Vienna – As the construction teams stole dirt to renew a Vienna football field last October, they became on an unprecedented finding: the bodies of warriors in a battle containing the German tribes in the 1st century Roman Empire, probably a mass of skeletal in a mass tomb.
On Wednesday, after the archaeological analysis, the experts at the Vienna Museum gave the first public presentation of the grave, which was the proof of the first known struggle in that region.
The bodies of 129 people in Vienna neighborhood were approved in the boiling neighborhood. Excavation teams also found many dislocated bones and over 150 of the total number of victims – a discovery that has never been seen in Central Europe.
Michaela Binder, who ruled the archaeological excavation, said, in the context of the Roman war actions, there are no comparable warrior findings, ”he said. “There are large battlefields with weapons in Germany. But finding the dead is unique to the whole Roman history.”
The soldiers in the Roman Empire were typically burned until the 3rd century.
The pit where the bodies are left proposes a hasty or scattered evacuation of the bodies. Each skeleton examined showed signs of injury to the head, body and pelvis.
Kristina Adler-Wölfl, Head of the Archeology Department of the City of Vienna, said, “There are various different war wounds that exclude executions. It is really a war area.” “Wounds from the swords, spears, wounds from blunt trauma.”
The victims were all men. Most of them were 20 to 30 years old and usually showed good dental health symptoms.
Carbon-14 analysis helped to dating the nails used in the distinctive Roman military shoes known as Caligae, tomb-zırh, helmet cheek-zırh, between 80 and 130 cross-controlled against the history of known residues.
The most indication clue came from a rusty dagger, especially in use between the mid -1st century and the beginning of the latter.
The research continues: As a Roman warrior, only one sacrifice was confirmed. Archaeologists hopes that DNA and Stronsiyum isotope analysis will be further identified and with them.
Adler-Wölfl, “Currently the most likely theory is that it depends on the Danube campaigns of Emperor Domitian-this is 86 to 96 AD,” he said.
City archaeologists, exploring today’s Austrian capital of the first signs of establishing a settlement, he said.
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Jamey Keaten, the Associated Press writer in Geneva, contributed.
