Trajan’s Column

Built in Rome and dedicated in AD 113, Trajan’s Column was designed to commemorate Trajan’s victories in the Dacian Wars. Its marble relief winds around the shaft more than 23 times, creating a continuous visual story of Roman military campaigns. The column is actually a building. Inside its marble structure is a spiral staircase with 185 steps, allowing visitors to climb from the pedestal to the viewing platform at the top. Around 40 small windows brought natural light into this narrow staircase. The shaft itself was assembled from blocks of Luna marble, carefully positioned to create a structure that has survived for nearly two thousand years. Trajan’s bronze statue was eventually replaced by a statue of St Peter in 1588.

Roman sarcophagi

In 2017 two Roman sarcophagi were unearthed close to Rome’s stadium. The marble coffins boast elaborate bas-reliefs and were probably the final resting place of children of a wealthy Roman family. Discovered by chance when an energy company started digging in the area, they date from the third or fourth century AD.

The Roman sarcophagi were found about 2.5 meters (8 feet) underground on the northwest slope of Monte Mario, directly behind the north curve of the Stadio Olimpico. Child mortality in ancient Rome was exceptionally high, with historians estimating that 25% to 30% of infants died within their first year, and roughly 30% to 50% of children did not survive to age ten. Reasons are disease, epidemics, and high mortality with no medical treatment.

The Ludovisi sarcophagus

Artifacts are routinely found beneath the streets of Rome during construction. In 2015, an operation to repair gas pipes revealed the remains of a 2,000-year-old villa, complete with frescoed walls.

A priceless Roman sarcopagus was identified outside Blenheim Palace.

Roman usurper Emperor Allectus - $700k

A metal detectorist found a gold coin in Kent in 2019 with the image of the Roman Emperor Allectus with two kneeling captives at the feet of the god Apollo on the obverse. In power from 293 to 296 AD, Allectus was one of two Roman emperors who ruled Britannia and northern Gaul as an independent nation between 286 and 296 AD. The British Museum owns the only other known exact example of this Allectus aureus. Nobody had found any coin bearing his visage in over 50 years.

Formerly the finance minister (rationalis) to the usurper Carausius, Allectus seized the throne by assassinating Carausius before being defeated and killed by the Roman Caesar Constantius Chlorus in 296 AD. Constantius was bestowed the title Britannicus Maximus. This  Allectus aureus, of which 24 are known, was estimated to sell for between $90k and $127k in 2019. Warring bidders, likely museums, pushed that to $700k.

Constantius Chlorus rose from obscurity to become the Emperor of the western Roman empire. A soldier who worked his way up through the ranks, his star rose in 289 after he married Theodora, the stepdaughter of the emperor Maximian. By this time Constantius had already fathered a soon to be famous son named Constantine by another woman, Helena. The Arras Medallion (AD 296) celebrating his victory weighs 26.79 gms.

A bronze antoninianus coin of Allectus is notable for the history it reflects. The coin realized a hammer price of €550 ($618 U.S.) against a pre-sale estimate of €200 ($225 U.S.). Slender and shallow ships were used in Roman rivers until late antiquity and played a significant military role. The ship was easy to navigate and thus sailors could be trained quickly. Each carried 50 men, with 30 of them rowing.

First Roman coins

The earliest forms of Roman currency before coins were unshaped bronze lumps called Aes Rude. Aes Rude (~508–300 BC) were raw, rough chunks of bronze used as pre-coinage exchange metal weighed out on a scale. Aes Signatum was used between the 5th–3rd century BC. These were stamped or cast bronze bars marked with basic designs or symbols.

Aes Grave (Latin for "heavy bronze"~289–300 BC) were the first true heavy cast-bronze round coins issued by Rome, anchored by the base unit known as the As (initially weighing one Roman pound). The Aes Grave can be considered the first true coinage. The Latin pound, or libra, was roughly equal to 329 modern grams. For comparison, the modern pound (lb) is equal to 453.6 grams, yet in homage to the Romans, we still use the abbreviation “lb”.

Teotihuacan: City of Water, City of Fire

In 2017 the de Young Museum hosted the exhibit “Teotihuacan: City of Water, City of Fire.” More than 200 artifacts were featured, some never displayed before. Teotihuacan was established in the first century BC. By the fifth century it had evolved into an important urban center and multicultural metropolis, becoming the largest city in the Western Hemisphere. The so-called “City of the Gods” is estimated to contain 100,000 people at it's peak.

Around 550 CE, the city was destroyed by fire. 900 years after its destruction, the Aztecs made their way into a ghost city in the northeastern part of the Valley of Mexico. There, the Aztecs considered Teotihuacan to be the city where the gods brought the world into existence. Teotihuacan means the place where men become gods.

The Urine Tax (vectigal urinae)

In ancient Rome, urine was a valuable, heavily-regulated commodity used for industrial and commercial purposes. Romans didn't use modern soap; instead, laundromats called Fullonicae used stale urine because urea breaks down into ammonia, which cuts through grease, stains, and dirt in wool and togas. Workers (fullers) stomped on the clothes in vats of urine in a process known as the saltus fullonicus before rinsing them. Public urinals were placed across Rome, and pots or jars sat on street corners for citizens to contribute. Fullers and launderers bought the collected urine in bulk. Nero was the first to tax the urine trade (vectigal urinae), which was revived by Emperor Vespasian around 70 AD.

When Vespasian's son Titus complained about the gross nature of taxing urine, Vespasian held up a gold coin and asked if it smelled.

When Titus said no, the emperor replied, "Atqui ex lotio est" ("Yet it comes from urine"). This birthed the famous Latin phrase pecunia non olet. ("money does not stink") The phrase pecunia non olet is still used today to say that the value of money is not tainted by its origins. Vespasian's name still attaches to public urinals in Italy (vespasiano) and France (vespasienne).

Fresco of the so-called Pilastro dei Fullones from the fullonica of Veranius Hypsaeus in Pompeii (House VI 8, 20-21.2), depicting fullers.

Trajan aureus with image of Augustus

In 2016 an Israeli woman hiking in the Galilee discovered an impossibly rare gold coin - only the second such coin known. The coin, dating to the year 107 CE, bears the image of Augustus on the obverse – 'Augustus Deified'. Trajan was Roman emperor from 98 AD until his death in 117 AD. Israel Antiquities Authority seized the coin.

In 107 A.D., Trajan withdrew older coins and melted them down, issuing the so-called “restoration” coins as a way to preserve the types that were melted and to link his reign to earlier rulers.  The withdrawal and melting down of obsolete and heavily worn coins was brilliant propaganda. The 'restitution' coins were intentionally minted in extremely low quantities.

On the reverse are symbols of the Roman legions next to the name of Trajan. The aureus is part of a series of coins minted by Trajan in tribute to the emperors that preceded him. The only other example known is in the British Museum. Bronze and silver coins of Trajan are common, but his gold coins are rare.

Trajan's Column in Rome.

Roman soldiers were paid a high salary of three gold coins, equivalent to 75 silver coins, each month. Due to their high value, soldiers were unable to buy goods in the market as merchants couldn't provide change.

Declared by the Senate optimus princeps (best ruler), Trajan was a successful soldier-emperor who presided over the greatest military expansion in Roman history. Under Trajan the empire attained its maximum territorial extent.

Trajan's uniformed army, frieze on Trajan's Column.

This aureus of Trajan minted from 112-113 AD, depicts his famous forum on the reverse. The legend, "FORVM TRAIAN".

Baiae - Las Vegas of ancient Rome

Baiae was a mineral springs and coastal resort on the northwest shore of the Gulf of Naples in ancient Italy. The city was named after Baius, Ulysses’ helmsman. It was fashionable for centuries during antiquity for the super-rich. The ancient Roman 'Sin City' was famed for its natural volcanic hot springs. It housed some of the empire's most luxurious baths and private saunas. (laconica) Baiae was built on the Cumaean Peninsula in the Phlegraean Fields, an active volcanic area. Baiae was notorious for its hedonism, corruption and scandal.

Roman poet Sextus Propertius once described Baiae as a “vortex of luxury” and a “harbor of vice.”

The bathhouses of Baiae were filled with warm mineral water directed to its pools from underground sulfur springs. Roman engineers constructed a complex system of chambers that channeled underground heat into facilities that acted as saunas. Baiae later formed part of Port Julius, the base of the western fleet of the Imperial Roman Navy. Portus Julius was built in 37 B.C. by Agrippa as Rome's first purpose-built naval base in the Campi Flegrei. Ruins were submerged by volcanic activity by the time of the Renaissance.

A volcanic phenomenon known as bradysism saw large portions of Baiae’s coastline—including opulent villas and bathing complexes, sink about 3 meters beneath the Gulf of Naples.

A series of dives involving historians and scientists from across the world revealed vast villas, priceless statues and breathtaking mosaics, as well as heated spas, cobbled streets and even a nymphaeum – a grotto of pleasure. The chambers of volcanic molten rock that lay beneath Baiae, providing the hot water that served the spas, were eventually its undoing. The chambers emptied as the lava found a way to escape, causing the resort to sink beneath the waves.

One of its most notorious events was in CE 39, when Emperor Caligula ordered a floating bridge of nearly five kilometers across the gulf to be built and rode across it on horseback. Suetonius recorded that Thrasyllus, an astrologer, had said to the previous Emperor Tiberius, “as for Gaius [Caligula], he has no more chance of becoming emperor than of riding a horse dry-shod across the Gulf of Baiae.” Caligula donned purple silk robes adorned with precious stones and gold, a sword, a shield, and a crown of oak leaves. He wore what he claimed was the breastplate of Alexander the Great, that he had stolen from the conqueror’s tomb when in Alexandria.

A palace was built in Baiae by Emperor Nero, and Hadrian died among its baths in CE 138. Cicero had a villa in Baiae.

Roman gold found in Armenia

Archaeologists in Armenia have uncovered gold jewelry, a Roman coin dating to the reign of Emperor Augustus and a bronze dagger inside an ancient burial chamber that was used for more than a thousand years. The discoveries were made at Metsamor, where excavations have revealed burial layers dating from the Late Bronze Age to the first century A.D. Previous excavations uncovered a first-century burial containing gold ornaments, a coin from the reign of Augustus. Archaeologists reached deeper layers of the chamber, revealing a separate Iron Age burial.

Lchashen type dagger

It contained human remains, pottery and other grave goods. Near the chamber floor, researchers discovered an even older burial dating to the 14th or 13th century B.C., during the Late Bronze Age. Among the objects recovered were a bronze dagger, fragments of bronze belts, bell-shaped pendants and pottery.

Metsamor, located in Armenia’s Armavir province, is known for its Bronze and Iron Age settlements, burial grounds and evidence of ancient metalworking. The relationship between ancient Rome and the Kingdom of Armenia was a centuries-long tug-of-war for control, balancing between independent empire, Roman client state, and a buffer zone against the Persians.

Hawaiian Kona-style statue of the god of war Ku-ka’ili-moku - $7.5m

Hawaiian figurative sculptures are incredibly rare. Kamehameha I associated himself with the war god Ku-ka’ili-moku — the ‘land snatcher’ or ‘island eater’. This example was made circa 1780-1820 from the Metrosideros, a tree found in the high mountains of Hawaii. The figures that are known are all in museums. The statue made a whooping $7.5m, blowing well past it's $3.5m estimate. Also auctioned was a Uli figure, which is a type of wooden statue carved only in the villages of New Ireland in Papua New Guinea. $3.4m Tribal art is rising in value and has been doing so for many years. The reason is extreme rarity, there are more and more museums, but fewer and fewer pieces available.