Roman Bioarchaeology Carnival LXXII

So very much stuff this month (at least part of which is attributable to my new gig at Forbes), so let's hit it!

Italy

• 20 April. Ruhestatte eines jungen Glaubens (Radiowissen Bayern). This German news piece deals with the Christian catacombs in Rome. I would tell you more, but my German is really rather poor.

• 12 May. Ancient secrets uncovered (Harvard Art Museums Magazine). A graduate student found cremains in an Etruscan urn she was studying and brought in bioarchaeologist Marshall Becker to help find out more.

  

  Etruscan urn with ancient cremains. (Photo credit: Harvard)

• 15 May. Julius Caesar's health debate reignited: stroke or epilepsy? (Forbes) I wrote up the latest argument for the cause of Caesar's health problems that plagued him just before his death.

• 17 May. Roman gutter burials and a non-existent line of Pliny (Strange History). This is an important blog post on what we do and do not know about so called subgrundaria (or suggrundaria), which are supposedly baby burials beneath the eaves and outside of houses. That is, the word apparently appears only once in the whole of the classical corpus, in Fulgentius.

• 20 May.  Italy is restoring the plaster casts of the people who were killed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD.  Here's a link to (oh, help me) the Daily Mail's piece "Restoration work begins on bodies of those who died when Vesuvius engulfed Pompeii," a link to the Italian news piece at La Repubblica, "Pompei, lo straordinario restauro dei calchi," which has some really great photographs.

• 21 May. Roman Forum yields stash of teeth extracted by ancient dentist (Forbes). I wrote up Marshall Becker's latest article analyzing several dozen teeth found in the Temple of Castor and Pollux years back.

Extracted teeth from Roman Forum. (Photo credit: M. Becker)

Roman Empire

• 7 May. London Crossrail dig hits beheaded Romans (Forbes). I write in this about the new Roman-era finds uncovered in the excavation to put in a high-speed train line in Rome, including some beheaded people.

• 8 May. City living in Roman Britain meant longer lives but worse teeth (New Scientist). There are variations on this news item, which covers the awesome work of Rebecca Redfern and colleagues on differences in urban and rural rates of disease in Roman Britain.

• 13 May. Rotten Roman baby teeth blamed on honey, porridge (Forbes). I wrote up some new research by Laura Bonsall and colleagues on early childhood caries in a Romano-British child.

  

  Roman-era tombstone found in Britain
  (Photo credit: Discovery News)

• 19 May. Size changes in livestock: from Roman to present day (Past Horizons). A new article in the Journal of Archaeological Science tackles change through time in zooarchaeological remains.

• 22 May. Gold artifacts tell tale of drug-fueled rituals and "bastard wars" (National Geographic). Sort of tangential, but this article covers some fascinating Scythian burials.

• 28 May. Mystery deepens over rare Roman tombstone (Discovery News).  I covered this in a past RBC, but recent analysis shows that the gravestone and the person in it are not from the same time period at all.  Very interesting stuff.

Non-Roman-Era/Greek Stuff That's Fun Anyway

• 12 May. Alexander the Great's father found in tomb with foreign princess (Forbes). I wrote up the in-press article about the new analysis of the Vergina tomb remains. Apparently people were interested in reading about it.

• 13 May. 300 spartans in the London Underground, coolest flashmob (Artnaz). The title pretty much sums it up.

• 20 May. Amphipolis tomb opening delayed (Greek Reporter). I've linked to the news stories about the ongoing excavation at Amphipolis in the past, so here's the latest.

Other Interesting Things

• 19 May. Did the Romans invent the burger? Fun post from English Heritage about the history of the hamburger.

• 27 May. Katy Meyers Emery of Bones Don't Lie and I wrote an honest-to-goodness, peer-reviewed article on blogging bioarchaeology.  It's open-access, so go ahead and read "Bones, bodies, and blogs" and let us know what you think!