If one believes Pictural Representations and written reports, the Romans are delighted bloody glasses in which people with lions and other large cats had to fight. Archaeological evidence that these glasses north of the Mediterranean was rare. Now researchers want to have found one.
An interdisciplinary team from Great Britain and Ireland now believes that he has the proof that the glasses even took place in the most remote corners of the empire. In the former Roman city of York they have discovered the first archaeological proof of a battle between Gladiator and Predator. The find offers new insights into the practice of Roman Animal Rush.
Unusual injuries to skeleton
The decisive hint now gave stamps on the bones of a suspected Gladiator (scientific name 6dt19, note), whose skeleton discovered in the northern English city of York and who was buried there about 1800 years ago. The traces come from a large cat, as the researchers explain in an article published in the magazine “Plos One”.
The pelvic bones of 6DT19 therefore have a number of lesions, including bruises, but especially circular, a few closely together, up to 25 millimeters of deep notches (see image below) that no longer heal until his death. The man probably succumbed to his serious injuries.
“For the first time we have physical proof of the public productions of the Roman Empire and the dangerous Gladiator fights,” the senior scientist Tim Thompson of Maynooth University is quoted in a message.
Eboracum, as York was called up at the time, played an important role in Roman Britain: as the basis of various legions, but also as an arrangement and stay of the provincial governor. Even Keizer sometimes stayed there. Emperor Septimius Severus died there in 211. Constantine the Great was named Emperor in Eboracum in 306 in 306.
No amphitheater, but a gladiator cemetery
And although no amphitheater has been found in York, it is assumed that Gladiator fights also took place there. The strongest indication of this is a cemetery from Roman times, in which a strikingly large number of skeletons of young men was found with corresponding combat injuries.
The researchers assume that these were gladiators. One of the skeletons has injuries, which in all likelihood come from a lion. Given the importance that Eboracum played, they believe that such an animal from the home area from his home area to the north of Roman Great Britain could have been brought.
Löwe had started to eat his victim
They investigated the injuries with the help of 3D scans and compared them with the bite traces of living large cats on Cadavians in animals in zoos. According to the scientists, the fact that they are not caused on the upper body, but on the pelvis, indicates that it is not a classic attack wound. If it was a struggle and not an execution, it is also clear who won him: De Leeuw had started eating all his victim.
Source: Krone
I am an experienced and passionate journalist with a strong track record in news website reporting. I specialize in technology coverage, breaking stories on the latest developments and trends from around the world. Working for Today Times Live has given me the opportunity to write thought-provoking pieces that have caught the attention of many readers.
