Signs of a lion bite on a 1800 -year -old skeleton

Wrestling games may be one of the most famous and romantic features of ancient Roman culture. Imagine historical texts, basic restrictions, pottery, and warrior mosaics fighting to the end of breathing for freedom and glory, and often roam strange monsters in front of the crowds of chanting fans. While the honesty squares such as Roman Colosseum have survived thousands of years ago, the wrestlers themselves have left few archaeological evidence, and even less than the testimony of their legendary animal.

Researchers in Ireland and the United Kingdom have identified the first material guide to fighting the old Roman wrestler in Europe: a human skeleton with a bite signs that are likely to be from a large cat, discovered in what is believed to be buried wrestler outside York, in the UK.

Tim Thompson, an anthropologist at the University of Mainouth, said, said statement. “This discovery provides the first direct material evidence that such events took place during this period, which reshapes our perception of the Romanian entertainment culture in the region.”

Archaeologists have already discovered the skeleton in the middle TicketIt was published today in the Plos One magazine, in Driffield Terrace-there are approximately 1,800 burial lands at the age of 1800 years and which scientists speculate may be a wrestler cemetery in Roman British. Among other evidence, the remains of the numerous skeleton belong to young men built well from all over the empire with various transparency injuries.

The person concerned was a male between the ages of 26 and 35 with some health problems, and was discovered under a layer of horse bones. Under the leadership of Thompson, the team of archaeologists and orthopedic scientists made a three -dimensional model of holes in the pelvis. After comparing it with the signs of the various animals bite, they concluded that a large cat was responsible for the pests, perhaps while searching the body after the death of the man.

“It is possible that the signs of the sting by a lion, which confirms that the skeletons buried in the cemetery were wrestlers, instead of soldiers or slaves,” said Malin Holst, a co -author of the study and the bone capital of York University. statement. Signs of sting “represent the first great confirmation of human interaction with large meat animals in the place of fighting or entertainment in the Roman world.”

The man is likely to be a BestiaryusCriminal or prisoners sentenced to fight against animals, without training or defenses, in front of the public.

“We may never know what brought this man to the scene where we believe that he might have been fighting for entertainment to others,” said David Jennings, CEO of Archaeological in York. statement“But it is striking that the first evidence of this type of fighting on this type of fighting has been found away from the Colosseum Rome, which would have been the fighting field in the classic world.” Jennings did not participate in the study.

Although archaeologists have not yet revealed a runway in the region, the study shows that the culture of wrestling has reached further than the angles of the empire. It also confirms the presence of the social, political and military elite in Romanian York; The sections of society that required such a harsh and harsh entertainment.