When Experts Rediscovered These Lost Cities, It Rewrote History

Dating as far back as 600 B.C. the city of Calakmul was once a keystone of the Mayan world. As per History Hit, during its heyday, in fact, some 50,000 people are thought to have lived there. But with the collapse of the wider Maya civilization some time around 900 A.D., the city also fell into decline. It was eventually abandoned.

For around 500 years, the site of Calakmul remained hidden away in the undergrowth of Mexico. But according to website Atlas Obscura in 1931 the city was found again by an American by the name of Cyrus Lundell. And around six decades after that, archaeological works got under way in earnest and the grandeur of the site was properly revealed.

Taxila was a city in what is now Pakistan that flourished from the first to the fifth century. Situated in a strategically vital position to allow for trade with China, this city was once a grand place dotted with impressive religious sites and other constructions. It eventually fell into decline, though, leaving behind ruins which are among the most impressive in all of Asia today.

The Britannica website tells us that the Taxila archaeological site started to be properly investigated in the second half of the 19th century. Works were led by Sir Alexander Cunningham, a man since dubbed “the father of Indian archaeology.” Later, Sir John Hubert Marshall took charge; over the course of two decades, he revealed much of the city’s past.

Long ago, a mighty river known as the Saraswati flowed through the land we now call India. And along this river stood a settlement, where agriculture and trade prospered. As per the website Tourism of India, though, over time the Saraswati’s course began to shift and the waterway eventually ran dry. The city fell into rack and ruin, even its location ultimately lost to time.

This city was Kalibangan, and it was among the most important places in the ancient Indus Valley Civilization. Yet we might never have found this fascinating place were it not for the interest of an Italian-language expert named Luigi Tessitori, who came across the site around the turn of the 20th century and was struck by its distinct character. He then called in the help of archaeologists, who eventually confirmed his inkling that this place was special.

Archaeologists with an interest in Honduras had long heard rumors about a place in the jungle. The people there would talk of the mystical “White City,” or sometimes the “City of the Monkey God.” This long-lost settlement, it was said, could be found deep in the jungle, beneath all the thick vegetation.

In 2015 we learned these weren’t just idle rumors. The City of the Monkey God was real, and archaeologists were brought to see it by the area’s locals. As per magazine National Geographic, when they got there, the experts made lots of discoveries, with the standout maybe being a pyramid. But who was responsible for constructing these wonders? We still don’t know: maybe there are some clues on site?

The Khmer Empire reigned over a vast tract of south-east Asia from about the ninth century until the 15th century, encompassing much of the lands we now know as Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos. According to website Live Science, one of the capitals of this empire, a city called Mahendraparvata, was lost for many centuries. There were rumors that the ruins of Mahendraparvata were still around, hidden deep in the jungle, but nobody could ever say for sure.

That changed, though, after contemporary archaeologists found definitive proof of the city’s location in modern-day Cambodia at Phnom Kulen. Thanks to modern techniques including laser scanning, we can see that the city was laid out in a grid, which means a great deal of planning went into its design. This has shocked many experts, as few places from this period were so meticulously organized.

It’s the stuff of nightmares: during the winter of 373 B.C. a ferocious earthquake and tsunami completely wiped out the ancient Greek city known as Helike. The whole place and the people who lived there were swept underwater, lost to time and history. Only vague whispers of Helike’s existence endured, often in the form of legend. Some people, as it happens, believe the loss of Helike actually inspired the tale of Atlantis.

For hundreds of years, no hard evidence of Helike was ever found. But that all changed in 1988 when a project specifically aimed at discovering the lost city was initiated. After 13 years of searching the hunt bore fruit: as per the website Real History, a site near the village of Rizomylos, roughly 90 miles west of Athens, has now been identified by experts as the likely location of the long-lost Helike.

In almost two decades of archaeological excavations, the late Klaus Schmidt was responsible for some of the most earth-shattering finds of contemporary times. As per Smithsonian Magazine, between 1996 and 2014, the German led works at the ancient site of Gobekli Tepe in modern Turkey. There, he and his colleagues found evidence of a remarkably sophisticated people who lived around 11,000 years ago.

Gobekli Tepe is perhaps the oldest site of worship ever discovered, which is an impressive legacy for Schmidt to leave behind. It consists of temples lined with pillars, each of which is decorated in illustrations of different kinds of animals and abstract shapes. Excavated bones also indicate that ritualistic sacrifices were once performed in this place.

Thonis-Heracleion was once vital to ancient Egypt’s strategic interests, as it acted as a gateway to the Mediterranean. It would’ve been a bustling hive of activity at its height, with all manner of trading goods passing through. But disaster loomed for this once-great city: it was battered by a series of natural disasters.

According to British newspaper The Guardian, it’s theorized that Thonis-Heracleion met its ultimate end after a flood, which contributed to the liquefaction of its soils. That basically means what was once hardened clay quickly turned to liquid, meaning anything built on top of it simply slid away and collapsed into the sea. Over a long period of time, the entire city came to be covered by water. It was only at the start of the 2000s that divers discovered signs of the lost city.

Teotihuacan is a vast ancient settlement still standing today, situated just outside the modern metropolis of Mexico City. Originally inhabited around 400 B.C., the site eventually rose to become the mightiest city in the entire region. History.com tells us that at its peak in about 500 A.D., as many as 200,000 individuals are estimated to have lived there.

Teotihuacan eventually fell into decline, culminating in its abandonment. For hundreds of years, then, it lay in obscurity, only to be rediscovered in the 15th century. It was the Aztecs who came across it, and it is they who named it Teotihuacan, which means “the place where the gods were created.” Today, the city is still shrouded in mystery. Contemporary archaeologists still don’t know the identity of its first inhabitants.

Website History Hit tells us that Leptis — or Lepcis — Magna was once a city of the Phoenician people, who founded it in modern-day Libya where Tripoli now stands. It later fell into the hands of the Roman Empire, but within centuries it was on the decline. The settlement was taken over in an Arab conquest, an invasion which pretty much sounded its deathknell.

In the centuries that followed, Leptis Magna deteriorated dramatically and it eventually came to be covered over by sand. Lost to time, the ruined city lay there in obscurity, though it seems the ruins were ransacked on occasion. It was only around the 1920s that modern archaeologists began to excavate the site, revealing flashes of the buried city’s former glory.

Pompeii is possibly the most famous of all the lost cities to be rediscovered in modern times — and with good reason. Covered in a thick layer of dust following the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius, this ancient Roman city is still preserved in remarkable condition today. We really do get a snapshot of what daily life was like for its inhabitants.

As per Britannica, the petrified ruins of Pompeii were rediscovered towards the end of the 16th century, after an architect named Domenico Fontana came across them. Archaeological works only properly got under way more than half a century later — but when they did, it changed everything. Many techniques were pioneered during these works, revolutionizing the way archaeology was conducted going forward.

In the Islamic world, a 5,000-year-old city known as Ubar was once at the heart of the lucrative frankincense trade. The city’s elite consequently grew wildly rich and lived lives of decadence and sin, so it’s said God destroyed their home. Ubar was lost, devoured by the desert, leaving behind only a gripping myth. But as to whether or not Ubar ever really existed, experts were unsure — until recently, that is.

As reported by newspaper the Los Angeles Times, while studying a barren sector of land in the country of Oman, a ragtag group of archaeologists based in L.A. made a discovery. A fortress city lay beneath the sand, and it seemed to match descriptions of Ubar. The experts even claimed to have figured out how this city was lost. It seems it had originally been built over a cave, which eventually collapsed and caused large parts of the city to sink.

America’s Mesa Verde region encompasses sections of Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico. This place was once home to the Ancestral Puebloan people, otherwise referred to as the Anasazi, who used to build settlements into cliff faces. As per the website Visit Mesa Verde, while the Anasazi never had a writing system, their knowledge of math and construction techniques were incredibly sophisticated.

The sight of an ancient village built into a cliff is quite something, so you can imagine the shock a bunch of ranchers got when they first discovered such ruins in Mesa Verde in 1889. Obviously intrigued by what they’d just stumbled upon, they built a makeshift ladder and clambered up to the stone settlement. As it would later transpire, this place was just the tip of the iceberg: as per broadcaster PBS, Mesa Verde is home to more known cliff settlements than anywhere else in the world. And there are likely still more there waiting to be found.

Thriving from around 4000 B.C. to 1300 B.C., the city of Urkesh was slap bang in the middle of some incredibly important places. As per Ancient Origins, it just happened to be linked to Iran, the Mediterranean, Syria, and Mesopotamia, so you can imagine how important it was for trade. Plus, it was the capital of its own Hurrian kingdom, which was abundant with copper.

Yet time took its toll on Urkesh and the city was eventually lost to the desert, where it lay for millennia. The only sign of its existence was a big bulge in the Syrian landscape, and it was only around the 1980s that archaeologists realized this dune was actually hiding a ruined city. Subsequent investigations revealed the lost city and the history of its people.

Nowadays, Sigiriya is basically a 660-feet-high piece of rock towering out of the Sri Lankan landscape. Long ago, though, this place was a grand fortress fit for a king, as explained by website Sometimes Interesting. First constructed more than 1,500 years ago, Sigiriya was later left deserted, only to later be reoccupied by Buddhist monks. They stayed there until around the 14th century, but they, too, eventually moved on. We don’t know much of the site’s history in the immediate centuries that followed, but by the 1800s a kingdom known as Kandy had taken control of it.

It was only in 1831 that people from Europe stumbled upon Sigiriya. After that, the site gained international attention, but archaeological works didn’t get going properly until the 1980s. At that point, a whole bunch of discoveries were made and the historical importance of this site was finally revealed.

Situated high up in the mountains of south Peru, Machu Picchu is a breathtaking place. As per History.com, it’s thought to have been where the elite of Inca society spent their summers; the settlement was abandoned after the Spanish destroyed the wider Inca culture in the 16th century. The ruins then stood in secret for centuries, known only to people living locally in the area.

Then in 1911 an expedition headed up by Hiram Bingham was exploring the region, hoping to find lost Inca settlements. Guided by people who lived in the area, the team scaled the mountain upon which the settlement stood and rediscovered this old city. Now, people all over the world know about Machu Picchu.

The Orkney islands off the coast of Scotland are no strangers to storms. But website Orkney Jar told how in 1850 a bout of particularly harsh weather revealed something incredible. As the surface of the ground was torn up, stone constructions were revealed. These were ancient residences, as subsequent excavations found. Decades later, another storm revealed even more.

During the first few decades of the 20th century, archaeological excavations took place on the Orkney islands to try and learn more about these ruins. It was originally thought they dated back some 2,500 years, which would take us to the Iron Age. To the contrary, though, it seems they’re far older. Skara Brae, as this settlement is now known, is from the Neolithic era, inhabited from roughly 3200 B.C. to 2200 B.C.

Mohenjo-daro is an archaeological site situated along the mighty Indus River in Pakistan’s south. Existing now as a bunch of ruins and heaps, the spot was once ranked among the most important places in the whole region. As per Britannica, the ancient Indus Civilization counted the area as one of its two primary hubs of activity.

The sheer significance of Mohenjo-daro, however, only began to be grasped in 1922. Excavations around that time finally revealed the extent of the site’s scale, not to mention the grandeur of some of its ruins. Historians now tend to agree this place was at the heart of a major state during its heyday.

Website History Hit tells us that the Buddhist complex known as Sanchi in India is believed to be the oldest such sanctuary still standing today. Thought to have been constructed between the third and first centuries B.C., Sanchi was a really important city for Buddhists for many hundreds of years. Around the 12th century, though, it was left deserted.

It was only around 1818 that the Madhya Pradesh complex was rediscovered — and it happened by accident. Website Live History India recounts how a British military general had been pursuing an enemy force in the area, when he stumbled upon its ruins. Nowadays, the site’s importance has been recognized, as exemplified by its U.N. status as a World Heritage Site.

The 5,000-year-old city of Caral was once the capital of the Norte Chico society, widely considered the most ancient civilization in the Americas. This was a complex place, filled with monuments, agricultural fields, and residences. But for millennia, this once-great city was lost. That changed in the early 20th century, after an archaeologist from Germany finally started excavating near Supe in Peru.

It was only decades after that, though, that the true extent of the site’s importance was fully recognized. As per the website Ancient Origins, from the 1970s onwards, some incredible discoveries were unearthed at Caral. Everything from pyramids, an amphitheater, and residences have now been found there, laying bare the sophisticated nature of this ancient city.

With its great blocks of rock standing in two circles in the southern English countryside, Stonehenge is Britain’s best-known archaeological site. Built between 3000 and 1520 B.C., it’s been extensively studied in the modern era. You might think we already know all there is to learn about the ancient monument: but that’s where you’d be quite wrong.

In fact, startling new evidence that emerged in 2021 reveals a whole new chapter in Stonehenge’s history. Researchers believe that the inner circle of stones was originally erected 175 miles from its current location on Wiltshire’s Salisbury Plain. The stones may have been first raised in Wales, near where they had been extracted. And they may have stood there for 400 years before being moved to Salisbury some 3,000 years ago. 

Archaeologists announced an extraordinary find in Germany in 2021. It’s a piece of knuckle bone, probably from a deer, that was discovered in Unicorn Cave in Germany’s Harz Mountains. The bone has been carved, with regular lines forming chevrons. Yet this is not the work of Homo sapiens. It was a member of another species altogether who scored patterns onto this bone fragment.

The artist was a Neanderthal, shattering the stereotype that these hominids were shambling creatures of inferior intellect. We can be sure of that because radiocarbon dating put the age of this bone fragment circa 51,000 years ago. But our direct ancestors didn’t reach this part of Europe until about 1,000 years later. Speaking to National Geographic magazine, one of the researchers, Thomas Terberger, said, “It’s the start of culture, the start of abstract thinking, the birth of art.”

A team of archaeologists working in Bizmoune Cave in south-west Morocco made a groundbreaking discovery in 2021. They found a collection of 33 shells from two species of sea snail. Uranium-series dating showed that the shells are as much as 150,000 years old. But they’re not just plain old shells — they’ve been turned into something else by human hands.

These shells, about a half-inch long, have been made into beads and may be the world’s oldest jewelry. In a press release from the University of Arizona, one of the researchers, Professor Steven L. Kuhn, said, “[The beads] were probably part of the way people expressed their identity with their clothing.” He added that marks on the shells showed that they may have been mounted on string or on garments.

That the Vikings of old reached Newfoundland many centuries ago is not news. But discoveries announced in 2021 push back the known date that Norsemen first arrived in North America by a considerable margin. And scientists were able to come up with an amazingly precise date for that by using new techniques to interpret evidence provided by ancient tree rings.

Researchers are now confident that Vikings who had sailed across the North Atlantic, probably from Greenland, were at the L’Anse aux Meadows site in Newfoundland in 1021. And they paid more than a flying visit. The hardy seafarers stopped off at L’Anse aux Meadows and felled trees there, both juniper and fir. It’s those tree trunks that have allowed researchers to come up with this stunningly precise dating.

Here’s something that we non-archeologists may well find relatable — the discovery of an ancient Egyptian brewery. It’s so ancient, in fact, that it may be the world’s oldest. A research team uncovered the beer factory in a royal graveyard and it dates back to around 5,000 years ago. Located in the desert 280 miles to the south of Cairo, this was no backyard booze-making operation.

The brewery was equipped with 40 oversized ceramic pots and would have been capable of producing 5,900 gallons of beer at a time. And it seems that beer may have had a special purpose. In a statement from Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, New York University’s Matthew Adams elaborated. “[The brewery] may have been built in this place specifically to supply the royal rituals that were taking place inside the funeral facilities of the kings of Egypt,” he explained.

An amazing series of discoveries stretching over 30 years was announced in 2021. One man, who did not want to be named, had found 131 Anglo-Saxon gold coins on his own land with his metal detector. The discoveries came in what was once the Kingdom of East Anglia in the south of England. The undisclosed location is not far from Sutton Hoo, the archaeological site featured in the 2021 movie The Dig.

The outstanding find includes Frankish coins from nearly 1,500 years ago as well as Roman coins and items of jewelry, all gold. Quoted on the Artnet website, the British Museum’s Gareth William said “This is a hugely important find. It is the largest coin hoard of the period known to date.” He added that the discovery would “help to transform our understanding of the economy of early Anglo-Saxon England.”

Working in the harsh conditions of South Africa’s Kalahari Desert, archaeologists made an exceptional find. Their discovery came at Wonderwerk — which translates as “miracle” — Cave, where they found evidence of early human occupation. And by early, we mean a staggeringly long time ago. In a release from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Professor Ron Shear explained the significance of the new study. 

Shaar said that, “We can now say with confidence that our human ancestors were making simple Oldowan stone tools inside the Wonderwerk Cave 1.8 million years ago.” He went on to explain that Oldowan-type stone tools made by early humans had been found that were up to 2.6 million years old. But this was the first time that such artifacts had been found in a place of shelter: somewhere that you could call “home.” 

It seems that the ancient Egyptians cared about their feline friends a lot. So much, in fact, that they gave the animals elaborate burials. Researchers were digging in dunes near the port city of Berenice on Egypt’s Red Sea coast when they came across a pet cemetery. It dates back nearly 2,000 years to the first century A.D. and included some 600 graves, the vast majority containing cats. There were also a few dogs and macaque monkeys. 

The animals were not just dropped into holes. Laid down as if they’d just fallen asleep, some of them were decorated with necklaces made from beads of glass, shell or stone. Archaeozoologist Marta Osypinska highlighted evidence of how well the animals had been looked after in life, reporting in the journal World Archaeology, “We have individuals who have very limited mobility. Such animals had to be fed to survive, sometimes with special foods in the case of the almost-toothless animals.”

The sprawling 400-acre site of magnificent Angkor Wat in modern Cambodia has been the subject of much study over the years. But some new research in 2021 has come up with some surprising findings about this beautiful city, which was built in the 12th century. The latest discovery comes from extensive high-tech scanning using planes equipped with sophisticated mapping tools, said a University of British Columbia study reported in the journal Science Advances.

For the first time, archaeologists have been able to give confident population estimates for Angkor Wat. It seems that the city may have been home to as many as 900,000 people in the 13th century. That might not sound too impressive given the megacities of the modern world. But it’s worth remembering that in about 1300, London, then and now Britain’s largest city, had a population of only some 80,000. 

Englishwoman Buffy Bailey, whose day job is nursing, was out with her husband Ian pursuing her hobby of metal detecting. The two were on a hiking vacation in the countryside near the northern city of York, their trusty metal detector a constant companion. On one 2021 walk the gadget went off with an urgent bleeping. So, naturally they started to dig. What they found utterly astonished them. 

A tiny little book emerged from the soil, unlike any book they’d ever seen. Not only was it miniscule, it was fashioned from solid gold. The exquisite artifact dates from the 15th century and there is speculation that it may have a royal connection. The land where the Baileys found the book was near estates owned by Richard III. Perhaps the gold bauble belonged to his queen, Anne Neville.

One modern tech tool of which archaeologists have made good use is Google Maps. In 2021 researchers announced that using the resource they’d discovered something remarkable. Poring over bird’s eye images of India’s barren Thar Desert, the scientists stumbled upon a massive geoglyph. Geoglyphs are the human-made lines that decorate large surface areas in some parts of the world. The best-known are probably Peru’s Nazca Lines.

The 30 miles of the Thar Desert lines are something truly special. With distinctive patterns covering an area of 51 acres, it’s the largest single geoglyph discovered anywhere to date. The marks are about 4 inches deep and up to 10 inches across and form spirals and sweeping snake-like patterns. The researchers say the lines could be up to 200 years old but their purpose is still a perplexing mystery.

This is a tale of the search for a key archaeological site, a hunt that lasted for 90 years. What were those many researchers so keen to find over the decades? Only a site which is a key part of the story of the early colonization of America. In fact, we’re going all the way back to the Maryland of 1634, to a stockade that was part of the state’s first European colony. 

Now, archaeologists have finally located the site of St. Mary’s Fort in southern Maryland, and cutting-edge technology played an important part in the discovery. The outlines of the nearly 400-year-old defensive structure had emerged thanks to the magic of ground-penetrating radar. This early settlement site was actually abandoned in the 1690s, its location lost — until 2021.

Until 2021 researchers had not found a new section of the Dead Sea Scrolls for six decades. The scrolls, of course, are the ancient religious texts of Judaism, and provide a unique insight into early Jewish history and the Hebrew Bible. So uncovering a new scroll fragment is a massive deal for archaeologists and historians alike.

The find came at the Qumran Caves on the shores of the Dead Sea. Archaeologists had their work cut out, as access to the cave required a 200-foot abseil down a sheer cliff face. The Israel Antiquities Authority’s Israel Hasson described the rigors of the work to newspaper The New York Times. He said the research involved “digging and sifting through [the caves], enduring thick and suffocating dust, and returning with gifts of immeasurable worth for mankind.”

In a press release Professor Betsy Bryan, a Johns Hopkins University Egyptologist, highlighted the importance of this find. “The discovery of this lost city is the second [sic] most important archaeological discovery since the tomb of Tutankhamun,” she said. The metropolis in question is the ancient Egyptian city of Luxor, buried in the desert for millennia. 

The discovery of the seal of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, Tutankhamun’s grandfather, dates the site to around 3,500 years ago. The excavations at Luxor have already yielded many extraordinary finds, with many more anticipated as work continues. Speaking to Reuters, Peter Lacovara of the Ancient Egyptian Heritage and Archaeology Fund said, “It is a sort of ancient-Egyptian Pompeii.”

The U.K. has been a rich source of archaeological wonders over the years. But even experienced researchers were surprised by this particular find, a Chinese coin dating back more than 1,000 years. A metal detectorist made the discovery in a field in the southern English county of Hampshire. The coin is copper alloy and comes from the time of China’s Northern Song Dynasty early in the 11th century.

There is some doubt about the significance of the coin, since it’s impossible to say when it was lost in that Hampshire field. But in her blog archaeologist Dr. Caitlin Green explained the coin’s potential importance. If it had arrived in England in the medieval period it could “illustrate the existence of very long-distance, indirect trading networks and contacts in this era,” she wrote.

An enigmatic man-made mound in Syria was lost to archaeology when the plain upon which it stood was flooded for a dam project. Fortunately, before the waters rose researchers had explored the mound for a decade up until 1999. But it was only in 2021 that the scientists fully understood the importance of their finds from 20 years earlier.

The archaeologists realized that what they had excavated was in fact a kind of war monument dating back some 4,500 years. The mound contained the remains of some 30 individuals who had been laid to rest with evident care. Professor Anne Porter of the University of Toronto stated that the layout of the mound showed “that ancient people honored those killed in battle, just as we do.”

New dating of a set of ancient footprints at the White Sands National Park in New Mexico has put back the earliest known human presence in North America by thousands of years. The human footprints in an area of the park called Alkali Flat were originally made in lakeside mud 23,000 years ago. Over time, the prints became fossilized in desert rock. 

Archaeologist David Bustos found the footprints in 2009 but it was only in 2021 that new analysis pinned down their age. In fact it was the age of some aquatic grass seeds stuck in the footprints which was determined using radiocarbon technology. Speaking to The New York Times, University of Alberta archaeologist Ruth Gruhn described the impact of this finding on our knowledge of human settlement in America. “This is a bombshell,” she said.

Three pigs painted on a cave wall in Indonesia have put back the date of the first animal depiction by thousands of years. Located on the island of Sulawesi, the Leang Tedongnge Cave was first discovered in 2017 by a team from Australia’s Griffith University. Speaking of the discovery to New Scientist, team leader Adam Brumm said, “I was struck dumb.”

The results of a uranium-series dating exercise were announced in 2021. The tests showed that the pig paintings are at least 45,500 years old, making them the oldest animal depictions yet found. Brumm pointed out the importance of this discovery, saying, “It adds to the evidence that the first modern human cave-art traditions did not arise in Ice-Age Europe, as long assumed, but at an earlier point in the human journey,” he said.

An archaeological investigation has revealed that one of mankind’s worst habits — tobacco use — goes back a long, long way. A team of researchers found wild tobacco seeds scattered around an ancient campfire in the Great Salt Lake Desert dating from 12,500 years ago. That’s 9,000 years earlier than any other documented evidence of tobacco use. 

Researchers believe the seeds would have been unsuitable for smoking, so these ancient folk would probably have chewed them to get a nicotine hit. Speaking to Reuters, archaeologist Daron Duke highlighted the significance of this discovery. “On a global scale, tobacco is the king of intoxicant plants, and now we can directly trace its cultural roots to the Ice Age,” he said.

Roman circuses were notorious for providing a bloodthirsty spectacle which often included the use and abuse of wild animals as well as humans. Evidence has now emerged that in one far-flung corner of the Roman Empire — Britain — some felons faced an especially terrifying and brutal penalty. Quite literally, these unfortunates were fed to the lions.

In 2016 an ornate bronze key from circa 200 A.D. was discovered in the English city of Leicester. The handle features a carving of a man in the clutches of a lion. In a paper published in 2021, researchers suggested that this might actually depict an execution at the games arena. It’s well known that this kind of punishment happened at the Coliseum in Rome. But this is the first time that evidence seems to show that the barbaric practice also took place in Roman Britain.