Lions in Yorkshire? Archaeologists uncover gruesome evidence of ancient Roman bloodsports
Forget the Colosseum and what you've seen in the Gladiator film franchise - the latest evidence of ancient Roman brutality comes not from the heart of Italy, but from a quiet field in Yorkshire.
A Roman-era skeleton unearthed in York, England, has given archaeologists the first physical proof that gladiators in Britain clashed not just with each other, but with ferocious beasts.
Experts say the man's pelvis bears bite marks from a large feline - most likely a lion - revealing that brutal man-versus-beast spectacles weren't confined to the Colosseum, but reached the far-flung corners of the Roman Empire, including ancient Eboracum (now York).
Until now, our impression of such bloody face-offs came mostly from mosaics and pottery, where lions can be seen pouncing and gladiators bleed in stylised agony. But this is the first time skeletal remains have offered concrete evidence.
"This discovery provides the first direct, physical evidence that such events took place in this period, reshaping our perception of Roman entertainment culture in the region", Professor Tim Thompson, the forensic expert who led the study, told the BBC.
Related
Mass grave mystery: Archaeologists discover 150 Roman-era soldiers in Vienna
Archaeologists stunned by one of Britain's biggest Iron Age hoards which could rewrite history
Under the rule of the Severan dynasty - an African-born emperor who likely brought animals from his homeland - York would've been the perfect stage for the gruesome pageantry of damnatio ad bestias (condemnation to beasts).
The man - aged between 26 and 36 when he died in the 3rd century AD - was buried in what's believed to be a gladiator cemetery, located at Driffield Terrace, in York.
Earlier analysis of the bones, unearthed in a 2004 dig, suggested he was likely a "Bestiarius" - a type of gladiator specifically trained to battle wild animals. His injuries, researchers say, perfectly match the bite force of a big cat, confirmed by comparisons with large cats at London Zoo.
Thompson has further revealed that the location of the bite marks offered an unexpected clue about how the gladiator met his end. 'The pelvis', he explained, 'is not where lions normally attack, so we think this gladiator was fighting in some sort of spectacle and was incapacitated, and that the lion bit him and dragged him away by his hip.'
Researchers now aim to uncover how lions were brought to Britain and explore further the lives of gladiators at the fringes of the Roman Empire.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Friendship Breakups Suck. Little Simz Turned Hers Into Gold on ‘Lotus'
Since she was a kid, Simbiatu Ajikawo has had a low tolerance for disloyalty. There are quick quips lambasting snakes throughout her acclaimed discography, and even at eleven years old, she spit, 'I'm Little Simz and I set trends/Don't like liars/I hate fake friends,' when her older sister took her to rap at BBC's Radio 1 Xtra. Her real breakthrough as Little Simz came much later, with 2018's Grey Area, which was nominated for the U.K.'s prestigious Mercury Prize, then 2021's Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, which won it. She followed that with No Thank You, which rebuked the music industry she was by all-appearances thriving in as something much darker and more draining than it looked. Inflo – the musician who's been tapped by Adele and Tyler, The Creator, and who's shaped the mysterious collective SAULT with Simz and his wife, Cleo Sol – produced all three of Simz's last albums. Simz has openly coveted her creative partnership with Inflo, a bond they began building when she was 9 years old. Then, in March, The Guardian reported that she was suing him, born Dean Josiah Cover, for allegedly failing to repay a $2.2 million loan – that went, in part, towards SAULT's only live performance in 2023 – which she says eventually left her unable to pay her taxes and subject to penalties. More from Rolling Stone Little Simz Previews Upcoming Album 'Lotus' With Cinematic 'Flood' Video Coldplay Tap Little Simz, Burna Boy for Hopeful Single 'We Pray' Watch Michael J. Fox Join Coldplay on Guitar at Glastonbury 'Why do you steal? Why do you spill blood and then go hide?' Simz raps on 'Thief,' the jarring opener to Lotus, her sixth album and first without Inflo in seven years. 'Why do you take the rule book from people that hurt you and use it as a guide?/I'm lucky that I got out now, it's a shame though, I really feel sorry for your wife.' The song thrashes like 1990s grunge and Simz is absolutely cutthroat on it, evoking the eerie menace of Kendrick Lamar's whopping Drake diss 'Euphoria.' The public nature of her fallout with Inflo and how readily she tackles it on Lotus makes it a distinctly personal entry to her oeuvre – listening feels more like living in her skin than any project she's done before. There's a meta-allusion to the way she refuses to bury her truth under convoluted poetic flourishes when she tells Wretch 32 not to do the same on 'Blood,' where she and her fellow British rapper trade bars as they portray siblings in a fight. Lotus is an excellent album, in part because songs like 'Thief' and 'Blood' are so uncomfortable, like peering at a nasty accident on the side of the highway and feeling more alive because of it. In the aftermath of an imploded childhood friendship, Lotus is a rigorous ode to the trauma and wisdom of truly growing up. Lotus is also an excellent album because of its deeply textured and expansive production, a satisfying victory given the circumstances. On 'Lonely,' she frets, 'Lonely making an album is tackling all doubt/I'm used to making it with [there's censor beep instead of a name], can I do it without?' Yet, under new producer Miles Clinton James, all the album's instrumentals are crisp, careful, and raw, whether they're the rugged rock of the 'Thief,' 'Flood,' 'Young,' 'Enough,' and 'Lotus,' the jazzy R&B of 'Lonely' and 'Free,' the stripped down acoustics of 'Peace,' the softly orchestral lament of 'Hallow,' the vintage Afrobeat of 'Lion,' or buoyant bossa nova of 'Only.' Where Lotus is fun, it's unforced, and where it is grave, it's understated. The album does retain some of the airy, gentle essence of Simz's prior work with Inflo, Cleo Sol, and Sault, a band in which the latter two women were the defining voices amongst mostly shrouded collaborators. The similarities, though, feel like Simz staking her claim to a sound she was integral in pushing forward. Little Simz's hard-earned sense of self-worth courses through the album. Much of her best rapping here blossomed from hardship – that, in fact, is what a lotus is, a flower that can bloom out of mud. 'I know my mind is a textbook they can learn from even though I ain't got a diploma,' she says on 'Blue,' in the middle of a calm but relentless flow full of empathetic reflections on poverty, incarceration, family, and death. 'Free' is a particularly moving trove of wisdom, expertly crafted with subtle foreshadowing between a cunning first verse on what love really is and a second on how fear threatens it. 'I think that shit is a lethal weapon,' she says. Though Lotus finds Simz rapping as victim and survivor, it's filled with empathy for just how hard the human experience is, even for her tormentor, whose own pain she acknowledges. 'I don't expect you're not flawed person/But thought you was good at the core person,' she says on 'Hallow,' before reiterating an idea from 'Thief,' that the real resolution she needs is internal: 'I'm tryna forgive myself,' she says there. 'I don't need to forgive you so I can heal.' Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
Chicago Tribune
9 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
At this museum, no one will shush you, and you can touch the objects
LONDON (AP) — A museum is like an iceberg. Most of it is out of sight. Most big collections have only a fraction of their items on display, with the rest locked away in storage. But not at the new V&A East Storehouse, where London's Victoria and Albert Museum has opened up its storerooms for visitors to view — and in many cases touch — the items within. The 170,000-square-foot building, bigger than 30 basketball courts, holds more than 250,000 objects, 350,000 books and 1,000 archives. Wandering its huge, three-story collections hall feels like a trip to IKEA, but with treasures at every turn. The V&A is Britain's national museum of design, performance and applied arts, and the storehouse holds aisle after aisle of open shelves lined with everything from ancient Egyptian shoes to Roman pottery, ancient Indian sculptures, Japanese armor, Modernist furniture, a Piaggio scooter and a brightly painted garbage can from the Glastonbury Festival. 'It's 5,000 years of creativity,' said Kate Parsons, the museum's director of collection care and access. It took more than a year, and 379 truckloads, to move the objects from the museum's former storage facility in west London to the new site. In the museum's biggest innovation, anyone can book a one-on-one appointment with any object, from a Vivienne Westwood mohair sweater to a tiny Japanese netsuke figurine. Most of the items can even be handled, with exceptions for hazardous materials, such as Victorian wallpaper that contains arsenic. The Order an Object service offers 'a behind-the-scenes, very personal, close interaction' with the collection, Parsons said as she showed off one of the most requested items so far: a 1954 pink silk taffeta Balenciaga evening gown. Nearby in one of the study rooms were a Bob Mackie-designed military tunic worn by Elton John on his 1981 world tour and two silk kimonos laid out ready for a visit. Parsons said there has been 'a phenomenal response' from the public since the building opened at the end of May. Visitors have ranged from people seeking inspiration for their weddings to art students and 'someone last week who was using equipment to measure the thread count of an 1850 dress.' She says strangers who have come to view different objects often strike up conversations. 'It's just wonderful,' Parsons said. 'You never quite know. … We have this entirely new concept and of course we hope and we believe and we do audience research and we think that people are going to come. But until they actually did, and came through the doors, we didn't know.' The V&A's flagship museum in London's affluent South Kensington district, founded in the 1850s, is one of Britain's biggest tourist attractions. The Storehouse is across town in the Olympic Park, a post-industrial swath of east London that hosted the 2012 summer games. As part of post-Olympic regeneration, the area is now home to a new cultural quarter that includes arts and fashion colleges, a dance theater and another V&A branch, due to open next year. The Storehouse has hired dozens of young people recruited from the surrounding area, which includes some of London's most deprived districts. Designed by Diller, Scofidio and Renfro, the firm behind New York's High Line park, the building has space to show off objects too big to have been displayed very often before, including a 17th-century Mughal colonnade from India, a 1930s modernist office designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and a Pablo Picasso-designed stage curtain for a 1924 ballet, some more than 30 feet high. Also on a monumental scale are large chunks of vanished buildings, including a gilded 15th-century ceiling from the Torrijos Palace in Spain and a slab of the concrete façade of Robin Hood Gardens, a demolished London housing estate. Not a hushed temple of art, this is a working facility. Conversation is encouraged and forklifts beep in the background. Workers are finishing the David Bowie Center, a home for the late London-born musician's archive of costumes, musical instruments, letters, lyrics and photos that is due to open at the Storehouse in September. One aim of the Storehouse is to expose the museum's inner workings, through displays delving into all aspects of the conservators' job – from the eternal battle against insects to the numbering system for museum contents — and a viewing gallery to watch staff at work. The increased openness comes as museums in the U.K. are under increasing scrutiny over the origins of their collections. They face pressure to return objects acquired in sometimes contested circumstances during the days of the British Empire Senior curator Georgia Haseldine said the V&A is adopting a policy of transparency, 'so that we can talk very openly about where things have come from, how they ended up in the V&A's collection, and also make sure that researchers, as well as local people and people visiting from all around the world, have free and equitable access to these objects. 'On average, museums have one to five percent of their collections on show,' she said. 'What we're doing here is saying, 'No, this whole collection belongs to all of us. This is a national collection and you should have access to it.' That is our fundamental principle.'
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Yahoo
Hyundai pitches hybrids as ‘Best of Both Worlds' in Paris, Texas
This story was originally published on Marketing Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Marketing Dive newsletter. Hyundai launched a marketing campaign, 'Best of Both Worlds,' in support of its Sante Fe and Tuscon hybrid vehicles, per a press release. Two ad spots and two long-form videos feature a French cowboy who lives in Paris, Texas and drives Hyundai's hybrids. A separate campaign, 'He Got Money,' focuses on fuel savings and is targeted at an African-American audience. The campaigns, from Innocean USA and Culture Brands, respectively, come as the automaker has seen hybrid vehicle sales increase 44% so far in 2025, despite ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty. Hyundai is going all-in on its hybrid vehicles with a pair of ads that mix humor and value propositions like performance and savings. The automaker has seen a big boost in hybrid vehicle sales, with total hybrid vehicle sales jumping 5% in May, per details shared with Marketing Dive. The 'Best of Both Worlds' effort focuses on Jean-Luc, a cowboy born in Paris, France who lives in Paris, Texas. A 30-second 'Cowboy' spot which debuted on June 8 during the NBA finals focuses on the Sante Fe Hybrid and shows how the titular character can have 'more cheese' on his plate by saving on fuel. 'Mosey' focuses on the Tucson Hybrid and will air later this month. In addition, a long-form YouTube spot has a cinematic feel, albeit one drawn more from Westerns and not Wim Wenders' art house classic 'Paris, Texas.' However, the campaign was filmed on location in the Texas town, and Hyundai will donate an estimated $30,000 from production to support local schools in the community. Created by Innocean with media by Canvas, 'Best of Both Worlds' will run across broadcast, digital and programmatic platforms, with custom digital content on TikTok, Meta, Reddit, YouTube and beyond. In a separate but related effort, Hyundai continued its series of 'Okay Hyundai' ads with 'He Got Money.' The 30-second ad focuses on a character who owns a hybrid and the gossip about his seemingly extravagant lifestyle, which — in a nod to ongoing price pressures — includes a fridge full of eggs. 'He Got Money' will run across broadcast and digital platforms in both 15- and 30-second formats and will be featured in influencer partnerships. The ad, which is targeted at an African-American audience, features Kathleen Bradley — best known as Mrs. Parker from the cult classic "Friday' — and is from Hyundai's African American agency of record, Culture Brands. ''He Got Money' shows how the Tucson Hybrid empowers drivers to enjoy more of what matters—style, comfort, and community—thanks to real savings at the pump,' said Erik Thomas, director of experiential and multicultural marketing, Hyundai Motor America, in a press release. Hyundai's increased hybrid sales follow the automaker becoming the launch partner of Amazon Autos late last year. One global auto brand moved approximately $80 million in annual ad spend from The Trade Desk to Amazon's ad platform by the end of Q1, partially due to its ability to sell its cars via the online retailer, Adweek reported. Hyundai is currently the only automaker that has that functionality on Amazon. Recommended Reading Mattel's Hot Wheels ignites 'challenger spirit' with cinematic ad
