Latest news with #Novetus
Otago Daily Times
03-05-2025
- Otago Daily Times
DNA of Roman legion will fascinate
The Simmering death pit, revealing a massacre 2000 years ago. Photo: A. Slonek/Novetus In the summer of 1959, I found myself excavating at the Roman city of Verulamium, southwest of the modern city of St Albans in Hertfordshire, England. As we probed ever deeper, my trowel suddenly hit a layer of bright red: the collapsed clay daub wall of a house. All the coins sealed under the daub were dated earlier than 60AD. I was gazing on evidence for Queen Boudica's destruction of the city. This reminds us that seizing other peoples' land, an issue in daily news reports, has a long history. Elsewhere in the empire, the Romans faced constant wars along the entire length of their Danube frontier. So it was with particular interest that I have followed the excavations at a football pitch in the Viennese suburb of Simmering. Last summer, we stayed with son Tom just 2km away and I pedalled past it daily for my exercise. Imagine the shock when workers renovating the field encountered human remains. Archaeologists were called and they have so far uncovered 125 skeletons, all of them young males of fighting age who died in battle. Fragments of Roman armour and weaponry lay among the dead. When Roman soldiers were killed, they were always cremated, but not these. Their bodies lay contorted and mixed together for they had been rapidly and summarily dumped in a death pit. A Roman legion comprised 5200 men, and each had a resounding name. The Emperor Domitian ruled from 81-96 AD and historic records describe Germanic invasions across the Danube to plunder his province of Pannonia. Vienna, then known as Vindobona, was a key in the defensive screen along the course of the river. In the spring of 92AD, the Marcomanni crossed the Danube and massacred the XXI Legion Rapax "the Predator", founded over a century earlier by the Emperor Augustus. Simmering football pitch lies just 3km south of the river. The logical conclusion is that the bones are those of the XXI legion, and they are unique. Their DNA will fascinate. And what happened to their Emperor, Domitian? He instituted a personality cult, his propaganda dominating military and religious affairs. He had himself nominated a perpetual censor, he who controlled public morality and became deeply unpopular with the Roman Senate. Does that political agenda sound familiar? In 96AD he was assassinated by his own Praetorian Guard and the Senate condemned his memory to oblivion — a moral tale that resonates today.
CNN
04-04-2025
- CNN
Mass grave of Roman soldiers tells gruesome tale of military disaster
The renovation of a football pitch in Austria's capital has led to the discovery of a Roman mass grave housing the remains of more than a hundred soldiers who died in combat. The construction company working on the sports field in the district of Simmering in Vienna found a large number of human remains at the site in late October, according to the Vienna Department of Urban Archaeology, part of the Wien Museum. The remains of at least 129 individuals were uncovered during excavations by archaeologists and anthropologists from the museum and archaeological excavation company Novetus, the museum said in a press release Wednesday. However, the total number of individuals is estimated to be more than 150, as the earlier construction works had displaced a large number of dislocated bones in the 16-foot-long pit. The skeletal finds suggest 'a hasty covering of the dead with earth,' as the individuals were not buried in an orderly fashion, but with their limbs intertwined with each other's and with many lying on their stomachs or sides, the museum said. After the skeletons were cleaned up and examined, researchers found that they were all male, and most were more than 1.7 meters tall (more than 5 feet 7 inches) and between the ages of 20 and 30 when they died. Their dental health was generally good, with few signs of infection, but every individual analyzed bore injuries sustained at or near their time of death. The variety of wounds, which were mainly found in the skull, pelvis and torso, and made by weapons including spears, daggers, swords and iron bolts, suggests they were sustained during battle rather than the result of execution – the punishment for military cowardice, the museum said. 'As the remains are purely male, it can be ruled out that the site of discovery was not connected with a military hospital or similar or that an epidemic was the cause of death. The injuries to the bones are clearly the result of combat,' it added. The bones were dated to approximately 80 to 230 AD. The men were probably robbed of their weapons, since only a small number of objects were found alongside them, according to the release. Archaeologists uncovered two iron spearheads, one of which was found lodged in a hip bone. Numerous hobnails were discovered near the feet of one individual. These nails would have studded the underside of leather Roman military shoes, the museum said. An X-ray of the scabbard of a rusted and corroded iron dagger revealed typical Roman decorations of inlays of silver wire. This was dated to between the mid-1st century and early 2nd century AD. There were also several pieces of scale armor, which became customary around 100 AD, the museum said. However, they were unusual in having more square-shaped features than round, it added. A cheek piece from a Roman helmet was found to be from a type that became customary from the middle of the 1st century. 'We are blown away by this find. It is a genuine game-changer,' Kristina Adler-Wölfl, head of the Vienna Department of Urban Archaeology, told CNN Friday, adding that this is 'a once-in-a-lifetime discovery' for the museum's archaeologists. 'There is archaeological evidence of Roman battlefields in Europe, but none from the 1st/2nd century CE with fully preserved skeletons,' she said. Around 100 AD, ritualized cremation burials were common in the Roman-governed parts of Europe, with whole-body burials 'an absolute exception,' according to the museum. 'Finds of Roman skeletons from this period are therefore extremely rare,' it said. 'The undignified nature of the burial site along with the deadly wounds found on each individual suggests a catastrophic military confrontation, possibly followed by a hasty retreat,' Adler-Wölfl added. Historical records show that in the late 1st century, during the reign of the emperor Domitian, costly battles took place on the Roman Empire's northern Danube border between the Romans and Germanic tribes. 'This is the first time we have material evidence of the Germanic wars' fought by Domitian between 86 and 96 AD, Adler-Wölfl said. 'Before the find, we knew about these conflicts only through some written sources.' 'Our preliminary investigation suggests with near certainty that the mass grave is the result of such a Roman-Germanic battle, one that likely took place in or around 92 CE,' she added. The destruction of an entire legion is included in reports of disastrous defeats, which later led to the extension of the fortification line known as the Danube Limes under the emperor Trajan, according to the museum. The Roman expansion of the town of Vindobona, which later became Vienna, 'from a small military site to a full-scale legionary fortress occurred in that context,' said Adler-Wölfl. 'This would place the mass grave in immediate conjunction with the beginning of urban life in present-day Vienna,' she added. The initial investigation by the team in Vienna will form part of a larger international research project, the museum said. This will include DNA analysis, to shed light on the lives of the soldiers and their living conditions.
