r/AncientCivilizations • u/Embarrassed_Lie_8972 • 7h ago
r/AncientCivilizations • u/DecimusClaudius • 7h ago
An inscription in Latin and Palmyrene found on the Via Appia in Rome
A bilingual Roman funeral stele found on the Via Appia, one of the roads that led to Rome which had a number of graves and mausoleums along the way. While Latin (used for the first part of this inscription) and Greek were the most commonly used languages in the Roman empire, there were plenty of others spoken in certain regions including Palmyrene, which was an Aramaic dialect. The language from a part of Syria was used as well by people from there who moved around the Roman empire including some soldiers on Hadrian's Wall in northern England.
"For the souls departed of Habib, son of Annubat, originally from Palmyra, who lived 32 years, 5 months, 21 days; (his) brother Heres saw to (the making of this tomb).
Text in Palmyrene language: Funerary monument of Habib, son of (the deceased) Malco Annubat." Per the Capitoline Museums in Rome where this 2nd century AD object is on display.
r/AncientCivilizations • u/ttcc2018 • 4h ago
Asia A bronze mirror with colorful paintings from the Western Han dynasty of China, found in a tomb in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, around 202 BC-8 AD
r/AncientCivilizations • u/ConstructionSame5270 • 6h ago
A statue of Amenhotep III wearing a wig compared to an identical real ancient Egyptian wig found in archaeological records. 1386 to 1349 BC.
r/AncientCivilizations • u/Sharaf-LFC • 6h ago
Asia There’s a Roman theater right in front of my house in Jordan.
This Roman theater is literally right in front of my house. It’s only a small part of the ancient village where I live. Every time maintenance or construction work is carried out in the area, archaeologists uncover new historical remains. Because of these discoveries, many believe that the entire area is hiding a vast, undiscovered archaeological site beneath it. This is in Irbid,the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
r/AncientCivilizations • u/MedTortureUSA • 5h ago
Athenian "apotympanismos" (execution by binding to a plank) is one of the most under-discussed Greek punishments because the sourcing is so thin
Most of what we know comes from Plato's Gorgias and a handful of references in Aristophanes, plus some later lexicographers (Hesychius) trying to explain the term to readers who no longer recognized it. The method itself - bound at neck, wrists, ankles to a wooden plank/board, left to die of exposure - sounds close to Persian methods, and some scholars (Gernet argued this decades ago) think it might actually be a borrowed practice rather than indigenous Athenian law, given how rarely it shows up in the actual legal orators like Demosthenes compared to how much airtime it gets in philosophy.
Curious if anyone's seen more recent epigraphic evidence beyond what Gernet was working with - feels like a topic that hasn't been revisited much since.
r/AncientCivilizations • u/oldspice75 • 15h ago
Greek Panathenaic prize amphora. Greek, Attic, ca 470 BC. Terracotta with black figure decoration attributed to the Niobid Painter. Baltimore Museum of Art collection [2695x3600]
r/AncientCivilizations • u/WestonWestmoreland • 17h ago