Archaeologists near the coastal town of Binyamina unearthed two well-preserved marble busts from the Roman era, hidden face-down in the pit of an ancient winepress.
The excavation uncovered a sprawling Byzantine-era wine-production complex with treading floors, filtration basins and collection pits for fermenting grape juice.
On the last day the team found the statues. They stand about 55 centimeters (22 inches) tall and weigh roughly 60 kilograms (132 pounds) each. One protome bears a Greek inscription with the name of Lycurgus (most commonly associated with Sparta). The bust could represent Lycurgus of Athens.
A second mystery concerns how the busts arrived in Binyamina hundreds of years after they were created.
By late antiquity, as Christianity became the dominant religion, pagan temples and monuments were vandalized or destroyed. Statues associated with the Greco-Roman world were frequent targets.
The Scythians, renowned as fierce warriors, skilled horsemen and archers, held their swords in high esteem. The Scythian sword, known as the akinakes (or acinaces), is an iconic, double-edged short sword or dagger used by generations of Scythian warriors. The Scythian sword was deeply revered, both as a practical weapon and a spiritual artifact.
This sword with a gold tip scabbard was found by archaeologists in 2019 at Mount Mamai. (Mamai Hora in Ukrainian) Mamai Hora is an extensive burial site.
A skeleton belonged to a young man aged 18-20. The objects lying nearby indicated he was a Scythian warrior and horseman. The archeologists discovered an iron axe, bronze and bone arrows, and bridle buckles. The prize was his gold-plated akinakes. Experts date the burial to the 6th century B.C.
The youth was buried next to a much larger grave of an older man, looted in antiquity.
Ancient Roman coins were made out of round discs of flat pressed metal, known as ‘mints’. That word is another from the Romans. There were two methods initiating the minting process, the coins could either be made by cold striking metal or hot striking.
Roman die used in striking coins. It has a silver denarius of Tiberius still lodged in it. The reverse die, made of a hard bell-metal, was rendered useless by the stuck denarius. The mint worker tried to dislodge the coin, as marks show, before discarding the die. Estimated $15,000, it sold for $50,000 in 2009.
Official coin dies were subject to strict security to avoid counterfeiting and were destroyed at the end of their short lifespan. Stealing a coin die would result in certain painful death. The die came from the Roman mint at Lugdunum. While forger’s dies have survived from Roman times, only a handful of 'official' coin dies are known to exist. French researchers determined that 12 coin dies are official mint products; 11 of these are from the imperial mint of Lugdunum (modern Lyon) in France.
Dies were made of bronze and iron and engraved with all of the details wanted on the coin. These were pounded onto the mint to leave an imprint. For the different images on each side, the obverse and reverse, a hinged die was used. One image was attached to the top and one to the bottom, allowing for an efficient process where the flattened mint was placed between the dies, then clamped shut and pounded to transfer the images.
Die engravers (sculptores) were highly skilled artisans who engraved the negative images (obverse and reverse) in hardened bronze or iron. A continuous supply of new dies was required. Many errors occurred while striking the coins.
Julius Caesar Denarius, struck in January 44 B.C. The first time a Roman leader appeared on coinage.
The minting process started with the raw material. In many cases this was an alloy. For silver, using the wrong alloy generated quality problems. The striking team comprised a worker (suppostor) who placed the blank on the lower die, an aligner (signator) held the upper and lower dies in place, and a striker (malleator) hammered the top die to transfer the design.
Minted in 46 BCE by the moneyer T. Carisius, this specific denarius is one of the most highly sought-after artifacts for understanding Roman coin making and metallurgy. It offers a direct, visual blueprint of the ancient coining process. Its reverse depicts ancient coining, showcasing an anvil, tongs, a hammer, and a garlanded die.
In 2012, archaeologists in Southern Turkey discovered a well-preserved mosaic featuring a skeleton with bread and a pitcher of wine. The inscription reads in Greek “Be cheerful and live your life.” Dating to the 3rd century BCE, the mosaic adorned the dining room of a wealthy villa in the ancient city of Antioch. The mosaic was excavated during construction in Hatay Province and is now housed at the Hatay Archaeology Museum in Turkey. While scholars argued about the translation, a common theme, some pointed to the mosaic beside the skeleton.
TRECHEDEIPNOS with AKAIROS below it. The first word is used referring to human parasites. AKAIROS is something like ‘ill-timed’ or ‘pesky’. Staring at a sundial (he is late) he's rushing so much that he lost a shoe.
Sadly the third mosaic was damaged beyond recognition. The sentiment being expressed is not as obvious as it's made out to be. It seems the true message is more akin to Solon’s warning to Croesus to count no man happy until they’re dead.
The Year of the Four Emperors, 69 AD, was a year of the Roman Empire in which four emperors ruled in succession: Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian. On June 9, 68 AD, Nero was tried in absentia and condemned to death. He met death at his servant's hand, thereby attaining the distinction of being the first Roman Emperor to nearly commit suicide. The four most influential generals in the Empire successively vied for imperial power. Galba was unable to establish his authority. Otho murdered Galba on 15 January with the help of the Praetorian Guard.
Galba - US$64,400
Otho US$191,500 (2005)
Otho faced Vitellius, who had been acclaimed by the legions of the Rhine on 1 January 69. Vitellius won the First Battle of Bedriacum on 14 April. Otho committed suicide the next day. Vespasian was legate of Syria. Vespasian's legions were victorious at the Second Battle of Bedriacum on 24 October. Vitellius was subsequently killed by a mob on 20 December.
Vitellius - Very rare, 10 known. US$43,800
Vespasian US$13,600
Vespasian brought stability to the empire. After his death in 79, he was succeeded by his eldest son Titus, thus becoming the first Roman emperor to be directly succeeded by his own natural son.
Titus (79-81) - Aureus (7,35 g), Rome Mint, 79. $22,000 EUR in 2020.
Titus, born December 30, 39, was the eldest son of Vespasian. He followed his father to Judea, where he was legate of the XV Apollinaris legion. After the proclamation of Alexandria, Vespasian left the pacification of Judea to Titus. After the capture of Jerusalem in the summer of 70, he celebrated the triumph with his father in January 71 in Rome. He succeeded him on his death June 24, 79. The reign of Titus is a series of disasters: the eruption of Vesuvius on August 24, 79 which destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum, then the fire of Rome in 80.
Titus died in 81, perhaps assassinated at the instigation of his brother, Domitian (Suetonius).
After a 5 day war with Pharnacles II of Pontus, Caesar wrote a report to Rome detailing his conquest. The commander didn't go into much detail, writing: "I came, I saw, I conquered." The sound bite proved so catchy that we still remember it to this day.
Crossing the Rubicon River with an army was tantamount to a declaration of war. When Caesar crossed the Rubicon with his legion on Jan 10, 49 BC, he risked all. Suetonius writes that Caesar quoted an Athenian playwright as he crossed the river, declaring "the die is cast."
Caesar wrote that "in war, events of importance are the result of trivial causes."
In his chronicle of the Gallic Wars, Caesar concludes that: "in most cases men willingly believe what they wish" describing a tactical mistake of his Gallic enemies.
Caesar writes: "The immortal gods are wont to allow those persons whom they wish to punish for their guilt sometimes a greater prosperity and longer impunity, in order that they may suffer the more severely from a reverse of circumstances."
As a young man, Julius Caesar was abducted by pirates. When the pirates demanded a ransom of twenty talents, Caesar burst out laughing. They did not know, he said, who it was that they had captured, and he volunteered to pay fifty.
Caesar went on to promise the pirates that he'd personally kill them once he was free. After he was ransomed, he raised a fleet, hunted them down, and did exactly what he had promised.
Sanxingdui is the ruins of the capital of the ancient Shu Kingdom. Sanxingdui is 15 km from the Sichuan Province capital of Chengdu. In the 1980s, construction workers found two pits full of strange relics: piles of elephant tusks, gold masks, and bronze figures.
The objects were 3,000 years old, and unlike anything seen in China.
Sanxingdui was once the capital of a powerful and technologically advanced civilization, which flourished in the region around the time of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun.
The prize find was a huge bronze statue known as the Large Standing Figure — a giant, intricately detailed rendering of a man standing 2.6 meters tall and weighing nearly 200 kg.
China's lost civilization is acknowledged as one of the greatest archaeological finds ever.
Bronze figure with a gold mask from Sanxingdui, Sichuan province, China, ca. 1200–1050 BCE.
Leaden sling-bullets were widely used in the ancient world.
For a given mass, lead, being relatively heavy offers the minimum size and minimum air resistance. In addition, leaden sling-bullets are difficult to see in flight and avoid. Worse, the projectiles had messages ... "Take This", "Here's a Sugar Plum For You", "This is a Hard Nut to Crack."
On a fortified hill called Burnswark in the Dumfries region of southwest Scotland some 1,900 years ago, a Roman army attacked local warriors by hurling lead bullets from slings that had nearly the stopping power of a modern .44 magnum handgun, according to experts. The assault must have been deadly, but Burnswark was just the opening salvo in a war against the tribes living north of Hadrian’s Wall. Despite their superior weaponry, Roman soldiers fought a tough and resourceful enemy that melted away into the hills and marshes. Less than 20 years after the Roman's attack at Burnswark, they retreated south to Hadrian’s Wall.
The excavations at Burnswark Hill unearthed the largest cache of Roman lead sling bullets ever discovered — part of the huge arsenal of missile ammunition used by the attacking legions to subdue the hilltop fort. Roman lead sling bullets were known in Latin as glandes. (or 'lead acorns') So many sling bullets and other Roman missiles have been found at Burnswark Hill that archaeologists think the raid was staged as a warning to anyone who resisted Roman rule.
Researchers estimate that up to 5,000 Roman soldiers took part in the attack, based on the size of two Roman army camps that were built to the north and south of the hilltop fort.
Roman soldiers armed with slings used lead bullets to mow down foes.
Archaeologists also discovered ballista balls
Hadrian’s wall
The Romans also employed psychological warfare against the Scots. About 10% of the bullets had holes in them. Researchers cast replicas, and asked an experienced slinger to test them. The bullets with the holes made “a weird banshee-like wail” Isotopic studies of bullets from Burnswark and from other well-dated sites suggests that the bloody battle took place around A.D.140, early in the reign of the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius.
Rome terminated the rule of its Jewish client dynasty, the Herodians, in 6 CE, establishing Judaea as a province governed by an appointed praefectus (until 41 CE) or procurator (44 – 132 CE). The most famous of these was Pontius Pilate (26 – 36 CE)
Gessius Florus (64 – 66), appointed by Nero and one of the worst procuratores, did much to provoke the revolt known as the first Jewish War. In the Autumn of 66, Florus seized 17 talents from the Temple treasury in Jerusalem, claiming it was due for back taxes. That would be 969 pounds of nearly pure silver. This provoked a riot in the city, which was suppressed with Roman brutality.
$1.1m in 2017.
Florus fled to the coast, and the rebels besieged his troops in the Antonia fortress, the citadel of the city. One of the first acts of the rebels was to assert their independence by issuing silver coins. The “prototype” shekel issued at the start of the revolt is one of the great rarities of Jewish coinage – 4 are known
Year 5 shekel.
Year 1 shekels are scarce; Years 2 and 3 are more common; Year 4 is very rare; and Year 5 is extremely rare, with only about 25 examples known. The supply of silver for fractional coinage may have run short during the long siege of Jerusalem. Bronze emergency coinage was issued in denominations of half, quarter and eighth shekel.
Year 3 shekel $7,500
Vespasian. Æ Sestertius, AD 69-79. 'Judaea Capta'
On August 3, 70 CE, the Romans breached the last defenses of Jerusalem, massacred the starving rebels and destroyed the Temple. Defeat of the Jewish revolt gave Rome an opportunity for massive looting and enormous profits from the sale of slaves. The spoils of Jerusalem funded construction of the Roman Colosseum. The Romans commemorated their victory with extensive coin issues proclaiming IUDAEA CAPTA ('Judaea Captured').
Coins of the Jewish War have been in high demand with collectors for centuries and there are many fakes, ranging from cheap trinkets to highly deceptive professional forgeries.
