Crossroads Roundup: Roman Discoveries, Armenian Dragon Stones, and a 51,200-Year-Old Indonesian Cave Painting

Our favorite stories on art, archaeology, folklore, and more from this past week.

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© Italian Ministry of Culture

This week, researchers unveiled several major discoveries from the world of ancient Rome.

If you’ve had the chance to visit Italy, then you probably noticed that ancient ruins seem to materialize at every corner. The Romans and the Etruscans have provided us with a never-ending stream of sites to excavate, and for researchers, a steady flow of grant applications.

Sometimes, discoveries can be a source of inconvenience, such as when your construction team stumbles upon an emperor’s portico, and renovations must ground to a halt. The crew working on the Piazza Pia underpass in Rome learned this recently when they discovered a portico belonging to Emperor Caligula (see the above photo).

Caligula’s rule was very brief; he became the emperor in 37 A.D. and was assassinated about four years later. While viewed somewhat favorably or neutrally by ordinary Romans, Caligula was deeply despised by the Roman elite, as he aimed to limit the power of the Senate and rule as a god-king. (As the Senators learned, tyranny is fine, as long as it happens to other people.)