Archaeologica.org

ROME, May 31 (UPI) — An Italian archaeologist says he believes that the presidential palace in Rome is sitting on top of a temple to the Roman god Quirinus.

Andrea Carandini, a professor at Rome University, used radar scans to look for structures in the grounds of the Palazzo del Quirinale, the Italian news agency Ansa reported. The palace is on the Quirinal Hill, named after Quirinus.

Minimalist wrote:
Don't screw with Quirinus.

We all know a good place is a good place!
Current gods be dammed!
The lines intersect! This is the place.

Athens - Greek archaeologists have uncovered four intact tombs about 30 centuries old and Roman baths from a later period in the south-west of the country, the local media reported on Monday.

The four tombs date from the Mycenaean period (1450 BC to 1050 BC) and are reported to contain many objects such as toys, ceramics and figurines.

ROME -- Italian police have recovered an ancient Greek temple dug up in southern Italy by a construction crew who had dumped or looted the prized artifacts and begun to pour cement over the ruins, authorities said Tuesday.

Forum Monk wrote:Hey, it wasn't Roman, it was greek.

Nice, France: The long-running controversy about the origins of the Etruscan people appears to be very close to being settled once and for all, a geneticist will tell the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics today. Professor Alberto Piazza, from the University of Turin, Italy, will say that there is overwhelming evidence that the Etruscans, whose brilliant civilisation flourished 3000 years ago in what is now Tuscany, were settlers from old Anatolia (now in southern Turkey).

Etruscan culture was very advanced and quite different from other known Italian cultures that flourished at the same time, and highly influential in the development of Roman civilisation. Its origins have been debated by archaeologists, historians and linguists since time immemorial. Three main theories have emerged: that the Etruscans came from Anatolia, Southern Turkey, as propounded by the Greek historian Herotodus; that they were indigenous to the region and developed from the Iron Age Villanovan society, as suggested by another Greek historian, Dionysius of Halicarnassus; or that they originated from Northern Europe.

Now modern genetic techniques have given scientists the tools to answer this puzzle. Professor Piazza and his colleagues set out to study genetic samples from three present-day Italian populations living in Murlo, Volterra, and Casentino in Tuscany, central Italy. “We already knew that people living in this area were genetically different from those in the surrounding regions”, he says. “Murlo and Volterra are among the most archaeologically important Etruscan sites in a region of Tuscany also known for having Etruscan-derived place names and local dialects. The Casentino valley sample was taken from an area bordering the area where Etruscan influence has been preserved.”

It was Malibu, New York and Washington, D.C. all rolled into one. Before A.D. 79, when the erupting Mount Vesuvius engulfed it along with Pompeii and Herculaneum, the small port town of Stabiae in southern Italy was the summer resort of choice for some of the Roman Empire's most powerful men. Julius Caesar, the emperors Augustus and Tiberius and the statesman-philosopher Cicero all had homes there.