Archaeology Reference to gladiator fight with big cat in ancient Britain
A gladiator skeleton with lion bite marks from York has provided the first evidence of bloody battles in Roman Britain - even without an amphitheater. Archaeological evidence that these gruesome spectacles took place north of the Mediterranean is rare.
24.04.2025, 05:28
SDA
If pictorial representations and written reports are to be believed, the Romans enjoyed bloody spectacles in which people had to fight lions. A research group from Great Britain and Ireland now believes it has proof that these fights took place even in the most remote corners of the empire.
The clue came from bite marks on the bones of a suspected gladiator whose skeleton was discovered in the northern English city of York. The traces come from a big cat, as the research team wrote in an article published in the specialist journal "Plos One".
For the first time, there is physical evidence of the public staging of the Roman Empire, scientist Tim Thompson from Maynooth University was quoted as saying in a statement.
