Serbia

Travel: A Villa in the Country

Journeying south from the Serbian Danube presents an opportunity to revel in Roman opulence, as Oliver Gilkes reveals. The Danubian provinces of…

Oliver Gilkes tours the Danube, in the first of a two-part exploration of Serbia’s archaeology. The mighty Danube runs for almost 2,000km…

The dig The prehistoric settlement at Lepenski Vir – the Whirlpool of Lepena – lies on a limestone shelf beside the River…

A Roman retreat Eighteen Roman emperors came from Serbia – more than anywhere else outside Italy. One of them was Gaius Galerius…

Latest news from our sister site the-past.com

Lost and found: a Roman reunion
A 38cm-long bronze finger has rejoined the hand of Constantine the Great in the Capitoline Museums in Rome. The ancient digit, once part of a 12m-high statue of Constantine of which several sizeable fragments survive, was acquired by the Louvre from the Italian collector Giampietro Campana in 1863 but, in 1913, was catalogued as a Roman toe. Research in 2018 identified that this was not a toe, but an index finger, and that its size would be a good fit for a 12m-tall emperor. In preparation for the 2018 exhibition A Dream of Italy: the collection of the Marquis Campana,
Striking gold in Germany
The discovery of the gold object in an Early Bronze Age grave was unusual, as precious metals are rare in the region at this date.
An archbishop’s apse?
In the latest season of fieldwork this year, a team led by Artur Obłuski, director of the PCMA UW, cleaned the dome of a large tomb and the wall of the church’s apse, revealing paintings with two rows of monumental figures, possibly apostles.
Dating the Cerne Abbas giant
New dating research has revealed that, rather than being an ancient fertility symbol or depiction of the mythical hero Heracles, the giant is in fact medieval.