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The Forest That Stopped Roman Legions Hid a Shrine to Demeter, and Archaeologists Just Discovered Signs of Use Long Before the Etruscans

In 2006, the Carabinieri, Italy’s national military police, raised the alarm about illegal digging in a forest of oaks and chestnuts near Vetralla, in the province of Viterbo, north of Rome. The Soprintendenza, the state body in charge of archaeology in the region, sent a team to the site for an emergency excavation in May […]

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Archaeologists Find a Lost Greek Neighborhood in Sicily, Destroyed When Carthage Besieged the City 2,400 Years Ago β€” and Evidence of a Giant Artificial Fish Pond

Tucked among the Greek temples that made Agrigento famous, on the south coast of Sicily, there is a narrow valley of orange and olive trees. An international team has been digging there for three years. The third season in the Kolymbethra valley and on the Case Montana plateau ends on October 24. According to the […]

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A Rare Etruscan Cube-Shaped Tomb from the Era of Rome’s Last Kings, with a Corinthian Krater Filled with Burned Bones, Discovered in Pontecagnano

Anyone planning to build in Pontecagnano Faiano, near Salerno, has learned to expect a tomb underneath. That happened again this year, and this time the find was unusual enough that archaeologists had only seen its like twice before in more than sixty years of excavation. Preventive digging ahead of a private housing development uncovered a […]

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A Landslide in Italy Just Exposed a 2,500-Year-Old Tomb From a People Who Traded With the Greeks

On the slope below the cemetery of Sant’Elpidio a Mare, in Italy’s Le Marche region, recent heavy rains loosened the hillside enough to expose something no one was looking for: a rounded ceramic vessel, decoration still visible, sitting almost intact in the displaced earth. It looked, at first, like debris. It turned out to be […]

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Romans Believed Lightning Was Sacred and Buried Them as Offerings to God Summanus: A 1,900-Year-Old Inscription Just Proved It

In a quiet corner of Hadrian’s Villa, wedged between the so-called Amphitheater and a low bench of volcanic tufa rock, sits a marble slab measuring roughly 40 by 35 centimeters (about 16 by 14 inches). It has not moved in some 1,900 years. Two lines of carved capital letters explain why archaeologists are excited: FVLGVR […]

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A Huge Roman Dolium and a Possible Late Antique Shipwreck Discovered on the Seafloor of Elba Island

The waters surrounding Elba Island have once again yielded evidence of its millennia-old past. A dolium from the Roman era and a presumed shipwreck, still under study, have been located on the seabed of the Tuscan Archipelago during the underwater heritage monitoring operations that the ABAP Soprintendenza for the provinces of Pisa and Livorno has […]

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Ingenious System of Hidden Drainage Channels Discovered Beneath the Orchestra of the Roman Theater of Catania

Researchers from the University of Catania, in collaboration with the Archaeological Park of Catania and the Valley of the Aci, have located beneath the stage of the Teatro Antico a network of underground channels that in Roman times was used to intercept and evacuate groundwater toward the sea. The discovery, the result of a geoarchaeological […]

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The Foundational Well of the Ancient Etruscan City of Kainua Discovered Filled with Objects Offered to the Goddess Uni, Intact Since Antiquity

A ritual well with unique characteristics has emerged in the archaeological area of the ancient Etruscan city of Kainua, near Marzabotto, in a discovery that the scientific community is already describing as extraordinary. Located within the sacred precinct dedicated to the deity Uni, the well has brought to light a collection of exceptionally crafted objects […]

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Before Modern Tourism: Kodachrome Photos Show Italy’s Historic Architecture in the 1950s

In the 1950s, Italy was a country where centuries of history blended naturally with everyday life. Ancient churches, medieval streets, Renaissance buildings, and traditional neighborhoods still stood largely untouched by the rapid changes that would come with mass tourism and modern development. A remarkable collection of Kodachrome photographs from 1956 offers a rare glimpse of […]
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Archaeologists Discover Hidden Structures Beneath the Fortified Hellenistic Settlement of Castiglione di Paludi in Calabria

What lies beneath one of the most important fortified settlements of Hellenistic Calabria? A study combining archaeology and geophysics has begun to answer this question. Thanks to the application of sophisticated subsurface exploration techniques, an interdisciplinary team from the University of Catania has succeeded in identifying anomalies compatible with buried structures at the Castiglione di […]

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The First Archaeological Evidence of an Assisted Birth in the Neolithic 6,000 Years Ago Found in the Dolomites

The death, which radiocarbon dating places between 3932 and 3653 B.C., surprised an individual at approximately forty weeks of gestation in the rock shelter of Ripari AltΓ­, at 1,100 meters above sea level, within the current Dolomiti Bellunesi National Park. The archaeological context points to the final phases of the Neolithic, a period in which […]

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One of the Oldest Giants’ Tombs Discovered in the Archaeological Site of Carrarzu Iddia, in Sardinia

The archaeological survey work carried out in the area of Carrarzu Iddia, in the municipality of Bortigali in central-western Sardinia, has culminated in the discovery of a new Giants’ Tomb that until now had remained completely hidden by the dense Mediterranean scrub. The monument is situated on the southern slope of Crastu Littu, an elevation […]

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A Large Fresco of Dionysus and Ariadne Discovered and Restored on the Ceiling of the β€œCasa con Pacificio” in Pompeii

The presentation of the project took place in the Palestra Grande of the Excavations, at the end of the International Workshop Pompeii: Excavations and Ongoing Research, held in the Park Auditorium. During the meeting, representatives from Italian and foreign institutions and universities participating in research activities at the site shared the progress of their respective […]

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