Time travel might normally be the theme of science fiction novels – but walks in the ancient city of Butrint, from the Hellenistic theater, built in the 4th century BC, to the Roman basilica located only metres away, certainly come close.

Dating back as far as the 10th century BC, Butrint was a Greek colony, a Roman city and a Byzantine bishopric before being deserted in the late Middle Ages, after which its magnificent buildings sank into the marshes.

Located on a bluff overlooking the Vivari canal, which connects Lake Butrint with the Ionian Sea, near Albania’s southern border with Greece, the city is one the most significant Classical archaeological sites in the Mediterranean. “The fact that the city was uninhabited during the modern period, from the 16th century at the time of the Venetians, means that what we have is an example of what happened in the Mediterranean on the course of 2,500 years,” says David Hernandez, an archeologist from the University of Notre Dame, who has been digging in Butrint for ten years.

“What we are looking at is not just the Roman forum although that’s the central complex, but rather the Mediterranean during this period of time,” he added, while standing on the edge of a new excavation where the ruins of a new building are emerging from the ground.

Still largely unknown to the outside world before the fall of the Stalinist regime of Enver Hoxha, Butrint was designated as World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1992. According to Rajmond Kola, Director of the Butrint Archeological Park, 82,000 tourists visited Butrint in 2011.

The 24-metre-long building that is now being excavated occupies the western end of the Roman forum, which in the Antique period was the centre of the Roman colony.

Because of its size and location, Hernandez believes that the building is most likely a basilica or temple dedicated to the Jupiter, June and Minerva. In all likelihood it was the most important structure of the city during the Roman period, comparable only to the theatre, which was built during the Hellenistic period.

If the building turns out to be a Capitoline temple, it is likely to have been built by the colonists to mimic or recreate the Capitoline temple in Rome, in a similar fashion to the city of Pompeii.

The basilica would have had multiple functions, but the most important was judicial, where the magistrates of the city would have dispensed judgments and held courts.

“Given the dimensions of the building, as they are merging from the ground, it’s a very long building; it seems to occupy one end of the forum all the way to the other, and starts to look to me at this stage like a basilica,” Hernandez says.

“Basilicas became the framework for the construction of churches in late Antiquity, so this building might have been a central church as well and could also be one of the earlier churches at Butrint,” he explains.

“This could give us insight into the conversion of the city from a pagan Roman centre to one centered on the Christian religion,” he adds.

Dhimiter Condi, an Albanian archeologist who has worked in Butrint for four decades, says that even the famous inscriptions found in Butrint, which are in the form of decrees, may have come from the building currently under excavation. “These inscriptions are a sort of library for Butrint because they tell us about the toponomy of the city, the name of the military commander – its prefect,” Condi says.

“Most importantly [their study] has delineated the distinction between the Hellenistic and the Epirus culture,” he adds. According to Hernandez the dig will provide important answers concerning the nature of Roman colonization of Epirus.

Colonists came from Rome to Butrint in 44BC, occupied it and came to dominate the city. But, over time, archeologists have noticed that they merged with the indigenous population into a single community.

“It is interesting to witness this phenomenon, because it was one that involves cultural integration, where Roman ideals and ideals that existed here kind of fused,” Hernandez says.

“In terms of the development of the forum over time and the kind of information we get, we want to know what happened to the Roman colony and what was the nature of the relationship between these two groups,” he adds.
Butrint was an important port in Antiquity and the materials archeologist have found during their excavation came from all across the Mediterranean, serving as a form of time capsule about the nature of trade interconnectivity.

According to Hernandez, because Butrint is located in an area that was uninhabited for centuries, it is almost unique and very different from most other archeological sites. “What we witness is the death and destruction of a city, which we are now trying to piece together, and [at the same time] we are surrounded by intense vegetations, birds and trees,” Hernandez notes.

“There is that contrast between life and death that you really don’t see in many other archeological sites, creating a magical environment for the visitor,” he concludes.

Chinese scientists have proposed that an object collected 35 years ago from a tomb of the Western Han Dynasty in Fuyang city and called “lacquerware of unknown names” could be a gnomon with template.

The gnomon with template and a pair of overlapping lacquered disks from the tomb of Xiahou Zao, the 2nd Marquis of Ruyin of the Western Han dynasty (Yunli Shi)
In 1977, archaeologists unearthed a great number of precious relics, including the unknown object, in the tomb of Xiahou Zao (the 2nd century BCE), the 2nd Marquis of Ruyin of the Western Han dynasty. However, no one has been able to identify the object as well as to explain the possible function of a pair of overlapping lacquered disks found in the same tomb.
A team of Yunli Shi, a professor at the Department of the History of Science and Scientific Archaeology, University of Science and Technology of China, has now proposed that the object is a special gnomon with template, while a pair of lacquered disks is an equatorial device for the positional observation of celestial bodies. Both are the oldest astronomical measuring instruments with definite information of date that can still be seen in the world. The findings appear in the Studies in the History of Natural Sciences.
The scientists noted that the gnomon with template is a typical instrument used by ancient Chinese astronomers in determining the advent of different seasons with the gnomon shadows cast on the template by the midday Sun.
The gnomon from the tomb of Xiahou Zao has two symmetric and foldable parts. As being fully set up in the south-north direction, the midday Sun will cast the shadow of a vertical tablet in the northern half onto three fixed positions on the template respectively on the days of the Summer Solstice, the Vernal/Autumnal Equinoxes, and the Winter Solstice.
“Geographically, this type of gnomon with template can only be used on the given latitude, and the one from the tomb of Xiahou Zao fits just right with the region between the capital of the dynasty Chang’an and the fief of the Marquis of Ruyin Fuyang,” explained Prof. Shi.
The edges of the two overlapping disks are marked respectively with the complete degrees of a celestial circle, and the names and degrees of each of the 28 lunar lodges.
Previous studies have suggested that they may make either an astrological tool similar to the two cosmic disks for divination from the same tomb, or a kind of astronomical instrument, but both theories are in need of definite evidence.
Mounted on top of a lacquerware box, the disks form a complete device good for the equatorial observation fitting just right with the geographical latitude of Fuyang, a prefecture-level city in northwestern Anhui province, China.

The morning of November 16, 1632 was foggy, so the mass killing could only begin after some delay. It wasn’t until midday that the mist cleared, finally allowing the Protestant army of Sweden’s King Gustav II Adolf to attack the Roman Catholic Habsburg imperial army led by Albrecht von Wallenstein. The slaughter lasted for hours in the field at the Saxon town of Lützen.
“In this battle the only rule that applied was, ‘him or me,’” says Maik Reichel. “It was better to stab your opponent one extra time just to ensure there was no chance of him standing up again.” The historian und former German parliamentarian for the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) is standing at the edge of a field on the outskirts of Lützen. After the battles here, the ground was soaked with blood. “About 20,000 men fought on each side and between 6,000 and 9,000 were killed,” estimates Reichel, who heads the museum in the city castle.
When the soldiers in the religious war clashed on the outskirts of Lützen, the road from there to Leipzig was not yet called “B 87,” but “Via Regia.” The Red Cross nursing home and nearby supermarket that now stand on the battle site also didn’t exist back then. The past is only present here when one goes looking for it. So far archaeologists have examined about one- third of the battlefield, in total 1.1 million square meters (11.8 million square feet). Theoretically, only another one-third could still be examined. The rest has been covered by the nursing home, supermarket and small garden allotments.
Still, archaeologists have managed to recover thousands of objects from the battle. The top find was just recently discovered: a mass grave where victims of the brutal struggle were buried. It is likely one of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of similar graves. Systematic excavations helped researchers locate the dead soldiers, and recovery efforts between the street and blooming rapeseed plants have left the ground bare.
The Human Dimensions of War
The bloody battle at Lützen isn’t known for its military significance. There was actually no clear winner. Instead it’s famous for the death of Sweden’s King Gustav II Adolf, also commonly known as Gustavus Adolphus. But the dead piled up all the same. Archaeologists are especially interested in the up to 175 unlucky soldiers buried in this mass grave. Because their work is better accomplished in a laboratory rather than a field, a complete chunk of soil was unearthed and transported to the city of Halle with the help of cranes and flatbed trucks. The 55-ton hunk of earth, split into two pieces for logistical reasons, is laced with bones that are now being analyzed in the laboratory of the Saxony-Anhalt State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology. A wooden casing ensures that the discovery doesn’t crumble.
Not much is known about the battle’s dead. Mercenaries from Scotland, England and Croatia fought next to Germans, Austrians and Swedes. They died from wounds inflicted by muskets, pistols, swords, knives and halberds, which are pole weapons with axe blades mounted on top. But who were these fighters? Were they spring chickens or old warhorses? Were they well-fed or emaciated? And where did they come from?
These are questions that will be answered by the analysis in Halle, about a 45-minute drive from Lützen. Visitors to this bright, lofty laboratory can get some idea of the human dimensions of the battle by climbing a ladder onto the frame encasing the two soil blocks.
Heiko Heilmann is already up there, scraping soil away from a bone with a wooden spatula. In his hands the dirt gives away to reveal the remarkably well-preserved skeleton of a former fighter. The excavation technician has already uncovered 20 bodies from one of the two blocks.
He starts by moistening the soil with a spray bottle. Then he carefully digs out the bones. The sight of the arms, legs, shoulders, pelvises and skulls is hard to take in. Loose bones are collected in aluminum trays. Little labels give the deceased provisional names such as “I1,” “I2,” I3,” with the “I” standing for individual.
Buried Almost Naked
A few facts have already come to light. For example, the corpses were buried almost naked, presumably after being plundered. They were, at least, carefully laid to rest. The bodies were gathered from the battlefield and placed in a grave next to the street, arranged in two rows with their legs facing each other.
Several layers of dead probably lie within these two blocks, although researchers have only uncovered the first. The burials were not taken care of by the surviving soldiers, who were already on their way to the next battle. Instead the good citizens of Lützen had to take on the unpleasant job. They asked 200 soldiers in the neighboring garrison of Weissenfels for extra support.
The discovery at Lützen, being prepared by Heilmann with dental tools and brushes, is not unique, though. Researchers know of more mass graves in Germany from the Thirty Years’ War. They have been found during the construction of a house in Höchstadt in central Franconia in 1985, excavated by a gravel dredge in Wittstock in Brandenburg in 2007 and exposed by pipeline engineers in Alerheim in southwest Germany in 2008. The grave at Wittstock has recently been put on display at the State Archaeological Museum in Brandenburg an der Havel.
Multi-Discipline Approach
But the grave at Lützen is an especially systematic and successful investigation, and its scientific results are comprehensive, even though the work is still in its infancy. The skull of “I9″ shows clear traces of a blow. A lead bullet is lodged into the pelvis of “I2″ from a shot to the buttocks. A strontium isotope analysis will uncover whether it was a Saxon, Swede or Scotsman that had to suffer that particular misfortune.
The analysis will be conducted by researchers from the University of Halle in Bristol, England. Specialists there have already helped work on opening the tomb of medieval Queen Edith. The process works like this: People in differing regions of the world have different levels of the isotope of the metal strontium. Because the levels are integrated into the human body, they leave telltale signatures. With a little luck scientists can examine the bones to reconstruct where soldiers traveled in the years before their death. Teeth reveal information about their childhoods.
Anthropologists, chemists, historians, soil and weapons experts will conduct a joint analysis in the coming months. “We always work with other disciplines. Old school archaeology is out,” says Alfred Reichenberger, spokesman for the Saxony-Anhalt State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology. The work will take a long time, that much is clear. But at some point there will be a visitor’s center at the edge of the former battlefield, says Reichel, head of the Lützen museum.
The center will report on the horrors of the war and serve as a warning for today’s generation. Because, as Reichel adds: “History doesn’t repeat itself. But it has its habits.”

Female-gladiator fights appear to have been rare spectacles in the Roman Empire. But new analysis of a statue in a German museum adds to the evidence that trained women did fight to the death in ancient amphitheaters, a new study says.
The bronze statuette is only the second known representation of a female gladiator, according to study author Alfonso Manas, of Spain’s University of Granada.
The roughly 2,000-year-old artwork, which resides at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbein in Hamburg, shows a bare-chested woman in a loincloth brandishing a scythe-like object in her left hand.
Manas believes the woman is holding a sica, a short, curved sword associated with a type of gladiator known as a thraex, or Thracian. Thraexes typically fought in plumed helmets, with small shields and metal leg guards called greaves. Their unarmored backs were particularly vulnerable—and were likely ripe targets for sica.
Experts had previously interpreted the curved implement as a strigil, which Romans used for scraping the body clean.
The woman’s pose, though, doesn’t support that explanation, Manas said.
Victory Pose?
If she were washing herself, “raising the cleaning tool in her hand while she’s looking at the ground doesn’t make sense,” Manas said. Furthermore, “she is wearing a cloth around her genital area,” he added. “If she is cleaning herself, she would be completely naked.”
The figure’s lowered head and raised arm—”a typical victory gesture of gladiators” in Roman art—instead suggest a gladiator standing over her defeated rival, according to Manas.
This gesture may also account for the figure’s lack of a helmet or shield. At the ends of contests, “they put down their helmet so that all the spectators could see the face of the winning gladiator,” Manas said. “They also threw their shield to the ground.”
“An Erotic Impact”
As for being topless, that was also the gladiatorial norm. “One of the rules of a gladiatorial fight was that women or men fought with bare chests,” Manas explained.

Posted by TANN Ancient, ArchaeoHeritage, Archaeology, Breakingnews, Egypt, Greater Middle East, Near East 7:30 PM
Egyptian archaeologists have discovered four Greek and Byzantine-era rock tombs in a section of old Alexandria’s eastern necropolis in an area neighbouring Al-Ibrahimeya tunnel.

The site was discovered during excavations carried out by the Ministry of State for Antiquities (MSA) and stretches between the areas of Al-Shatbi and Mostafa Kamel.

Excavations uncovered four rock-hewn Greek and Byzantine tombs containing a collection of funerary pots, perfume containers and lamps.

MSA minister Mohamed Ibrahim stated that the aim of the excavations was to inspect the area for archaeological artefacts before declaring it free for residential building.

“It is a very important discovery that adds more detail to the archaeological map of Alexandria,” Ibrahim told Ahram Online.

A finely decorated clay container from the second century BC was among the discoveries, he added.
Director general of Alexandria antiquities, Mohamed Mostafa, explained that the most important tomb is one dating from the Greco-Roman era which include an open courtyard with two rocky cylindrical columns in the middle.

Two burial shafts filled with human skeletons and clay pots were also uncovered.

A cecorated ‘Hidra’ container — a large pot filled with burned human remains — was also unearthed along with a tombstone bearing the deceased’s name.

Mostafa told Ahram Online that the tomb’s walls still bear layers of plaster and traces of red paintings.

The second tomb has eight rock-hewn steps and is located under a modern building; the third and fourth ones are found on a deeper level and house a collection of clay lamps and pots of different sizes and shapes.

Within the debris, said Mostafa, archaeologists discovered a small burial site for a woman and her son dating from the late Roman period.

Following the discovery, the area will now be declared a protected archaeological site and all construction work prohibited.

Author: Nevine El-Aref | Source: Ahram