Italy Articles

The beauty of being an archaeologist is having the good fortune to find something on an archaeological dig that remains in a relatively good state of preservation. In various degrees, there are those who study how nature can actually help the conservation of artifacts and buildings and those who study the natural agents of destruction, such as a particular... [continue reading]

Underground archeology is a niche topic and is highly specialized. We’re talking about simple structures underground, such as those of Roman North Africa (able to withstand the heat), or we can get as extreme, in a mostly urban context, as where the underground archaeological palimpsests are complex and highly suggestive. Pointing the finger... [continue reading]

In times of violence, people tend to hide their valuables, which are later recovered unless the owners had been killed or driven away. Thus, the temporal distribution of unrecovered coin hoards is an excellent proxy for the intensity of internal warfare. We use this relationship to resolve a long-standing controversy in Roman history. Depending on who... [continue reading]

The ancient Romans took every precaution in their prayers or rituals to ensure that their deities were addressed by name or generically as a divine spirit, or numen. In many matters of ritual and tradition they acknowledged their dependence on Etruscan practices, Etrusca disciplina. The Etruscans were known for their interpretation of signs such as lightning... [continue reading]

The origins of the Etruscans, a non-Indo-European population of preclassical Italy, are unclear. There is broad agreement that their culture developed locally, but the Etruscans’ evolutionary and migrational relationships are largely unknown. In this study, we determined mitochondrial DNA sequences in multiple clones derived from bone samples... [continue reading]

A spa is defined as a bathing establishment which used thermal-mineral spring water for therapeutic purposes. Although the topics of bathing and medicine in the Roman world have received considerable attention, thermal-mineral spas have remained inadequately studied. Recent research acknowledges the importance of spas, but generally excludes any detailed... [continue reading]