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Ancient Rome

Rembrandt, Aristotle with a Bust of Homer, 1653

Rembrandt Turned Ancient Myths Into ‘Supremely Human’ Works of Art. An Upcoming Exhibition Traces the Inspiration He Took From Antiquity

“Rembrandt and the Ancients” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art will unpack an “underexplored but vital” part of the Dutch master’s career, putting his paintings and drawings in conversation with the antecedents that inspired them

A coin bearing the likeness of the fourth-century C.E. Western Roman emperor Magnus Maximus, overlaid atop a page from a medieval manuscript of the Mabinogion

Cool Finds

Legend Has It That This Roman Emperor Established a Camp in Wales. A Newly Discovered Fort May Offer Proof That It Really Existed

An archaeologist has uncovered an ancient fortification linked to Magnus Maximus, a fourth-century ruler who is immortalized in the medieval “Mabinogion” stories as Macsen Wledig

The tomb's entrance is inscribed with protective funerary spells.

Cool Finds

Archaeologists in Egypt Discover a Mud-Brick Tomb Featuring a Heartbreaking Elegy to an Ancient Man’s Father

The 19-line poem was inscribed on a stone slab in the Bir al-Shaghala necropolis. The lament “is a highly literary and original epigram,” a scholar says

An underwater archaeologist examines a bronze signet ring discovered off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt.

Cool Finds

This One-of-a-Kind Bronze Ring Offers a Tantalizing Glimpse at the Lighthouse of Alexandria, a Lost Wonder of the Ancient World

Archaeologists in Egypt discovered the signet ring while conducting excavations on the island of Antirhodos, which once housed a lavish Ptolemaic palace

Archaeologists have been digging at the Kapersburg fort for many years.

Cool Finds

Just Inches Below the Forest Floor, Archaeologists in Germany Unearthed a Roman Temple Likely Dedicated to Mars, the God of War

Researchers found the structure’s remains, as well as fragments of statues, while excavating near the Kapersburg fort, an ancient Roman military fortification on the outskirts of modern-day Frankfurt

Rome, From Mount Aventine, J.M.W. Turner, 1836

J.M.W. Turner Painted This Breathtaking Roman Landscape Nearly 200 Years Ago. If You Look Closely, You Can Still See His Fingerprints

The Romantic painter completed “Rome, From Mount Aventine” in the 1830s. It became his most expensive artwork in 2014, and it’s expected to sell for another record-breaking sum in December

The dishes were packed carefully, and many remained intact.

Cool Finds

A Ship Carrying Stacks of Ancient Dishware Sank Off the Coast of Turkey 2,100 Years Ago. Its Ceramic Cargo Is Still Remarkably Intact

Researchers believe that the vessel’s plates and bowls were made in the ancient city of Rhosus, once praised by Roman statesman Cicero for its “fine pottery”

Twenty coins discovered in Rome may be the first physical evidence of a "Little England" enclave.

Cool Finds

What Are Medieval English Coins Doing in Rome? They Could Be Rare Evidence of a ‘Little England’ Enclave That Received Special Papal Privileges

Researchers argue that the tenth-century coins provide new evidence of a bustling English community located next to the Vatican that was permitted to use its own currency

A portrait sculpture of the emperor Tiberius, whose toga was originally painted pink, is the new exhibition's thematic centerpiece.

A New Exhibition Reveals How Hot Pink Togas and Floral Perfumes Conveyed Power in the Roman Empire

The show in Copenhagen explores the relationship between fashion and influence in ancient Rome

The exhibition features damaged art from all over the world.

A New Exhibition Spotlights 4,500 Years of Broken, Shot-Up and Degraded Artworks to Explore the ‘Power of the Fragment’

The show, on view in Florence and coming to D.C. next year, examines the history and impact of destroyed sculptures throughout time and across cultures

A few of the ancient Roman artifacts found beneath the Bath Assembly Rooms

When Jane Austen Took a Turn About the Ballroom in Bath, Ancient Roman Artifacts Were Hiding Beneath Her Feet. Now, Archaeologists Have Finally Found Them

Recent excavations at the Bath Assembly Rooms in England revealed Roman-era coins, roof tiles, pottery, glassware, a network of ditches and a fragment of a military helmet

Built in the mid-16th century, the Villa Silvestri Rivaldi sat abandoned for decades just a short walk from Rome’s Colisseum. A new improvement project is revitalizing the complex and bringing its interior artworks to light. 

In One of Rome’s Most Famed and Neglected Villas, Centuries-Old Risqué Frescoes, Painted Over by Nuns, Have Reappeared

Nearly a year into a $40 million restoration of the Villa Silvestri Rivaldi, conservators are rediscovering and reviving 16th-century art

The front of the parchment fragment

Cool Finds

A Researcher Studying in a Dutch Library Was Amazed to Discover a Scrap of Parchment From a 1,700-Year-Old Copy of ‘The Odyssey’

The handwritten fragment contains Greek verses from Book 12 of Homer’s epic, in which King Odysseus recounts the fate of his doomed crew

Dilivium, a sculpture by the French artist JR, spans roughly 230 feet across the Vatican Apostolic Library’s facade. 

Pope Leo XIV Makes a Splash for His 71st Birthday, Announcing a Water-Themed Art Exhibition at the Vatican Library

Contemporary sculptures, fish made from typographic elements, centuries-old treatises and historical global cookbooks will feature in the new ‘Catastrophe and Wonder’ art show

Harriet Goodhue Hosmer, center, with her assistants and carvers in her studio in Rome in 1867

A Rare Marble Sculpture by America’s First Professional Female Sculptor Sat Hidden in Plain Sight for Decades in an English Garden

Until its discovery during a house appraisal, the debut bust by Harriet Goodhue Hosmer, a celebrated artist and feminist icon, had been mistaken for an ordinary garden ornament

Via Appia is considered the oldest great Roman road.

New Research

Researchers Have Analyzed the Roman Empire’s 190,000-Mile Network of Roads. Turns Out, Not All of Them Led to Rome

For a new study, archaeologists attempted to answer age-old questions about Rome’s roads, including how connected the capital was and whether current motorways trace Roman routes

The Great Mosaic is 33 feet high and 52 feet wide.

Ancient Rome’s Largest Fresco and Mosaic Complex, Featuring Depictions of a Mysterious Maritime City, Opens to the Public After 2,000 Years

The massive artworks, created in the first century C.E., were discovered in the 1990s during excavations of the Baths of Trajan

Researchers documenting and analyzing the inscriptions

Deep Inside a Spanish Cave, Roman Women May Have Worshipped a Mysterious Goddess

Best known for its Paleolithic art, Valencia’s Cova de les Dones also contains a Roman sanctuary where researchers say women appear to have played an active role in the worship of a female deity

The Ilovik-Paržine 1 shipwreck, with logs and amphorae visible in the foreground

A Brittle Coating on a 2,200-Year-Old Roman Shipwreck Reveals How Ancient Sailors Kept Their Ships Afloat

Traces of pine tar and beeswax preserved on the vessel reveal the painstaking techniques shipbuilders millennia ago used to protect their ships from the briny deep

An aerial view of the mass grave, which was found beneath a soccer field in Vienna in October 2024

New Research

Construction in Austria Revealed a Roman-Era Mass Grave Beneath a Soccer Field. New Research Suggests That the Men’s Enemies Targeted Their ‘Sensitive Areas’

No written records mention a fight in this specific part of Vienna at the time of the men’s deaths. But the brutal nature of their injuries, particularly to the pelvis area, indicates that these individuals died on the battlefield

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