Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Ancient Rome

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

An early papyrus fragment from Homer's Odyssey, dated to roughly 285 to 250 B.C.E., is now on display in New York City.

You Can Now See One of the Oldest Surviving Copies of ‘The Odyssey’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

The papyrus fragment contains three lines that don’t appear in standard modern-day translations of Homer’s epic poem

The seven-foot-tall sculpture was broken into two pieces and buried facedown. The figure holds a fruit, probably a quince, in his right hand.

Cool Finds

Why Did the Ancient Romans Bury This Monumental Marble Statue Facedown? They Wanted to Repurpose It as a Paving Stone

Archaeologists discovered the roughly 2,500-year-old sculpture of a young man while conducting excavations at Sardis in western Turkey. The artwork reflects the different cultures that wielded control over the city in the first millennium B.C.E.

Excavations in Rome uncovered a building near the Colosseum from the second century C.E. with mosaics and frescoes.

Cool Finds

This Marine-Life Mosaic Discovered Near the Colosseum Offers a Surprising Clue—Its Building May Have Housed Firefighters in Ancient Rome

At the time of the structure’s construction in the second century C.E., firefighting in ancient Rome was a formalized profession

Students and volunteers have been excavating the Roman mosaic from a field near near Halberton, Devon.

Cool Finds

A Metal Detectorist Discovered Tiny Tiles in a Farmer’s Field. A Spectacular Ancient Roman Mosaic Was Buried Beneath the Surface

The polychrome mosaic once decorated a small room in a lavish villa complex. Researchers, students and volunteers have been working together to excavate the rare site in southwestern England

Felicio (played by Frankie Treadaway) and his mother (Madeleine Walker) try to escape Mount Vesuvius' eruption in "Pompeii: Out of Time With Tom Hiddleston."

Based on a True Story

We All Know the Story of the Pompeii Victims Who Died When Mount Vesuvius Erupted 2,000 Years Ago. Archaeologists Are Still Learning About Those Who Made It Out Alive

A semi-fictionalized documentary series hosted by actor Tom Hiddleston follows three people in the ancient towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum who experienced the disaster in 79 C.E.

Archaeologists created a curved support structure that mimics the ceiling’s original shape.

Cool Finds

See a Rare Ceiling Fresco From Pompeii That Archaeologists Are Carefully Reassembling, Piece by Piece, Like an Ancient Puzzle

Located in the banquet hall of a home with an adjoining bakery, the fresco shows the mythological romance of Dionysus, the god of revelry and wine, and Ariadne, the Cretan princess

The facial reconstruction of a man the team named Respectus

Their Names Were Lost to History. But Now, You Can See What Their Faces May Have Looked Like When They Lived in a Roman-Era City Nearly 2,000 Years Ago

A new exhibition in Budapest features 16 facial reconstructions based on skulls excavated from the ancient city of Aquincum. Curators don’t know the details of their lives, but they’ve invented backstories to fill in the gaps

Minted by Carausius, this silver denarius is dated to 287 C.E.

Cool Finds

Railway Construction Reveals a Coin Minted by a Roman Officer Who Proclaimed Himself ‘Emperor of the North’ in Britain 1,700 Years Ago

Archaeologists in Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire unearthed a silver denarius bearing the name of Carausius, who ruled the breakaway state of Britannia between 286 and 293

Gold tongues found at Marina el-Alamein (right) and a limestone tombstone showing a man holding a bird (left)

Cool Finds

Ancient Egyptians Believed That These Newly Discovered Gold Tongues Allowed the Dead to Communicate in the Afterlife

Excavations at Marina el-Alamein, an archaeological site west of Alexandria, unearthed about two dozen of the rare artifacts, including one shaped like the Eye of Horus

The Canopus, a pool at Hadrian's Villa in Tivoli, Italy

How Has Roman Concrete Lasted for Millennia? A 1,900-Year-Old Latrine Offers New Clues About the Material’s Impressive Durability

A chemical process called carbonation, which helps seal cracks, could help explain why many ancient Roman structures are still standing today. Researchers hope that the insights will lead to better modern-day building materials

Page 1 of 31