It is not every day that a scene worthy of a gladiator film arises from an English cemetery. And yet, a new study published in the Revue Plos One shares a fascinating discovery: a skeleton with bruising brands compatible with those of a lion. Would we have found there the remains of a deadly gladiator in combat? The hypothesis divides scientists, explains the live science online media, some doubts about the victim’s profile.
The man, aged 26 to 35 at the time of his death, was found beheaded in a necropolis in York, England, alongside other skeletons that we think is those of gladiators. The wounds on his bones, as well as the shape and depth of the bites, suggest that he was attacked by a large feline, potentially during an organized fight. The co -author of the study, John Pearce, lecturer in archeology at King’s College in London, established two possible identities for the victim: a professional gladiator or a man sentenced to death.
For Alfonso Mañas, researcher at the University of California in Berkeley and specialist in gladiators, it is unlikely that man will be a professional gladiator. In the Roman Empire, explains Mañas, people who were fighting animals were either sentenced prisoners or venators, combatants specially trained to face animals. None was considered gladiators.
Other researchers specializing in the subject, such as Mike Bishop or Michael Carter support the initial analysis. The nature of the wounds, the beheading and the context of the cemetery support the theory of a dead man in the arena. If the debates persist around its exact status, the hypothesis of a bloody fight between a man and a wild beast in the middle of the English Roman province fascinates.
A first in Europe
The transport of the beast, probably from North Africa, would have involved a long journey. The researchers recall that no kinds of large felines was native of the region, which implies a heavy and risky logistics that can cause the death of the animal. “The feline would have been sent by the well -established supply routes that connect York”Analysis John Pearce.
Despite the doubts, this discovery remains major. The authors of the study indicate in their paper that it is “The first physical proof of gladiatorial combat between human and animal of the Roman era observed in Europe”. So far, only artistic representations and literary accounts have alluded to it.
This skeleton lights up a little more on the brutality of the shows in the provinces of the Roman Empire. He also recalls the complexity of the status of combatants: all those who died in the arena were not considered as gladiators in the strict sense.
