Topic description and stories

Devínska Kobyla Forest steppe in Slovakia

Drought encouraged Attila’s Huns to attack the Roman empire, tree rings suggest

15 Dec 2022

Hunnic peoples migrated westward across Eurasia, switched between farming and herding, and became violent raiders in response to severe drought in...

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Characters from the Cambridge Latin Course, Book One

New Cambridge Latin course reflects diversity of the Roman world

11 Jul 2022

The latest edition of the leading Latin course has been designed to more accurately depict the roles of women, minorities and enslaved people in the...

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View of the city of York in England including walls and cathedral

Road radar to reveal York's Roman secrets

01 Mar 2022

The biggest investigation ever undertaken into Eboracum, the Roman city buried beneath York, is set to begin this summer. Ground penetrating radar...

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Evidence of a Roman crucifixion found in Cambridgeshire

08 Dec 2021

The finding in the village of Fenstanton is the only known example of a Roman crucifixion anywhere in the British Isles, and perhaps the best...

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The city rises: Cambridge archaeologists reveal an entire Roman city without digging

09 Jun 2020

For the first time, a team of archaeologists has succeeded in mapping a complete Roman city, Falerii Novi in Italy, using advanced ground penetrating...

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Epic issues: epic poetry from the dawn of modernity

02 Aug 2018

Epic poems telling of cultures colliding, deeply conflicted identities and a fast-changing world were written by the Greeks under Roman rule in the...

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The sundial pictured after excavation

Archaeologists uncover rare 2,000-year-old sundial during Roman theatre excavation

08 Nov 2017

A 2,000-year-old intact and inscribed sundial – one of only a handful known to have survived – has been recovered during the excavation of a roofed...

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Example of a modified skull, a practice assumed to be Hunnic that may have been appropriated by local farmers within the bounds of the Western Roman Empire.

Tiller the Hun? Farmers in Roman Empire converted to Hun lifestyle – and vice versa

22 Mar 2017

New archaeological analysis suggests people of Western Roman Empire switched between Hunnic nomadism and settled farming over a lifetime. Findings...

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Tin toys from the 1930s–1950s.

The archaeology of childhood

30 Jan 2016

A sledge made from a horse’s jaw, the remains of a medieval puppet, the coffin of a one-year-old Roman child, and the skeleton of an Anglo-Saxon girl...

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Left: Roman latrines from Lepcis Magna in Libya. Right: Roman whipworm egg from Turkey

Roman toilets gave no clear health benefit, and Romanisation actually spread parasites

08 Jan 2016

Archaeological evidence shows that intestinal parasites such as whipworm became increasingly common across Europe during the Roman Period, despite...

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Roman toilets

Opinion: Why the Romans weren’t quite as clean as you might have thought

06 Jan 2016

Piers Mitchell (Department of Biological Anthroplogy) discusses what Roman toilets did for the health of the population.

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An over-dressed Victorian man looking at the nude Venus de Milo.

How classical sculpture helped to set impossible standards of beauty

18 Jul 2015

What do we mean when we say that someone has ‘classical’ good looks? Are male nudes in art appropriate viewing for family audiences? In looking at...

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