a burial ground associated with the Finnic Muromians.
The Finnic Muromians were groups of settlers that lived within the vicinity of the Volga and Oka rivers. They spoke Muromian, an Uralic language that became extinct following their assimilation by the Slavs.
The burial ground, which dates from the early 10th century AD, was discovered on the eastern bank of the Oka river, located in the Nizhny Novgorod Region of Russia.
A total of seventeen burial pits have been identified, nine of which have been severely damaged through looting.
The surviving 8 burials contain the remains of four children, two women, and two men.
The men were accompanied with an ornate collection of grave goods, including arrowheads, knives, bronze bracelets, iron plates, a bronze buckle, and a whetstone.
At the bottom of one of the pits is a heavily corroded axe, along with a flint that has traces of iron-coated embossed leather and textile threads.
The burials containing women were also accompanied with high status funerary goods, such as a necklace of red-brown prismatic and dark blue berry-shaped beads of Byzantine origin, signet ring-shaped pendants, plate bracelets, a bronze spiral, and a silver ring.
Traces of wood within the pit fillings suggest that they originally contained a wooden structure, similar to a log house made of thin beams and covered with birch bark.
According to the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences: “The culmination of the discoveries at the site were two clay vessels, testifying to direct and close contacts between the right-bank Muromians and the Old Russian population.”
Header Image Credit : Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Sources : Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
Archaeologists from the State Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeology of Saxony-Anhalt are currently excavating the site of a former gallows in Quedlinburg, Germany.
Gallows are usually wooden structures made of two vertical posts, a horizontal crossbeam, and a hanging noose. They have been used for executing criminals by hanging, a prevalent form of capital punishment in Europe since the Middle Ages.
Archaeologists are currently excavating a gallows site on Galgenberg, or ‘Gallows Hill,’ which was used for public executions by the courts in Quedlinburg from 1662 to 1809.
Excavations have revealed complete and partial burials in the area, along with bone pits containing multiple bundled burials, likely the result of mass executions carried out in a short period.
Image Credit : LDA
According to the State Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeology of Saxony-Anhalt, “these discoveries provide unique insights into penal practices from the Middle Ages and early modern times.”
A burial unrelated to the gallows has also been unearthed, featuring a wooden coffin containing the skeletal remains of an individual buried with a rosary chain.
Archaeologists propose that the burial’s characteristics suggest that the individual was likely a suicide victim, denied burial in consecrated ground so was placed in the cemetery near the gallows.
Also discovered is a so-called ‘revenant grave’, where the skeletal remains of a man was found placed on his back with several large stones placed across his chest.
According to the researchers, the stones were likely placed to prevent the individual from rising as a revenant, which are described as animated corpses in the verbal traditions and lore of many European ethnic groups.
In medieval times, those inflicted with the revenant condition were generally suicide victims, witches, corpses possessed by a malevolent spirit, or the victim of a vampiric attack.
Header Image Credit : LDA
Sources : State Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeology of Saxony-Anhalt
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
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