Site Where Julius Caesar was Assassinated to Open for Public in 2022

Cats, as well as archaeological ruins and Julius Caesar, is
what Largo Argentina is all about. Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP
Cats, as well as archaeological ruins and Julius Caesar, is what Largo Argentina is all about. Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP
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Site Where Julius Caesar was Assassinated to Open for Public in 2022

Cats, as well as archaeological ruins and Julius Caesar, is
what Largo Argentina is all about. Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP
Cats, as well as archaeological ruins and Julius Caesar, is what Largo Argentina is all about. Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP

History buffs will be able to roam the ruins of Rome's "Area Sacra," perhaps catching a glimpse of Julius Caesar's ghost, after the site becomes an open-air museum next year.

Work to adapt the Largo Argentina archaeological site containing the ruins of four Roman temples for tourists begins next month, Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi announced.

"With this work we'll begin entering into the area and... walk among the vestiges of our history. Meanwhile, people can observe the site from its surrounding without stepping in it, because it's located few meters under the ground surface," she said at a press conference, AFP reported.

Julius Caesar is believed to have been stabbed in the Curia Pompei, a Senate building, part of whose limestone foundation is still visible.

But visitors are more likely to spot an apparition of the four-legged kind – namely, a cat.

The ruins are the domain of a colony of hundreds of rescued cats, fed, sterilized and cared for by a private non-profit shelter, who scamper through the site, lounging atop truncated marble pillars or posing for tourist photos – altogether unimpressed by the historical significance of their vast litterbox.

The temples, which date to between the third and second centuries B.C., include a circular monument to the goddess of Fortune, whose colossal marble head now sits in Rome's Centrale Montemartini museum.

They were uncovered as recently as 1926 in an urban planning project when demolished medieval houses revealed ancient Roman ruins underneath.



Europe's Oldest Lake Settlement Uncovered in Albania

A drone view shows archaeologists diving in the lake of Ohrid to uncover objects, in the village of Lin, Albania, July 10, 2025. REUTERS/Fatos Bytyci
A drone view shows archaeologists diving in the lake of Ohrid to uncover objects, in the village of Lin, Albania, July 10, 2025. REUTERS/Fatos Bytyci
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Europe's Oldest Lake Settlement Uncovered in Albania

A drone view shows archaeologists diving in the lake of Ohrid to uncover objects, in the village of Lin, Albania, July 10, 2025. REUTERS/Fatos Bytyci
A drone view shows archaeologists diving in the lake of Ohrid to uncover objects, in the village of Lin, Albania, July 10, 2025. REUTERS/Fatos Bytyci

Archaeologists working on the shores of Ohrid Lake in Albania are convinced they have uncovered the oldest human settlement built on a European lake, finding evidence of an organized hunting and farming community living up to 8,000 years ago. The team, from Switzerland and Albania, spends hours each day about three meters (9.8 feet) underwater, painstakingly retrieving wooden stilts that supported houses.

The are also collecting bones of domesticated and wild animals, copper objects and ceramics, featuring detailed carvings.

Albert Hafner, from the University of Bern, said similar settlements have been found in Alpine and Mediterranean regions, but the settlements in the village of Lin are half a millennium older, dating back between 6,000 and 8,000 years.

"Because it is under water, the organic material is well-preserved and this allows us to find out what these people have been eating, what they have been planting," Hafner said.

Multiple studies show that Lake Ohrid, shared by North Macedonia and Albania, is the oldest lake in Europe, at over one million years.

The age of the findings is determined through radiocarbon dating and dendrochronology, which measures annual growth rings in trees. More than one thousand wood samples have been collected from the site, which may have hosted several hundred people.

It is believed to cover around six hectares, but so far, only about 1% has been excavated after six years of work.

Hafner said findings show that people who lived on the lake helped to spread agriculture and livestock to other parts of Europe.

"They were still doing hunting and collecting things but the stable income for the nutrition was coming from the agriculture," he said.

Albanian archaeologist Adrian Anastasi said it could take decades to fully explore the area.

"(By) the way they had lived, eaten, hunted, fished and by the way the architecture was used to build their settlement we can say they were very smart for that time," Anastasi said.