When workers were excavating to renovate a football pitch in Vienna last October, they made a surprising discovery: a cluster of intertwined bones in a mass grave dating back to the first century, when the Roman Empire existed. They were probably the remains of warriors who had fought in a battle with Germanic tribes.
On Wednesday, after conducting an archaeological analysis, experts at the Vienna Museum publicly displayed for the first time a grave that is linked to a “catastrophic military event” and is evidence of the first known military action in the area.
The bodies of 129 people were found at the site of the tragedy, located in the Vienna district of Simmering.
Archaeological teams also found many displaced bones and suggest the total number of victims may exceed 150 people – a discovery not previously seen in Central Europe.
“There are no similar finds of warriors in the context of Roman military operations,” said Michaela Binder, who led the archaeological excavations.
“There are vast battlefields in Germany where weapons have been found. But the discovery of dead bodies is unique in all of Roman history.”
In the Roman Empire, soldiers were commonly burned until the 3rd century.
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
