Sanxingdui

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.

Ancient Roman slingshots deadly - and sarcastic

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.

Coins of the Jewish War

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.

'Year 4' Judea coin found

In 2018, while sifting through debris taken from the City of David, workers discovered an ancient coin minted by Jewish Rebellion forces in the year 69 AD.

It was originally found in the sewers beneath ancient Jerusalem. The few coins that the Jews minted in the year 69 all bear the words “For the Redemption of Zion”; this one depicts a wine cup, while the obverse shows the “four species” (symbolic fruits and branches used in the celebration of the Jewish feast of Sukkot) and the words “Year Four.”

There is a subtle difference between the coins of 67 and 69 AD; they changed the phrase “Freedom of Zion” to “Redemption of Zion.” The writing on the coins may be an indicator of the fading hopes of Jewish forces.

See ----- Coins of Jewish war

Roman bread - Panis quadratus

The Herculaneum loaf is a carbonized, stamped sourdough loaf of bread that was baked when Vesuvius erupted on 24 August 79 AD. It came from a villa owned by Quintus Granius Verus. The small stamp on the bread reads “Celer, Slave of Quintus Granius Verrus”. Celer survived the eruption as he was listed in a later document of freed slaves. Researchers found a list of purchases and prices made over eight days, near the brick oven. On the list, bread was bought every day. Three varieties are listed: 'bread', 'coarse bread' and 'bread for the slave'. Panis Quadratus was standard white wheat bread. Coarse bread was cheaper flour for the poor; and slave bread was low-quality, bran-heavy, or animal-grade.

Panis quadratus was a staple sourdough loaf often made from whole wheat or spelt, commonly prepared in commercial bakeries and stamped with a baker’s mark. It was distinctive for being round, tied with string to carry, and scored into eight shareable sections.

Bakeries, or Corpus Pistorum, served a heavily taxed and controlled commodity.

The bread has been analyzed and is a sourdough type whose recipe has been recreated.

A painting from Pompeii showing the sale of bread.

Pliny the Elder was a prolific writer and military commander who died attempting to rescue people in the aftermath of the volcanic eruption. His work Naturalis Historia (Natural History) presents a detailed picture of daily life, culinary habits, and baking technology in the 1st century AD. The carbonized loaves found in Pompeii and Herculaneum directly correlate with frescos and his texts. His statements on bread and fermentation still resonate 2000 years later: “The excellence of the finest kinds of bread depends principally on the goodness of the wheat,” and “Those persons who are dieted upon fermented bread are stronger in body.” The Natural History

To make Roman bread ----> https://breadtopia.com/panis-quadratus-ancient-bread-of-pompeii/

The Lighthouse of Alexandria

The Lighthouse of Alexandria, sometimes called the Pharos of Alexandria, was a lighthouse built by the Ptolemaic Kingdom between 280 and 247 BC. It was between 120m and 137m (394 and 449 ft) tall.

One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, for many centuries it was one of the tallest man-made structures in the world. Badly damaged by 3 earthquakes between AD 956 and 1323, it became an abandoned ruin.

Pharos was a small island located on the western edge of the Nile Delta. In 332 BC Alexander the Great founded the city of Alexandria on an isthmus opposite Pharos. Alexandria and Pharos were later connected by a mole. The lighthouse was constructed in the 3rd century BC. After Alexander the Great died the first Ptolemy announced himself king in 305 BC, and commissioned its construction shortly thereafter. The building was finished during the reign of his son, the second Ptolemy (Ptolemy II Philadelphus). It took twelve years to complete, at a total cost of 800 talents. The light was produced by a furnace at the top, and the tower was said to have been built mostly with solid blocks of limestone.

A fire burned constantly inside to serve as a beacon, while a colossal bronze mirror reflected sunlight during the day. The lighthouse was badly damaged in the earthquake of 956, and then again in 1303 and 1323. Finally the stubby remnant disappeared in 1480.

Archaeologists re-discovered the physical remains of the lighthouse in late 1994 on the floor of Alexandria's Eastern Harbor.

A hemidrachm struck in Alexandria under Hadrian depicting the Pharos lighthouse sold for €1200 despite its condition. Architectural representations on Roman coins is intensely studied. Scholars frequently use them as evidence. Collectors seek the coins out.

Ancient Israel coin hoard

In 2021 a 6-kilogram lump of 1,700-year-old coins dating to the 4th century CE was discovered on Habonim Beach in northern Israel by a tour guide during a family camping trip. The coins were found 70 meters from the water. Historically the area was a natural mooring used by ancient ships seeking shelter from Mediterranean storms. Ancient vessels were regularly washed ashore along with their cargo during severe storms. Changing sea levels and modern storms reveal their remains.

The coins were agglutinated after years underwater. Contained in a bag, they likely came from a Roman shipwreck.

Archaeological sites are prevalent along the Habonim beach strip, attesting to continuous trade for thousands of years. Habonim beach connects to the ancient port city of Tel Dor, which thrived under the Romans. El Dor is one of the few places where one can trace continuous maritime activity from the 11th century BCE. The natural bays served as a crucial docking point for trade ships navigating the Levantine coast.

Louis the Pious counterfeit solidus

This counterfeit solidus of Louis the Pious (814–840), was discovered in Norfolk in 2024. The imitation was based on a very rare original coin minted by Louis the Pious in about 816. A similar fake coin sold for £36,000 ($48,627.95) in 2024. 22 imitation solidi have been found in the U.K. Perhaps minted by Vikings, the fakes chart the route of the Viking Great Army.

The Vikings traversed rivers and Roman-era roads to cross England as they gained control of East Anglia, Mercia, and Northumbria by 880. Louis the Pious succeeded his father, Charlemagne, as sole Holy Roman emperor in 814.

Extremely rare, a genuine example sold for 120,000 euros, or about $141,495, in a 2025 auction. It is the best of the four known. Norfolk was the northern half of East Anglia, a kingdom ruled by the Anglo-Saxon Wulfing or “wolf clan” dynasty. The 'heathen force' of Vikings attacked Norfolk in 865. Edmund, the final king of East Anglia, was killed by the Vikings in 869.

Roman gold mining

Pliny: "Gold in our part of the world ... is found in three ways: first, in river deposits. ... No gold is more refined, for it is thoroughly polished by the very flow of the stream and by wear. The other methods are to mine it in excavated shafts or to look for it in the debris of undermined mountains." Placer deposits are the easiest and first to be exploited. Where the Romans recognized ores on the surface, they followed them into the ground by strip-mining. Opencast was used for many metals. Deep-vein mining was the most difficult and dangerous. Only gold and silver were valuable enough to justify this kind of mining.

'Ruina montium' was the Roman method to systematically dismantle entire mountainsides.

Las Médulas is an otherworldly landscape in northwestern Spain that served as the largest and most important open-pit gold mine in the Roman Empire. Located near the town of Ponferrada in the El Bierzo region (province of León), the site is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Las Médulas mine operated for about 250 years, from 25 BC until the early 3rd century AD. Roman engineers built over 700 kilometers of canals to divert water into massive, elevated reservoirs. Upwards of 60,000 slaves tunneled into the core of the mountains. Water was abruptly released through sluice gates into the networks of cavities. The immense hydraulic pressure caused catastrophic landslides, tearing the mountain apart. The collapsed material was washed down inclined channels to isolate the gold.

Rock-cut aqueduct in La Cabrera.

Pliny the Elder witnessed and described the site in full operation around 74–77 AD. The Romans abandoned the mine in the early 3rd century AD as the gold ran out. Las Médulas yielded an estimated 1,500 tons of gold. Pliny stated that 20,000 Roman pounds (6,560 kg) of gold were extracted each year.

Today a kilo of Au is $135k giving $855,600,000

Removing rock was a difficult and time-consuming process in Roman mines. Iron was used for most tools, though stone hammers and wedges have been recovered. Wood was used for buckets to remove ore. Remains of wooden ladders have been found. Leather sacks, miners' sandals and caps have been recovered.

It was labour intensive work: "those individuals of outstanding physical strength break up the quartz rock with iron hammers, applying to the work not skill, but force". Shafts were vertical or inclined passages that provided access, ventilation, and a path for ore removal. They were normally square, small (1-2 meters square), and braced with wood to prevent collapse.

The deep mine workings created problems with ventilation, lighting, and drainage. The Romans knew the dangers. The huge state-controlled operations relied heavily on slaves, prisoners of war, and condemned criminals. Life expectancy of a Roman miner was short. Most enslaved laborers sent to the mines were essentially given a death sentence. Virtually none survived 5 years of brutal conditions marked by physical exhaustion, poor diet, harsh punishments, and regular fatal accidents.