Roman Bioarchaeology Carnival XL

This is a wee bit late owing to the massive, history-making flooding we had in Pensacola this week.  And it's a little short owing to the fact that today's the last day of the semester and I'm buried in grading.  So without further ado...

Rome

• 21 April. Ancient Rome's tap water heavily contaminated with lead, researchers say. (The Guardian)  I have not yet had the chance to read the article on which this news piece is based, but when I do, I'll blog about it.  Essentially, there is new evidence from sediment in the Trajanic harbor at Portus for lead use.  But since I haven't read the article (it came out right before the SAAs, which led into the end of our semester...), I don't know why sediment doesn't show accumulation of lead over time in waste water runoff rather than contaminated tap water.  More soon, I hope.

Credit: Photo courtesy Nicolas Morin (Discovery News)

Elsewhere in the Empire

• 6 April. Ancient Egyptian mummy found with brain, no heart. (LiveScience)  During the Roman/Christian era in Egypt, some people were still being mummified after death, in the old style as it were.  The method of mummification of this woman seems to be anomalous, perhaps related to the fact that mummification was nearly out of style.

• 30 April. Early image of Jesus found in Egyptian tomb. (Discovery News) A tomb from Oxyrhynchus in Egypt has a depiction of someone who might or might not be Jesus, dating to the 6th-7th centuries AD. Or it could be a pareidolia.

Articles

• 7 April.  Scorrano, G., M. Brilli, C. Martinez-Labarga, F. Giustini, E. Pacciani, F. Chilleri, F. Scaldaferri, A. Gasbarrini, G. Gasbarrini, and O. Rickards. Palaeodiet reconstruction in a woman with probably celiac disease: A stable isotope analysis of bone remains from the archaeological site of Cosa (Italy).  American Journal of Physical Anthropology. The woman, who died in the late 1st-early 2nd c AD, had osteological indications of possible celiac disease. Both her C and N values differed from the rest of the population, suggesting she was eating a very different diet.

Other

• 18 April.  This piece on a site preservation grant from the AIA came through my news feed.  The award was given to a project called Adopting Narce, headed by Dr. Jacopo Tabolli. Narce (Italy) has numerous necropoleis dating to the 8th-3rd centuries BC.  This grant will help them preserve the site and do some public outreach too.