Roman Bioarchaeology Carnival LXXIII

There was a lot going on in the month of June, but with surprisingly few pictures, so here is a quick summary:

New Finds

The grave in Ethiopia where the woman dubbed
‘Sleeping Beauty’ was discovered.
Photograph: Graeme Laidlaw

• 5 June - "Treasure hunters raid soon-to-be-excavated ancient Thracian tumuli in Bulgaria's Tatarevo," via Archaeology in Bulgaria.  And this is why you shouldn't buy ancient artifacts... looters.

• 6 June - "Dazzling jewels from an Ethiopian grave reveal 2,000-year-old link to Rome," via The Guardian.  Really cool find in Ethiopia with a Roman bronze mirror.   

• 7 June - "6 unique tombs discovered west of Aswan," in Egypt, via The Cairo Post. They date to the Late Period, or the 7th-4th centuries BC.

• 8 June - "Ritrovato un corredo funerario punico," via La Nuova Sardegna. A Punic tomb was found in Sardinia.

• 8 June - "Bronze arrowhead embedded in spine shows elite Iron Age warrior survived battle," by me at Forbes.  This is early (7th-6th centuries BC) Scythian in date and quite interesting.

• 9 June - "Archeologia, scoperto cinerario Volterra," via ANSA. I'm assuming it's Villanovan?

• 10 June - "450 dead babies found in Athenian well shed light on ancient Greeks," via Newsweek. It's interesting to see Newsweek cover ancient stuff, since that's a new one on me, but this work is really very cool and I'm looking forward to its publication.

• 11 June - "Sarcophagus found in sand pit," in Turkey, via Hurriyet Daily News. Seems to date to the 2nd-3rd century AD and includes two people, a male and a female. (Of course the report claims they're spouses.)

• 13 June - "Archeologia: ritrovamenti a Gela, Venute alla luce anche tre necropoli di eta classica," via ANSA. Three classical-era tombs were found in Gela, Sicily.

• 15 June - "Les archeologues font une incroyable decouverte a Wielsbeke," via La Libre.  Archaeologists found a necropolis in Belgium that dates from 1500-250 BC. Should make for some interesting Roman-era burials (and just reminds me of "...quarum unam incolunt Belgae...").

• 15 June - "Scoperti a Ceglie Messapica tombe e corredi del III-II sec. a.C. Forse una necropoli, ora a rischio distruzione," via Fame di Sud. A 3rd-2nd c BC necropolis was found in Puglia.

• 19 June - "Roman burial ground found at car park" in Woodston, Peterborough (UK), via Peterborough Today.  Just one body (so far?), it seems.

• 22 June - "Romans rise again as ancient bones discovered in Saffron Walden" in Essex in the UK, via Saffron Walden Reporter.  No additional information on them, but some photos of people smiling and holding a strange, flat, blue box of bones.

• 22 June - "Millions of mummified dogs discovered in ancient Egyptian catacombs," via LiveScience/HuffPo. The catacomb seems to date to around the 4th century BC.

• 22 June - "Ancient Greeks were afraid of zombies," via Discovery News. A 5th-3rd c BC site in Sicily has two odd tombs out of about 3,000. I don't know the context at all, but the description of the tombs (with heavy things placed on the bodies) doesn't seem all that exciting. But there's a "revenant" article I keep meaning to read and write about... 

• June - "Osmanskata Mogila Tumulus." Publication of a very brief abstract of finds from 2010 of six cremation pyres from the 3rd-4th centuries AD in Bulgaria. via FASTI Online.

Other Interesting Stuff

• 15 June - "Fresco of Priapus from Pompeii depicts problematic genitalia," by me at Forbes. Another retro-diagnosis that's a bit flimsy in terms of the artistic evidence.

• 17 June - "Did ebola strike ancient Athens?" via LiveScience.  I wrote a tl;dr "No" post on this, though I will admit I did no research.  When a new harebrained theory doesn't even bother to mention an ancient DNA study claiming it was typhoid fever, I'm probably going to dismiss the new theory. (Also, I emailed the article author, whose answer for excluding the DNA study was "I couldn't cite everything."  Mm hm.)

• 18 June - "The bodies of Pompeii resurrected with 3D printing," via 3D Printing Industry. Sadly, they have not made the scans public, so I can't print out glow-in-the-dark mini-Pompeiians.

• 19 June - "Caesar undressing: Ancient Romans wore leather panties and loincloths," by me at Forbes.  There's also a gallery of images!

• 30 June - "Five things the ancient Greeks can teach us about medicine today" by Helen King for The Conversation.