An ancient Roman canal that may have connected Portus, on the mouth of the Tiber River, with Ostia has been found using ground-sensing equipment. It had been thought that goods coming into Rome on ocean-going ships from Africa had been carried overland on the Via Flavia. “We know of other, contemporary canals which were 20-40 meters wide, and even that was big. But this was so big that there seems to have been an island in the middle of it, and there was a bridge that crossed it. It was unknown until now,” said archaeologist Simon Keay.

A Roman cemetery containing 46 sets of human remains was found beneath a pub in Caistor, England, which was once home to a Roman fortress.  

A large village dating to AD 600 is being excavated in Illinois ahead of road construction. The team of archaeologists, students, and volunteers has not found any residences yet, but they have found trash and storage pits, including one that is bell shaped and floored with limestone.  

Visit Peru’s mountaintop fortress of Kuelap, built by the Chachapoyas, and the Leymebamba Museum with Frugal Traveler Seth Kugel.  

New radiocarbon dates for Ethiopia’s illuminated manuscripts known as the Garima Gospels suggest that they were made between AD 330 and 650. Scholars think that an analysis of the 20 different species of birds in the illustrations may help them pinpoint where the illuminations were completed. The text, written in the ancient Ethiopian language of Ge’ez, was probably copied in Ethiopia.  

The skeletons of two Habsburg soldiers, their clothing, and weapons have been uncovered on the outskirts of the German port of Stralsund. They were killed during the Thirty Years War, from 1618 to 1648, while besieging the city.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Wednesday, July 14, 2010. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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