News from the ancient world
Greece & Rome · c. 800 BC to AD 500
New discoveries from ancient Greece and Rome: temples and cities, Roman provinces and frontiers, inscriptions, coins and shipwrecks.
Greece & Rome · 1st–8th centuries AD · Mérida, Iberian Peninsula, Spain
A study of 243 people who lived between the 1st and 8th centuries AD puts the Germanic newcomers' genetic share at 12 to 22 percent, depending on region and social context.
Greece & Rome · c. AD 28 · Velsen, North Holland, Netherlands
Leiden archaeologists reopened a 1977 find and think the man's own comrades most likely killed him.
Greece & Rome · 2nd century BC · Herculaneum, Campania, Italy
Nearly 1.5 metres of text from PHerc. 1667, a Greek philosophical work of around the 2nd century BC that may be Stoic, were recovered with X-ray scans and AI.
Greece & Rome · Late Ptolemaic to Byzantine · Muharram Bey, Alexandria, Alexandria Governorate, Egypt
Rescue excavations in central Alexandria found a site occupied from the Ptolemaic to the Byzantine period, with marble statues of Bacchus, Asclepius and possibly Minerva.
Greece & Rome · Late 3rd–early 4th century AD · York, North Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom
Chemical tests on gypsum burial casings held by York Museums Trust give the first confirmed evidence of the costly imperial dye on Roman textiles from York.
Greece & Rome · 2nd century AD · Berlanga de Duero, Soria, Castile and León, Spain
Found by a farmer near Berlanga de Duero, the 2nd-century bronze cup is the first of its rare type to list forts on the Wall's eastern sector.
Greece & Rome · AD 400–700 · Altheim near Landshut, Bavaria and Hesse, Germany
Genomes from 258 people buried in Bavaria and Hesse between AD 400 and 700 show northern Europeans arrived before Rome's collapse and merged with provincial populations after about 470.
Greece & Rome · Early Roman Empire (Augustus to 1st century AD) · Windisch (Vindonissa), Aargau, Switzerland
A rescue excavation in Windisch, Aargau, has traced the timber-and-earth wall of Vindonissa's first military camp and found what may be Switzerland's first known Roman bread.
Greece & Rome · Roman period · Oxyrhynchus (El Bahnasa), Minya Governorate, Egypt
At Oxyrhynchus in Minya, a Spanish-Egyptian team also found jars of cremated human remains buried with cat bones, a rare practice in the area at that time.
Greece & Rome · 2nd century BC to 6th century AD · Tell el-Farama (Pelusium), North Sinai, Egypt
First taken for a council chamber, the 35-metre brick basin at Pelusium, fed by a branch of the Nile, is now identified as a sanctuary used for nearly 800 years.
Greece & Rome · 76–72 BC · Irulegi, Navarre, Spain
Arrowheads, sling bullets and Roman-type javelins in the burnt streets of Irulegi record an assault on the Vascon settlement during the Sertorian War, which the team dates to 76–72 BC.
Greece & Rome · 1st century BC · Baiae (Bacoli), Campania, Italy
The terraced villa at Baiae, partly swallowed by the sea, may have belonged to Publius Cornelius Dolabella, Cicero's son-in-law, though the attribution is still unconfirmed.
Greece & Rome · c. 1st century BC · Cairo, Cairo, Egypt
A papyrus about 2,000 years old in the archives of the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology preserves part of Empedocles' poem Physica on vision and perception.
Greece & Rome · 3rd century BC to 11th century AD · Athribis (Nagaa Sheikh Hammad), Sohag, Egypt
The Egyptian-German mission says Athribis has now yielded 43,000 ostraca since 2005, including more than 130 that deal with astronomy and the zodiac.
Greece & Rome · 1st–3rd century AD · Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt
About 30 inscriptions in three ancient Indian languages, left in six tombs in Roman times, include eight signatures by a man named Cikai Korran, probably from southern India.
Greece & Rome · 6th century BC · Kleidi Samikon, Elis, Western Greece, Greece
Excavators at Kleidi Samikon in Elis found fire-damaged bronze sheets in the same hall that yielded a large bronze inscription in 2024.
Greece & Rome · 15–10 BC · Barcelona (Roman Barcino), Catalonia, Spain
Slabs laid between 15 and 10 BC, when the colony of Barcino was founded, run parallel to the main east-west street, challenging the forum's traditional orientation.
Greece & Rome · Imperial period to late antiquity · San Paolo Fuori le Mura, Rome, Lazio, Italy
Excavations ahead of a student residence found five vaulted tombs, probably columbaria, and a plainer late antique cemetery in a previously unknown sector of the Ostiense Necropolis.
Greece & Rome · 1st to 4th century AD · Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
The 2nd-century lararium, with painted plaster and its altar slab, was found with a 1st-century staircase during work for Cologne's new MiQua museum.
Greece & Rome · c. AD 330 · Ostia Antica, Lazio, Italy
Excavators found a marble-clad reception hall at least eight metres high beside a church built around AD 330, probably the seat of Ostia's bishops.
Greece & Rome · AD 80–171 · Regensburg, Bavaria, Germany
Coins date the wooden sanctuary, excavated ahead of housing construction in 2023, to between AD 80 and 171, before Regensburg's legionary fortress was built.
Greece & Rome · Roman imperial period · Gallipoli, Puglia, Italy
Italy's financial police spotted the merchant ship on a routine patrol in June 2025, and the find was kept secret for months to protect it from looters.
Greece & Rome · 2nd–3rd century AD · Tongeren, Limburg, Belgium
Two researchers read stylus marks left in the wood of 85 tablet fragments, naming a senior magistrate, lictors and Rhine fleet veterans in Belgium's oldest city.
Greece & Rome · 1st century AD, before AD 79 · Pompeii, Campania, Italy
Photographic imaging revealed 79 unknown inscriptions on plaster exposed since 1794, bringing the corridor's graffiti to nearly 300, including a gladiator duel and a love note.
Greece & Rome · 1st century BC · Fano, Marche, Italy
Column bases found under Piazza Andrea Costa match Vitruvius' own description in De Architectura, making this the only surviving building firmly attributed to him.
Greece & Rome · Early 3rd century AD · Aken, Trabitz and Deersheim, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
Ditches at Aken, Trabitz and Deersheim in Saxony-Anhalt date to the early 3rd century AD, and a coin of Caracalla suggests a campaign around AD 213.