Posts I enjoyed this week:
Given worship of athletes that happens, this historical mix-up strikes me as hilarious. A tomb in Turkey revered as that of a saint and a place of worship, turns out to have been the tomb of an ancient Greek boxer, Diagoras of Rhodes. Unfortunately, someone decided to ransack the tomb once they were told it wasn’t a holy person’s shrine. There’s a lesson or message or something in there, but I’ll leave that to all of you to pronounce. Click here for Archaeology News Network “Turkish ‘shrine’ turns out to be tomb of ancient Greek boxer”
Many ways to die: a newly discovered skeleton in Pompeii shows this man died not of ash etc., but by decapitation from flying stone door jam, “violently thrown by volcanic cloud.” He was fleeing, but a leg infection might have slowed him down. He was discovered because new techniques allow for deeper, more targeted excavation. The writer in me thinks this would be a great way to cover up a murder, use the other danger and death-dealing of a volcano to hide the fact that you toppled a stone onto a guy’s head, although probably you’d have to write this so it was not with such a large stone that a murderer couldn’t move it and it’d require some quick thinking since volcanic eruptions don’t provide for advance planning. So it’d have to be an act of passion that opportunistically used the situation. I suppose this hypothetical author could bring about some justice by having the eruption get the murderer and the sorting out of what really happened comes later and somehow discredits the murderer. But if the murderer got away and then had to live with this—that might make for his own unraveling. Okay, enough hypothetical plotting from one tragic archaeological find. Anyone else want to pitch a plot for this guy? Click here for New York Times “He Fled the Ash That Buried Pompeii, Only to Be Crushed by a Rock”
More news about the Pompeii skeleton decapitated by a huge rock flung by a volcanic cloud (my previous post): when archaeologists moved the skeleton, they found a leather bag of coins with 20 silver denarii and his iron house key. Enough money for a family to live well for a couple of weeks—from which they surmise this man was not super rich but not poor. So they are guessing he was an injured merchant who put off leaving because of his leg injury until well after most had gone. And then he met a big rock. Click here for Archaeology News Network “Leather pouch containing coins found under Pompeii skeleton”