Roman Bioarchaeology Carnival XXVI

New Finds

Graeco-Roman Tombs from Alexandria (via Ahram Online)

• 14 Feb - Collection of Graeco-Roman Tombs Uncovered in Alexandria (Ahram Online).  These tombs may be the ones described by Strabo when he visited Alexandria in 30 BC, but they likely were for the general populace rather than the rich.  Unfortunately, it seems no skeletons or grave goods remain.
• 20 Feb - Treasure-Filled Warrior's Grave Found in Russia (LiveScience).  On the periphery of the Roman world, a 2,000-year-old grave found in the Caucasus mountains has yielded a male skeleton and a wealth of gold, iron, and bronze artifacts.  Looters found the necropolis in the past, but this grave was untouched.
• 21 Feb - Bronze Age Necropolis Discovered in Romania (Archaeo News Network).  This story is about 50 tombs dating to the 13th century BC, but Roman-era sites have also been found in the same area during a massive highway construction project.
• 23 Feb - Colchester Archaeologists Find a Roman Road, Bones, and a Well (EADT).  While the well is Medieval, the road is Roman, and the bones... well, are from 600 sheep.
• 27 Feb - Ancient Shoes Found in Egyptian Temple May Reveal Wearers' Health Problems (LiveScience).  Not exactly Roman and not exactly bioarch, but shoes!  More specifically, a shoe-filled jar placed between two walls reveals that ancient Egyptians suffered from bunions and limps like many people do today.

Brouhahas

• Cleopatra's Sister?  (Not.)
• 24 Feb - Archaeologist Says Bones Found in Turkey are Probably Those of Cleopatra's Half-Sister (Charlotte Observer).  In advertising an upcoming lecture in Raleigh on March 1, the Charlotte Observer renewed a long-standing (yet long-debunked) claim that bones found in Turkey are those of Arsinoe, Cleopatra's half-sister.  The reaction to the news in the classical world was swift and incredulous...
• 25 Feb - Arsinoe's Tomb Redux?  Really? (Rogue Classicism).  
• And Dorothy King's 3/16/09  post on a variety of old Cleopatra news is still relevant plus Mary Beard's 3/16/09 post in the Times Literary Supplement on the same.

Blog Posts

• 18 Feb - Death, Rome, and the Mitfords (Classically Inclined).  Liz Gloyn discusses Roman attitudes towards death and brings in Jessica Mitford's iconic book, The American Way of Death.
• 10 Feb - Conference review: The Bioarchaeology of Ancient Egypt (A Bone to Pick).  Scott Haddow reviews a conference in Cairo on all matters related to Egyptian skeletons.

Articles

• 6 Feb - Origins and Evolution of the Etruscans' mtDNA (Ghirotto et al., PLoS One).
• 28 Feb - Food for Rome: A stable isotope investigation of diet in the Imperial period (1st-3rd centuries AD) (Killgrove & Tykot, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology).  Just email me if you'd like a copy!

Bio-culture

• 29 Jan - Greco-Roman Sex: Wilder & Weirder than Ours (HuffPo Blogs).  Author Vicki Leon is coming out with a new book, The Joy of Sexus: Lust, Love, and Longing in the Ancient World and highlights some of her findings in this post.
• 21 Feb - 1 Kitty, 2 Empires, 2,000 Years: World History Told through a Brick (The Atlantic).  In addition to shoes, I have a soft spot for hand/foot/pawprints on brick.  A weird brick with a cat footprint found at the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site in Washington state is consistent with a manufacture date/place of Roman Britain.  The brick may have reached the western US via the Hudson's Bay Company in the early 1800s.