January
16
/ 2014
A report in the Journal of Archaeological Science published earlier this year revealed grisly evidence of beheadings and brutality inflicted upon the Roman Empire’s gladiators, criminals and war victims. Several dozen skulls uncovered in the heart of London provided the first proof of Roman head hunters who gathered up the heads of executed enemies or fallen gladiators from the nearby amphitheatre and exposed them for years in open pits. The discovery was made in a site by the Walbrook stream in what was known in ancient times as Londinium, a thriving capital of a Roman province nearly two millennia ago. The area was a site for burials and ritual activity, as well as mundane pursuits. While the heads were found
