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A gladiator's helmet left behind in the ruins of Pompeii is the centrepiece of an exhibition to be unveiled in Melbourne today. The 2,000-year-old bronze helmet is one of 250 items brought together at the Melbourne Museum to illustrate life in the ancient city. Museum manager Brett Dunlop says the helmet survived the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and was recovered 200 years ago. 'A large number of gladiators' helmets and shin guards and shoulder guards were found in what was most likely a storeroom in the gymnasium area,' he said. 'Most definitely the gladiators who were able to would have...

For the first time, words have been read from a burnt, rolled-up scroll buried by Mount Vesuvius in AD79. The scrolls of Herculaneum, the only classical library still in existence, were blasted by volcanic gas hotter than 300C and are desperately fragile. Deep inside one scroll, physicists distinguished the ink from the paper using a 3D X-ray imaging technique sometimes used in breast scans. They believe that other scrolls could also be deciphered without unrolling.

There is new real state to be seen in the Pompeii, Italy, archaeological site, with three restored houses open to the public. In time for Easter tourists, three additional houses in the ancient city of Pompeii, Italy, buried in a volcano eruption in 79 A.D., were opened Thursday. Italian Culture Minister Dario Franceschini inaugurated the three restored houses, or domus, in a ceremony at the celebrated archeological site. The houses were formerly occupied by the families of Marcus Lucretius Fronto, Romulus and Remus and Trittolemo, the office of Pompeii’s archeological superintendent said. Superintendent Massimo Osanna described them as “aristocratic houses.”...

Ancient Romans Preferred Fast Food Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News June 18, 2007 — Just as a U.S. Presidential state dinner does not reflect how most Americans eat and socialize, researchers think the formal, decadent image of wining and dining in ancient Rome mostly just applied to the elite. According to archaeologist Penelope Allison of the University of Leicester, the majority of the population consumed food "on the run." Allison excavated an entire neighborhood block in Pompeii, a city frozen in time after the eruption of volcano Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. Historians often extend findings from Pompeii to other parts...

A unique exhibition of 2,000-year-old paintings called Pompeian Red has opened at the National Museum of Rome.

<p>ROME (AP) — Thieves have pried off a chunk of an ancient fresco of the Greek goddess Artemis from the walls of Pompeii.</p> <p>Pompeii's archaeological authorities said Tuesday the theft occurred on March 12 in the "Home of Neptune," in an area of Pompeii's sprawling excavation site not currently open to the public.</p>

It's hot storage. Millions of years before volcanic ash entombed the Roman town of Pompeii, a group of dinosaurs succumbed to a similar fate. China's famous feathered dinosaur fossils owe their exquisite preservation to volcanic eruptions between about 130 and 120 million years ago. The Jehol fossils have transformed our understanding of dinosaurs by showing that the relatives of Velociraptor and T. rex had a feather-like body covering, like birds. The Jehol deposits also preserved soft tissue from early mammals and flowering plants. Baoyu Jiang of Nanjing University, China, and his colleagues think they know why the remains are so...

Virtual tour of Herculaneum, documenting the site, and the work of the Herculaneum Conservation Project. Click on the node-markers to view an interactive 360-degree panorama (in a new window). The plan above shows the locations of panoramas made mainly in 2001 (a few are from 1999), where the aim was to provide an overview of the site (as it was then), along with tours of a few selected houses. The menu of houses and other areas at left accesses additional, more recent coverage (including revisits to some houses and other structures) made from 2003 onward.

University of Cincinnati archaeologists are turning up discoveries in the famed Roman city of Pompeii that are wiping out the historic perceptions of how the Romans dined, with the rich enjoying delicacies such as flamingos and the poor scrounging for soup or gruel. Steven Ellis, a University of Cincinnati associate professor of classics, will present these discoveries on Jan. 4, at the joint annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) and American Philological Association (APA) in Chicago. UC teams of archaeologists have spent more than a decade at two city blocks within a non-elite district in the Roman...

Police believe Francesco Raccosta - who disappeared from his home in Calabria back in 2012 - was kidnapped by rival mobsters and fed alive to a herd of pigs. Francesco Raccosta, who vanished without a trace from his home in Calabria in March 2012, is now believed to have been kidnapped by opposition mobsters. They then severely beat him before throwing him into a herd of pigs - who swiftly ate his body as he screamed and begged for mercy. Cops say they found out about his fate earlier this month while investigating the southern 'Ndrangheta mafia organization. Officers claim...

'The British Museum's 2013 show of artefacts from the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, buried in ash during an explosive eruption of Mount Vesuvius, was a sell-out. But could even greater treasures - including lost works of classical literature - still lie underground?.'

For centuries scholars have been hunting for the lost works of ancient Greek and Latin literature. In the Renaissance, books were found in monastic libraries. In the late 19th Century papyrus scrolls were found in the sands of Egypt. But only in Herculaneum in southern Italy has an entire library from the ancient Mediterranean been discovered in situ. On the eve of the catastrophe in 79 AD, Herculaneum was a chic resort town on the Bay of Naples, where many of Rome's top families went to rest and recuperate during the hot Italian summers. It was also a place where...

Buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79, an over-life-size bronze portrait of Tiberius (ruled A.D. 14–37) was discovered in 1741, during the first years of excavation at Herculaneum. On loan from the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples, this statue is the subject of the exhibitionTiberius: Portrait of an Emperor, on view at the Getty Villa October 16, 2013 through March 3, 2014. Brought to the Getty Villa for conservation and analysis last October, the sculpture provides an opportunity to re-examine the career and character of Rome’s second emperor. The exhibition has been co-organized by the J. Paul Getty...

Sept. 28, 2009 -- A number of ancient Roman statues might lie beneath the turquoise waters of the Blue Grotto on the island of Capri in southern Italy, according to an underwater survey of the sea cave. Dating to the 1st century A.D., the cave was used as a swimming pool by the Emperor Tiberius (42 B.C. - 37 A.D.), and the statues are probably depictions of sea gods. "A preliminary underwater investigation has revealed several statue bases which might possibly hint to sculptures lying nearby," Rosalba Giugni, president of the environmentalist association, Marevivo, told Discovery News. Carried out in...

Italian construction magnate Pietro Salini wants to donate €20 million ... to restore the archaeological site that has been damaged by weather, and has suffered from corrupt management and mafia interference. Salini aims to attract other international donors to restore the Ancient Roman city, telling a press conference: "It would be a crime to let Pompeii crumble." Salini's announcement comes at a time when the head of the UNESCO National Commission in Italy, Giovanni Puglisi, warned the Italian government that it needs to accelerate ongoing restoration work at the archaeological site, saying the government "has until 31 December to adopt...

According to legend, the sibyl traveled to Tarquin's palace bearing nine books of prophecy that set out the whole of the future of Rome. She offered the set to the king for a price so enormous that he summarily declined -- at which the prophetess went away, burned the first three of the books, and returned, offering the remaining six to Tarquin at the same price. Once again, the king refused, though less arrogantly this time, and the sibyl burned three more of the precious volumes. The third time she approached the king, he thought it wise to accede to...

Published: 17th April 2005 11:48 BST+1 Pompei discovery for Swedish archeologists (AFP) Swedish archeologists have discovered a Stone Age settlement covered in ash under the ruins of the ancient city of Pompei, indicating that the volcano Vesuvius engulfed the area in lava more than 3,500 years before the famous 79 AD eruption. The archeologists recently found burnt wood and grains of corn in the earth under Pompei, Anne-Marie Leander Touati, a professor of archeology at Stockholm University who led the team, told AFP. "Carbon dating shows that the finds are from prehistoric times, that is, from 3,500 years BC," Leander...

A hidden "super volcano" near Pompeii threatens an eruption that could make Vesuvius look like a picnic, scientists warn. The Phlegraean Fields zone of intense seismic activity -- which the ancient Romans believed was the gateway to hell -- could doom millions of people in the Naples area if it erupts, Reuters reports. Scientists plan to drill more than two miles below its surface to monitor any signs of a pending eruption in the huge chamber of molten rock, but some experts fear that the drilling itself could trigger an earthquake or eruption. Areas like the Phlegraean fields "can give...

Look at the sea of Surriento, what a treasure it is! Even who has travelled all over the world, he has never seen a sea like this one.

A pillar has collapsed at one of Pompeii's most well-preserved buildings, officials in Italy said Thursday, the latest in a series of accidents to befall the treasured archaeological site. The collapse took place on an external area of the House of Loreius Tiburtinus - also known as the House of Octavius Quartio - the office of Archaeological Heritage of Naples and Pompeii, said in a statement. Officials were in the process of inspecting the causes and extent of the damage, the statement added. The House of Loreius Tiburtinus is renowned for its artwork and large gardens. In October a portion...