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4 Skeletons + Gold Coins Found in Rome, Victims of Mt Vesuvius Circa 79 A.D.

truthatallcost

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ROME — Italian and French archaeologists have discovered four skeletons and gold coins in the ruins of an ancient shop on the outskirts of Pompeii.

Pompeii archaeological site officials said Friday the skeletons are those of young people, including an adolescent girl, who perished in the back of the shop when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79. Three gold coins and a necklace's pendant were scattered among the bones. In the workshop was an oven which archaeologists hypothesize was used to make bronze objects.

The excavation of that and a second ancient shop started in May near a necropolis in the Herculaneum port area.

In another stunning discovery, the dig revealed a 4th century B.C. tomb of an adult, complete with funerary vases.

Pompeii and nearby Herculaneum were ancient Roman towns.

I find archaeology fascinating. Would love to do that as a profession. Any archaeology buffs here on DP?

Skeletons, coins found in dig of ancient Pompeii shop
 
yeah, i've been interested in archaeology since i was a kid.

I got a metal detector a few years back, convinced that if I worked at it, I might make the next great archaeological discovery.

I discovered that modern man is an incurable litter bug.
 

Thank you for the article, but unless ancient civilizations drank Pabst Blue Ribbon and ate from aluminum sardine cans, I'm pretty sure I haven't found any ancient refuse.

I mainly metal detect in California, and have in a few other states. I'd love to find an ancient Native American refuse site, but I don't think they had metal at their disposal. YouTube has many metal detecting videos, all the historic treasure to find is in Europe or Asia.
 
I've always been intrigued too, but not enough to spend hours out in the burning sun using a tooth brush to remove dirt from a bone ;)

but I love that others do it so that I can view it in an air conditioned museum :mrgreen:

Its fun when you find neat stuff. Other times I feel like I've lost my mind, out in the sun digging and finding the aluminum foil off some person's sandwich.

We can actually dig at night now, I'm about to head out here in fact in 10 minutes. My detector has a LED lit screen, I have a good flashlight, and it's only about 70 degrees now.

Peace Sal.
 
Its fun when you find neat stuff. Other times I feel like I've lost my mind, out in the sun digging and finding the aluminum foil off some person's sandwich.

We can actually dig at night now, I'm about to head out here in fact in 10 minutes. My detector has a LED lit screen, I have a good flashlight, and it's only about 70 degrees now.

Peace Sal.
aw that is awesome....have fun and stay safe out there

I hope you find a treasure :peace out
 
I have a Mexican friend studying archaeology at a university here. He spends most of his time deciphering pictograms, not Indiana Jonesing.
 
Thank you for the article, but unless ancient civilizations drank Pabst Blue Ribbon and ate from aluminum sardine cans, I'm pretty sure I haven't found any ancient refuse.

I mainly metal detect in California, and have in a few other states. I'd love to find an ancient Native American refuse site, but I don't think they had metal at their disposal. YouTube has many metal detecting videos, all the historic treasure to find is in Europe or Asia.

so have you found anything interesting so far?
 

Spent time in Mogadishu as part of the Somali mission... We were billeted out where there were many mounds... As the mounds eroded we noticed they were old trash piles from the Italian and English occupation of Somalia... Buttons, coins, medical vials, a Carcano rifle clip were some of the things I found. Didn't want to dig too much of the piles as there were 1940-1950 medical waste and needles among the trash.
 
I have a Mexican friend studying archaeology at a university here. He spends most of his time deciphering pictograms, not Indiana Jonesing.

I find that very interesting as well. Are there many pictographs that remain unsolved?
-----

Playing Indiana Jones is fun, some people get a little carried away. I know a few guys that like to explore old abandoned mines, went with them once, it was pretty cool.
 
so have you found anything interesting so far?

I've gotten about a dozen silver coins, but nothing really of significant historical value. A married couple found $10 million worth of 19th century US gold coins on their property a few years ago in the Sierra Nevada portion of California. They were allowed to keep it. I'll definitely settle for finding that!
 
I was lucky enough to be in Pompeii while a team was excavating a small area...back in the mid-1950's. Obviously I was not allowed to get close enough to the site to see the actual work...but it was fun to know that while I was standing there, bit and pieces of the Roman empire were being seen after 1900 years under ash and dirt.

Pompeii should be on everyone's bucket list. It was beyond imagination to walk in that city...something etched on the memory.

Tangentially, I was an observer at an archaeological dig in southern England...where pre-history artifacts (flint tools) were unearthed.

Seeing what we were...is extremely interesting.
 
When my kids were little we would go on the prairie in eastern Wyoming and find arrowheads, scrapers, flint knives. Of course, that's a federal offense now but then what isn't.

The only present I ever bought my parents that they enjoyed was an ancient Roman coin. It wasn't expensive since it wasn't gold and wasn't in mint condition. When I handed it to them I said, "Just think, 2,000 years ago that coin was dropped into a hand just like yours and the person that got it was a lot like you guys. The tax man was driving him into the poor house, his wife wrecked the chariot, his son was off who knows where in the military and their daughter's boyfriend was a jerk. Some things just never change.

My favorite archeological sites are the Anasazi ruins around the four-corners area of the Southwest.
 
When my kids were little we would go on the prairie in eastern Wyoming and find arrowheads, scrapers, flint knives. Of course, that's a federal offense now but then what isn't.

The only present I ever bought my parents that they enjoyed was an ancient Roman coin. It wasn't expensive since it wasn't gold and wasn't in mint condition. When I handed it to them I said, "Just think, 2,000 years ago that coin was dropped into a hand just like yours and the person that got it was a lot like you guys. The tax man was driving him into the poor house, his wife wrecked the chariot, his son was off who knows where in the military and their daughter's boyfriend was a jerk. Some things just never change.

My favorite archeological sites are the Anasazi ruins around the four-corners area of the Southwest.

Part of what fascinates me when viewing ancient artifacts is the mystery of who's hands these things touched many, many years ago. Of course we do share some things with the the Romans you mentioned, but their lives would have been so much different at the same time.
It still blows me away at how advanced the Romans were 2000 years ago, their architecture and ingenuity for moving water from place to place, for example.
 
Part of what fascinates me when viewing ancient artifacts is the mystery of who's hands these things touched many, many years ago. Of course we do share some things with the the Romans you mentioned, but their lives would have been so much different at the same time.
It still blows me away at how advanced the Romans were 2000 years ago, their architecture and ingenuity for moving water from place to place, for example.

I was camping in Utah and realized that the bumpy land I was on was the site of collapsed pit houses. Then I noticed thousands of pottery shards, small ones, on the surface. The next winter they would be gone. I found two with paint still on them and slipped them in my pocket. When I got home I paid the two young kids who visited and fed my dog and cat while I was gone and then I had them close their eyes and hold out a hand. I put a pottery shard in each and said, "Now, just imagine. Eight hundred years ago a young girl was carrying that pot to the stream and dropped it. Lindsey's eyes popped open and she said, "How do you know it wasn't a little boy." We talked and, you're right, touching something that someone else touched 800 years ago was exciting.

Of course, parts of the Roman's life were quite different but then the life of a billionaire in New York City is very different from the life of a doctor in a small town in Kansas. But, as people, they can be much the same. I think that's true with Roman's, too. I went to a museum in Denver to see the Ramses exhibit and what struck me most were the pedetrian things. The tiles from the palace floor, the treaty that could have been written last year, and I thought of Ramses in the night moaning and saying, "I shouldn't have eaten those spicy chiles." Some things change, some things don't.
 
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