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Life in Roman Army Explored in New British Museum Exhibition

A new exhibition looking at the lives of Roman soldiers opens at the British Museum in London this week. (AFP)
A new exhibition looking at the lives of Roman soldiers opens at the British Museum in London this week. (AFP)
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Life in Roman Army Explored in New British Museum Exhibition

A new exhibition looking at the lives of Roman soldiers opens at the British Museum in London this week. (AFP)
A new exhibition looking at the lives of Roman soldiers opens at the British Museum in London this week. (AFP)

From cavalry helmets to panels of goatskin used for military tents, a new exhibition looking at the lives of Roman soldiers opens at the British Museum in London this week.

"Legion: life in the Roman army" features more than 200 objects on display, many of which once belonged to recruits or their families.

Among the highlights are what the museum says is the world's only intact semi-cylindrical legionary shield from Roman times and the most complete classic Roman segmental armor, unearthed in 2018 from the battlefield at Kalkriese in Germany.

“This is an exhibition about the Roman army but it's told from the perspective of the ordinary Roman soldiers," Carolina Rangel de Lima, project curator for the exhibition, told Reuters at a press preview on Tuesday.

"The spine of the narrative is the story of this actual soldier, Claudius Terentianus, whose ... fragments of his letters home survive and tell us about particularly the beginning of his enlistment and his story."

The exhibition opens to the public on Thursday and runs until June 23, 2024.

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UN Puts 4th Century Gaza Monastery on Endangered Site List

The Saint Hilarion complex dates back to the fourth century. Mahmud HAMS / AFP/File
The Saint Hilarion complex dates back to the fourth century. Mahmud HAMS / AFP/File
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UN Puts 4th Century Gaza Monastery on Endangered Site List

The Saint Hilarion complex dates back to the fourth century. Mahmud HAMS / AFP/File
The Saint Hilarion complex dates back to the fourth century. Mahmud HAMS / AFP/File

The Saint Hilarion complex, one of the oldest monasteries in the Middle East, has been put on the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites in danger due to the war in Gaza, the body said Friday.
UNESCO said the site, which dates back to the fourth century, had been put on the endangered list at the demand of Palestinian authorities and cited the "imminent threats" it faced.
"It's the only recourse to protect the site from destruction in the current context," Lazare Eloundou Assomo, director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, told AFP, referring to the war sparked by Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel.
In December, the UNESCO Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict decided to grant "provisional enhanced protection" -- the highest level of immunity established by the 1954 Hague Convention -- to the site.
UNESCO had then said it was "already concerned about the state of conservation of sites, before October 7, due to the lack of adequate policies to protect heritage and culture" in Gaza.
The Hamas attack on October 7 resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel's retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed at least 39,175 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.