Site of ancient Lupercalia found in excavations on the Palatine Hill

Italian archaeologists have inched closer to unearthing the secrets behind one of Western civilization's most enduring legends.

On Tuesday, the government released photographs of a deep cavern where some archaeologists claim that ancient Romans honored Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome.

The cavern, now buried 16 meters, or 52 feet, under the ruins of Emperor Augustus's palace on the Palatine Hill, has a height of 7.1 meters and a diameter of 6.5 meters. Photographs taken of the cave by a camera probe show a domed cavern decorated with extremely well-preserved colored mosaics and seashells. At the center of the vault is a painted white eagle, a symbol of the Roman Empire.

"This could reasonably be the place bearing witness to the myth of Rome," Italy's minister of culture, Francesco Rutelli, said at a news conference in Rome on Tuesday where a half-dozen photos were displayed to journalists.

The myth concerns Lupercal, whose name comes from "wolf" and refers to the mythical cave where Romulus and Remus - the sons of the god Mars who were abandoned by the banks of the Tiber - were found by a female wolf who suckled them until they were found and raised by a shepherd named Faustulus. The brothers are said to have gone on to found Rome on April 21, 753 B.C., with the legend culminating in fratricide when Romulus killed his twin in a power struggle.

The cave later became a sacred location where the priests of Lupercus celebrated certain ceremonies until A.D. 494. At that time Pope Gelasius put an end to the practice.

It is that location that has been discovered, according to some leading archaeologists. Its presence was first announced in January by Irene Iacopi, the archaeologist in charge of the Palatine. It was found during restoration work on the palace of Augustus, Rome's first emperor, after workers took core samples from the hill and were then alerted to the possible presence of the cave.

"This is one of the most important discoveries of all time," Andrea Carandini one of Italy's most renowned archaeologists, said Tuesday.

Carandini has long held that the myths of ancient Rome, at least in some slightly altered iteration, could quite possibly be true, and so he derived added satisfaction from the find.

"The fact that this sanctuary is under the lower part of the house of Augustus is significant because Augustus was a kind of Romulus himself who refounded Rome and he did it in the place where Romulus had been," he said.

The positioning of the cave, discovered at the base of a hill between the Temple of Apollo and the Church of St. Anastasia, could prove to be problematic for continued excavation.

Terms of Use

If you enjoyed this post, never miss out on future posts by following me by email!

Traces of Roman Superglue found on helmet from Xanten

Roman warriors repaired their battle accessories with a superglue that is still sticking around after 2,000 years, according to new findings on display at the Rheinischen Landes Museum in Bonn, Germany.

Running until Feb. 16, 2008, the exhibition "Behind the Silver Mask" presents evidence that the ancient adhesive was used to mount silver laurel leaves on legionnaires' battle helmets.

"It's a sensational find and a complete stroke of luck that we were still able to find traces of the substance after 2000 years," Frank Willer, the museum's chief restorer, told Discovery News.

Willer found traces of the superglue while examining a helmet unearthed in 1986 near the German town of Xanten, on what was once the bed of the Rhine.

"The helmet, which dates from the 1st century B.C., was given to the museum for restoration. I discovered the glue accidentally, while removing a tiny sample of metal from the helmet with a fine saw. The heat from the tool caused the silver laurel leaves on the helmet to peel off, leaving thread-like traces of the glue behind," Willer said.

Willer was amazed to discover that despite such a long exposure to water, time and air, the superglue did not lose its bonding properties.

He said that other Roman battle accessories kept by the museum have traces of silver decorations which most likely had been glued to the iron with the same adhesive and technique. Unfortunately, the objects are too deteriorated to find traces of the superglue.

However, the helmet unearthed at Xanten featured enough material to determine how the adhesive was made. If you enjoyed this post, never miss out on future posts by following me by email!

Palace of the Emperor Augustus to Reopen

I'm so excited to see this note. My friend Richard White had previously toured the Palatine Hill and told me there wasn't much to see there. This will probably change his mind!

"Emperor Augustus' frescoed palace atop Rome's Palatine Hill, one of the city's famous seven hills, will partially reopen to the public March 2 after decades of restoration work, officials said Monday.

Since the palace was closed in the 1980s, experts have spent at least $17.6 million to restore the porticoed garden of Rome's first emperor and piece together precious frescoes that time had reduced to fragments. The palace was built in the first century B.C.

Groups of up to 10 people will be guided through the decorative marvels in Augustus' studio and in the hall where the emperor received guests, as well as rooms in the nearby palace built for his wife, Livia.

"We can finally enter into these places that have been preserved for some 2,000 years," said Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni.

Restoration of other parts of the residence will continue, officials said."

If you enjoyed this post, never miss out on future posts by following me by email!

No newborns found in Spartan Pit

"The Greek myth that ancient Spartans threw their stunted and sickly newborns off a cliff was not corroborated by archaeological digs in the area, researchers said Monday.

After more than five years of analysis of human remains culled from the pit, also called an apothetes, researchers found only the remains of adolescents and adults between the ages of 18 and 35, Athens Faculty of Medicine Anthropologist Theodoros Pitsios said.

"There were still bones in the area, but none from newborns, according to the samples we took from the bottom of the pit" of the foothills of Mount Taygete near present-day Sparta.

"It is probably a myth, the ancient sources of this so-called practice were rare, late and imprecise," he added.

Meant to attest to the militaristic character of the ancient Spartan people, moralistic historian Plutarch in particular spread the legend during first century AD.

According to Pitsios, the bones studied to date came from the fifth and sixth centuries BC and come from 46 men, confirming the assertion from ancient sources that the Spartans threw prisoners, traitors or criminals into the pit.

The discoveries shine light on an episode during the second war between Sparta and Messene, a fortified city state independent of Sparta, when Spartans defeated the Messenian hero Aristomenes and his 50 warriors, who were all thrown into the pit, he added." If you enjoyed this post, never miss out on future posts by following me by email!

Excavation of Herod monumental architecture continues in Jordan

With their findings on the mountain Tall adh-Dhahab (West) in the Jabbok Valley the archeologist Thomas Pola could substantiate one assumption: everything points to the fact that the building remains from the Hellenistic and Roman era, found in 2006, were part of a yet unknown monumental building of Herod the Great (73-4 BC).

This assumption is based on the floors of one of the discovered peristyle yards (yards enclosed by continuous columns) which the archeologists were able to excavate. Prof. Pola sees the parallels with the architecture of Herod’s West Jordan Alexandreion as prove that there also was a monumental building of Herod the Great on the plateau of the mountain Tall adh-Dhahab. That would mean that in addition to his reign over the West Jordan Land, the Jewish king had a security system with which he could have controlled the ancient long-distance traffic in the middle Jordan Valley and the access ways to the plateau of the East Jordan Land.

Above that, the team of Prof. Pola for the first time discovered a layer from the late Bronze Age or the Early Iron Age on a natural terrace directly underneath the plateau. The ruins of a tower from the city wall at least show three building phases. “On the level of the oldest building phase we took samples from a burnt layer. A C14-analysis carried out by Prof. Manfred Bayer (Physics at TU Dortmund) showed that the charcoal originates from the time 1300 to 1000 BC. At this location we will continue to work in 2008.”

Finally Prof. Pola’s team discovered the purpose of the monumental military facility half way up the mountain: it is a casemate wall. It is supposed to have been finished in Roman times. This is yet another argument for the identification of the mountain with the stronghold Amathous mentioned in the ancient world. The historian Josephus (37 to 100 AD) described Amathous as the biggest stronghold in the East Jordan Land.

Even reworking the campaign 2006 revealed a sensation: the carve-drawings which had been discovered by Dr. Batereau-Neumann, a sponsor of the project, at that time, were dated to the ninth or tenth century by the internationally renowned specialist for Middle East iconography, Prof. Othmar Keel (Universität Freiburg). According to him the two pictures, the head of a lioness and the fragment of a cultural scene, belong together. The sensation: they point to the existence of a temple on the mountain plateau in the New-Assyrian time. If you enjoyed this post, never miss out on future posts by following me by email!