Roman fort unearthed at school playing fields dig

Structures of Roman fort defences never before seen in Britain have been unearthed during an excavation in Wales.

Archaeologists have uncovered sections of the defences of the 1st century AD building at the dig at school playing fields.

A defence tower, which allowed soldiers to shoot at gate attackers, has been found partially set outside the ramparts of the fort which was occupied until at least the 3rd century.

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Roman fort dig near Neath school unearths new secrets

Excavation work on the site of a Roman fort near a school has revealed what archaeologists believe are structures never previously seen in the UK.

The dig in the playing fields of Dwr-y-Felin Comprehensive Upper School in Neath has uncovered sections of the defences of the 1st Century building.

These include a defence tower partially set outside its ramparts allowing soldiers to shoot at gate attackers.

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University of Newcastle archaeologists plan Humphrey Senhouse trail along Hadrian's Wall

This summer, archaeologists from the University of Newcastle will be following in the footsteps of Humphrey Senhouse, who found 17 Roman altars near Hadrian’s Wall in 1870.

The Newcastle team hope to throw new light on Senhouse’s treasures by excavating the Maryport site in Cumbria, which is one of the largest and best-preserved Roman sites in the north.

Professor Ian Haynes, who will lead the excavation, said: “The Maryport altars have been at the centre of international debate about the nature of religion in the Roman army for decades now.

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English Heritage unveil TV's Rome Wasn't Built in a Day Roman Town House in Wroxeter

After months of blood, sweat, tears and much swearing documented blow-by-blow on the channel 4 TV programme Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day, Wroxeter’s Roman Town House is finally ready to be unveiled to the public.

Six months in the making, the house dubbed "the newest Roman house in the world" will be open for visitors from February 19.

The town house was constructed using traditional building techniques to recreate the look, feel and attributes of a typical Roman property from Wroxeter’s Roman heyday in the 2nd century AD.

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Unearthing ancient secrets of daily life in Roman city

The Department of Ancient History’s Dr. Arianna Traviglia will be part of a groundbreaking cooperative archeological project in which she will be exploring what life was like for the more than 100,000 people who would have lived outside the city walls.

At its height Aquilea was home to 100,000 people, but the city walls could not accommodate a population of that size.

"Most of the population would have lived outside the city walls, and that’s my project," says Traviglia. "We don’t know pretty much anything about what was outside the city: where the people were living, where the nice villas were, where the fancy, rich Romans were living and so on."

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Child’s footprints found beside a Roman Fort

The excavation of a Roman fort at Healam Bridge and the attached industrial zone produced some remarkable discoveries, including the footprints of a child playing alongside the road that led into the fortress.

Archaeologists made the remarkable discovery while excavating an area beside the remains of a small stream that ran behind a former RomanVicus settlement. This and other finds were made during the upgrade of the A1 to a three-lane motorway between Dishforth and Leeming in North Yorkshire.

Helen Maclean of AECOM described the find as very rare and commented that, “she was not aware of many other footprints being found, everybody was quite amazed by it.”

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* Culture * Heritage Wroxeter house recreation adds colour to Roman site

Bright yellow and red house built using real Roman techniques – and a few illicit wheelbarrows – can be seen a mile off

Good taste is not a feature of a new Roman house that has risen, with much sweat and cursing, from a flat Shropshire field at the genuinely ancient Roman town site of Wroxeter: painted bright yellow and oxblood red, the building can be seen a mile off,

The wall, which is 7 metres (23ft) high and stands on top of a metre-high mound, protects the remains of an real ancient Roman forum.

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Roman statues unearthed outside Rome

Italian archeologists have unearthed a collection of ancient Roman statues during excavations at a Roman villa along the Via Anagnina outside Rome.


According to Italy's Ministry of Cultural Heritage, the six statue fragments belong to members of the Severan Dynasty and were buried in a basin at the center of the villa's atrium.

"We first saw a white nape, belonging to a Roman matron,” archaeologist Magda Fossati of Rome's archaeological superintendency told the daily La Repubblica.

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Motorway maximus: Unearthed, a stunning Roman super-highway built 1,900 years ago

It was a route once trod by legionnaires as they marched across a conquered land.

But, eventually, the Romans left Britain and the magnificent highway they created was reclaimed by nature and seemingly lost for ever.

Now, some 2,000 years after it was built, it has been uncovered in the depths of a forest in Dorset.
And, remarkably, it shows no sign of the potholes that blight our modern roads.

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Fortsetzung der geophysikalischen Untersuchungen im Römerkastell Halheim

In den vergangenen Tagen wurden die im Oktober 2010 begonnenen geophysikalischen Untersuchungen im römischen Kastell Halheim fortgesetzt.
Der Geophysiker Dr. Harald von der Osten mit einem Georadargerät die römischen Baustrukturen im Untergrund des römischen Kastells von Halheim (Foto: Stadt Ellwangen)

Dr. Harald von der Osten, Geophysiker des Landesamtes für Denkmalpflege im Regierungspräsidium Stuttgart (Esslingen), untersuchte mit einem Erdradargerät neuester Bauart das Kastellinnere. Bei dieser Technik waren die frostigen Bedingungen, die zurzeit herrschen, von Vorteil, um auch feinste Strukturen wie etwaige Kastellgräben sichtbar zu machen.

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How the Romans made pottery in Britain

In the shadow of Hadrian’s Wall, Roman soldiers defended the northern border of the Empire, passed the time in their bathhouses and inevitably drank a lot of wine. They also made a lot of pots.

Melissa Chatfield, a research fellow in ceramic geoarchaeology, was determined to find out how. Which is why on the edge of the Stanford campus, a narrow column of pale smoke rose behind the Stanford Community Farm building last weekend.

The source was a 5-foot-high grass mound atop a 12-foot-square wooden box. It was modelled on several ancient kilns excavated in England dating to the first century B.C. as well as the early Roman kilns that followed.

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New exhibition about Roman Emperor Septimius Severus at the Yorkshire Museum

NEARLY 2,000 years ago, York was the most important place in the western hemisphere. The Roman Emperor had taken up residence and thousands of social climbers from all corners of the empire flocked to the city to be part of the scene.

The man attracting all the fuss was Septimius Severus, the first black citizen to hold Rome’s highest office. For the final three years of his reign, he made York his home and brought to the city a cosmopolitan period of culture, fashion and importance that has not been matched since.

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