35 Curious Historical And Archeological Facts Shared By This Facebook Page

In the age of social media, the digital realm has become a treasure trove of shared experiences, and this is especially true for archaeology enthusiasts. The “Antique Archaeology” Facebook group has emerged as a vibrant community where members from around the world share their awe-inspiring discoveries of ancient artifacts and historical wonders.

#1 A Roman Toddler’s Footprint In A Red Clay Tile, Imprinted As It Was Drying ~2000 Years Ago. Vaison-La-Romaine (Ancient Vasio Vocontiorum)

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#2 Beautiful Ancient Stone Masonry

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#3 They Find In Germany A Sword From The Bronze Age Of More Than 3,000 Years Ago In An Exceptional State Of Conservation

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#4 A Massive Floor Mosaic From The Bath Of The Seven Wise Men At Ostia Antica. Made Around 1,800 Years Ago, It Depicts An Elaborate Black And White Hunting Scene

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#5 A Series Of 11th-Century Crystal Chess Pieces From The Museo Da Catedral In Ourense, Spain

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#6 This 1500-Year-Old Cave In India Was Carved Out Of A Giant Rock

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#7 Mosaic Remains From Archaeological Site Of Volubilis, In Outskirts Of Meknes, Morocco

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Archaeological site was founded in 3rd century BC, and was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1997

#8 A 2,300-Year-Old Ancient Greek Gold Wreath Worth £100,000, Kept For Decades In A Tatty Box Of Old Newspapers Under Bed By Owner Who Had No Idea What It Was.

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The wreath was put on sale at Duke’s of Dorchester auction house in 2016

#9 House Of Neptun And Amphitrite. Herculaneum, Italy

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When Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, it buried not only the city of Pompeii, but a number of other nearby towns as well. One of them was Herculaneum. Among the many houses in Herculaneum is a relatively small, but richly decorated town house, called the House of the Neptune Mosaic, which must have belonged to a wealthy family

#10 Roman Emperor Philippus The Arab Kneeling In Front Of Persian King Shapur I, Begging For Peace

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The standing emperor represents Valerian who was taken captive by the Persian army in 260 AD, The triumph of Shapur I, Naqshe Rostam, Iran.

#11 10,000 Year-Old Giraffe Engravings In The Sahara Desert

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#12 Over 100,000 Ceramic Wares From Two Chinese Shipwrecks, 1500 Meters Deep In The South China Sea. Discovered In May 2023. Ships Dated To The Ming Dynasty, 1506-1522 Ad

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#13 Treasure Of 51 Macedonian Gold Coins. Was Hidden Sometime After 330 Bce In A Cavity In A Rock In Ancient Corinth

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#14 A 3rd Century Ce Roman Horse Armour, Made Up Of About 2000 Bronze Scales

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Found in Dura-Europos, Syria, and is now housed at the National Museum of Damascus. The bottom picture shows the armour shortly after it was discovered in 1932

#15 Gold Bull’s Head Bowl Known As “Attila’s Cup”, Part Of The Nagyszentmiklós Treasure Uncovered In Hungary, Dates To The 6th Century Ad

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#16 This 14th Century Door At Exeter Cathedral, UK, Is Thought To Be The Oldest Existing Cat Flap

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A cat was paid a penny each week, to keep down the rats and mice in the north tower, and a cat flap was cut into the door below the astronomical clock to allow the cat to carry out its duties.
Records of payments were entered in the Cathedral archives from 1305 to 1467, the penny a week being enough to buy food to supplement a heavy diet of rodents.

#17 The World’s Earliest Known Ocular Prosthesis Dated To Between 2900 And 2800 Bc. From “The Burnt City” (Shahr-E Sokht), Iran

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In December 2006, archaeologists discovered the world’s earliest known artificial eyeball. It was found by Mansour Sajjadi, leader of the Iranian team, which has been excavating an ancient necropolis at Shahr-i-Sokhta in the Sistan desert. It has a hemispherical form and a diameter of just over 2.5 cm (1 inch). It consists of very light material, probably bitumen paste. The surface of the artificial eye is covered with a thin layer of gold, engraved with a central circle (representing the iris) and gold lines patterned like sun rays. The female whose remains were found with the artificial eye was 1.82 m tall (6 feet), much taller than ordinary women of her time. On both sides of the eye are drilled tiny holes, through which a golden thread could hold the eyeball in place.
Since microscopic research has shown that the eye socket showed clear imprints of the golden thread, the eyeball must have been worn during her lifetime. The woman’s skeleton has been dated to between 2900 and 2800 BC.
Shahr-e Sukhteh, is an archaeological site of a sizable Bronze Age urban settlement, associated with the Jiroft culture. It is located in Sistan and Baluchistan Province, the southeastern part of Iran, on the bank of the Helmand River, near the Zahedan-Zabol road. It was placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in June 2014.

#18 Intricately Carved Violin Of Domenico Galli, 1687

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#19 A Fortuitously Placed Fossil. A 320 Million Year Old Goniatite Fossil, County Clare, Ireland

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#20 Stunning Gold Medallion With The Portrait Of Alexander The Great

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This Medallion was discovered in Egypt as part of a hoard that comprised about twenty similar medallions (now dispersed among various museums), eighteen gold ingots, and six hundred gold coins issued by Roman emperors from Severus Alexander to Constantius I. One of the medallions, now in the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon, bears an inscription that possibly reads “Olympic games of the year 274”, a date corresponding to 242-243 CE. It is possible that the medallions were intended as prizes to be given out at that event. Alternatively, they may have been issued by Emperor Caracalla who is potrayed on some of them. Caracalla liked to be compared to the great king and conquerror Alexander of Macedon. Like Alexander, this Roman emperor waged war in the East, and actually died in the course of his campaign against the Parthians. This particular medallion shows Alexander the Great gazing heavenward and bearing a shield decorated with signs of the zodiac. This portrait shows him with his hair pulled back. He wears a decorated cuirass with a figure of Athena on the shoulder strap and, on the chest, a scene from the Gigantomachy (War of the Giants). The back depicts Alexander and Nike, goddess of victory, riding in a chariot, flanked by the deities Roma and Mars.
Image property: The Walter Art Museum, Baltimore Maryland.

#21 A 7000-6000 Year Old Burial Of A Young Woman (Aged Around 20 At The Time Of Her Death) And Her Newborn Baby From Vedbaek, Denmark

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#22 This Small Bronze Purse (4.3×3.3 Cm) Was Found With Six Gold Coins Still Inside In The Celtic Oppidum (Settlement) At Manching, Germany

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It was originally sealed with an organic material, presumably a leather strap. Ca. 200 BCE

#23 Armor Of An Officer Of The Imperial Palace Guard, China 18th Century

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#24 The Discovery Of The Ancient Statue Of Antinous Found In Delphi, Greece During An Excavation In 1894

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#25 Treasure Recovered From The Wreck Of Theydah Gally

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The only fully authenticated Golden Age pirate shipwreck ever discovered. The ship sank in 1717 killing nearly all of its 150-person crew, including its captain Bellamy.

#26 Mouse Eating A Nut. Roman Mosaic (200 Bc). Vatican Museums, Vatican City, Rome

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#27 Details Of One Of The T Columns In Göbekli Tepe. It Is Approximately 12,000 Years Old, Making It Remarkably Older Than Egyptian Pyramids And Stonehenge

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#28 Pompeii – “The Mosaic Of The Great Hunt Of The Roman Villa Of Casale Di Piazza Armerina, Sicily.”

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#29 Roman Mosaic At Entrance To House Of Tragic Poet In Ruins Of Pompeii, Which Was Destroyed In 79 Ad.

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Mosaic is approximately 2000 years old and depicts a chained dog with caption “cave canem,” which means “beware of the dog.”

#30 Ancient Roman Glass Bottles

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#31 Roman Glass Jug With A Smaller Glass Jug Inside . A So Called Joke Jar That Shows The Skill Of The Glassmaker

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Probably made in workshop in Cologne, found in burial in Stein am Rhein, #Switzerland, 4th c. AD.

#32 Directly From Ancient Rome, Carvilio’s Ring: The Excruciating Pain Of A Roman Mother For The Death Of Her Son

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In 2000, during the removal of a high voltage pylon in a private property near Grottaferrata (a suburb of Rome) archaeologists found two sarcophagi, which contained the remains of the noble Aebutia Quarta and her son Carvilio Gemello, who lived in the first century after Christ. Carvilio died prematurely at the age of about eighteen, in mysterious circumstances (perhaps from poisoning).
After losing the only male child, the roman noblewoman built a wonderful sarcophagus, with accurate finishing and refined inscriptions for his son.
Due to the floral ornaments placed at the entrance and inside, the archeological site today is known as the “Hypogeum of the garlands”.
When Ebuzia died (probably at the age of 40 or 50), she was buried in the same place of her son Carvilio.
The two nobles were embalmed (probably because they were followers of the cult of Isis, which was very fashionable at the time). Thanks to this procedure it was possible to find one of the most important and amazing jewels of ancient Rome that has come down to us: Aebutia wears a magnificent band ring.
The gold frame has a cavity where a chiseled miniature portrait has been placed, perfect in its details. It probably represents the young Carvilio Gemello, with wavy hair, intense gaze, fine lips, pronounced nose and bare bust.
The amazing miniature is wrapped in rock crystal (hyaline quartz, defined by the ancient Romans as “acentetus, the color of clear water”), which has given a timeless depth to the boy’s expression.
It was certainly the pain and love for Carvilius that prompted her to commission the precious jewel from an imperial master of goldsmithing (who almost certainly lent his services to the emperor himself, given the magnificence of the find).
The ring of Carvilio, separated from its owner after millennia, is now on display at the Archaeological Museum of Palestrina, Italy.

#33 Persian Achaemenid Rhyton (Drinking Vessel Or Vessel For Pouring Libations) Made Of Lapis Lazuli And Gold. 6th-5th Century Bce. Abegg Foundation, Riggisberg, Switzerland (6.7.63)

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Persian Achaemenid rhyton (drinking vessel or vessel for pouring libations) made of lapis lazuli and gold. 6th-5th century BCE. Abegg Foundation, Riggisberg, Switzerland (6.7.63)

#34 A 1st Century Ad Head Of A Cyclops From The Roman Colosseum

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#35 Sea Shell With Carved Head At The Apex (Probably Phoenician, 600 Bc)

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