Identifying Gladiator Burials: A Comparison of Possible Gladiator Cemeteries in York and Ephesus
by Anastasia Temkina
University of South Florida Gladiators Were Vegetarians? Pliny - Natural History 18.14 (1 cent. CE)
“Barley is the oldest among human foods, as is proved by the Athenian ceremony recorded by Menander, and by the name given to gladiators, who used to be called ‘barley-men’.” Question:
- Did they have the same diet?
- Does diet reconstruction provide enough evidence? Gladiators at Ephesus
- Greek city-state - in 133 BCE - part of the Roman Empire - Important commercial hub in Asia Minor
Ephesus Gladiators at Ephesus
- Greek city-state - in 133 BCE - part of the Roman Empire - Important commercial hub in Asia Minor
- Gladiator burial discovered in 1993 - Dates to 2nd-3rd century CE - Identified based on trauma patterns and tombstones In situ gladiator tombstone from Ephesus (Losch et. al., 2014) The “Headless Romans” at York
- City founded by Romans in 71 CE as a military fort York
Ephesus The “Headless Romans” at York
- City founded by Romans in 71 CE as a military fort
- Mass burial found in 2004 at Driffield Terrace - Dates to the beginning of 3rd century CE - 80 individuals, 80% male - Half - decapitated - Trauma possibly resembles gladiator patterns One of the headless Romans (Owen J., 2010) But how to analyse diet?
- Stable Isotope Analysis - Isotopes from food get fixed in consumer’s tissues - Commonly analysed - Carbon and Nitrogen
- 12C and 13C - 14N and 15N Carbon and Nitrogen in Animal Tissues
Atmospheric Carbon and Nitrogen
Soil Nitrogen Quaternary Consumer
2‰ Tertiary Consumer
2‰ Secondary Consumer
2‰
Primary Consumer
2‰ Primary Producer Materials and Methods
Samples:
o Femora of 22 individuals from DAM93G – Ephesus (Lösch et al. 2014)
o Bones of 11 individuals from 6 Driffield Terrace – York (Müldner et al. 2011)
Non-Parametric Wilcoxon test
o H0: there is no difference in mean values of 13C and 15N between samples
δ δ Limits of Study
13 15 o C and N values - the only overlap Different bone types o δ δ o No animal data from Ephesus Results
Ephesus
● mean 13C = -18.9 ± 0.4, 1 ● mean 15N = 9.3 ± 0.9, 1 𝜎𝜎 York 𝜎𝜎
● mean 13C = -19.7 ± 1.1, 1 ● mean 15N = 10.9 ± 0.7, 1 𝜎𝜎 𝜎𝜎 Results
Outliers - immigrants? Results
Wilcoxon test:
● there is a significant difference ● p=0.0004558 for mean 13C values ● p=0.0001132 for mean 15N values δ The probability that this differenceδ in means appeared by chance is extremely small What Does This Mean?
Ephesus:
● C3 and C4 plants (barley + millet) ● Some aquatic protein (fish/mussels) ● Legumes (beans/chickpeas) blocking nitrogen? ● No contemporary faunal data! What Does This Mean?
York:
● Primarily C3 plants (wheat and barley) ● Red meat and seafood consumption ● Fish from different sources? Conclusion
- Diets seem to vary ? ? York - No “gladiator diet”? ? - Geography?
- Need larger samples Ephesus and more evidence Thank you! Bibliography
Caffell, A., and M. Holst. 2012. Osteological Analysis 3 and 6 Driffield Terrace (report). Chenery, C., G. Müldner, J. Evans, H. Eckardt, and M. Lewis. 2010. “Strontium and Stable Isotope Evidence for Diet and Mobility in Roman Gloucester, UK.” Journal of Archaeological Science 37 (1): 150–63. DeNiro, M. J. 1987. “Stable Isotopy and Archaeology.” American Scientist 75 (2): 182-191. Gagarin, M. 2010. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kanz, F, and K. Großschmidt. 2009. “Dying in the Arena: The Osseous Evidence from Ephesian Gladiators.” Bar International Series 1946: 211–20. Katzenberg, M. A. “Stable Isotope Analysis: A Tool for Studying Past Diet, Demography, and Life History.” In Biological Anthropology of the Human Skeleton, edited by M. A. Katzenberg and S. R. Saunders, 469-504. New York: Wiley, 2000. Killgrove, K., and R. H. Tykot. 2013. “Food for Rome: A Stable Isotope Investigation of Diet in the Imperial Period (1st-3rd Centuries Ad).” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 32 (1): 28–38. Lösch S, N. Moghaddam, K. Grossschmidt, D. U. Risser, and F. Kanz. 2014. “Stable Isotope and Trace Element Studies on Gladiators and Contemporary Romans from Ephesus (Turkey, 2nd and 3rd Ct. Ad) - Implications for Differences in Diet.” Plos One 9 (10): e110489. Müldner, G., and M. P. Richards. 2007. “Stable Isotope Evidence for 1500 Years of Human Diet at the City of York, UK.” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 133 (1): 682–97. Müldner, G., C. Chenery, and H. Eckardt. 2011. “The ‘Headless Romans’: Multi-Isotope Investigations of an Unusual Burial Ground from Roman Britain.” Journal of Archaeological Science 38 (2): 280–90. O'Connor, T. P. 2000. Bones as evidence of meat production and distribution in York. In Feeding a City: York. The Provision of Food from Roman Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century, edited by E. White. Prospect Books , Devon, UK , 43-60. Owen, J. 2010. “Headless Romans in England Came From "Exotic" Locales?” Last modified October 29. https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/10/101028-headless-skeletons- ancient-romans-england-exotic-science/#/28089.jpg Pliny. 1938. Natural History. Translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Schoeninger, M. J, and K. Moore. 1992. “Bone Stable Isotope Studies in Archaeology.” Journal of World Prehistory 6 (2): 247–96. Schwarcz, H. P. and M. J. Schoeninger. 2011. “Stable Isotopes of Carbon and Nitrogen as Tracers for Paleo-Diet Reconstruction.” In Handbook of Environmental Isotope Geochemistry, Advances in Isotope Geochemistry, edited by M. Baskaran, 725-742. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Wacher, J. S. 1995. The Towns of Roman Britain.. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Questions?
Email: [email protected]