Miniature Bronze Warship Decorated Walls of Lavish Roman Villa

SALZBURG, AUSTRIA—A sensational 1,700-year-old miniature bronze sculpture of a Roman warship was unearthed during renovations of the Neue Residenz in Salzburg’s Old Town, La Brújula Verde reports. When archaeologists first discovered the misshapen mass of bronze among the ruins of a Roman villa, they were puzzled about what it might be, tentatively assuming that it may have been an oil lamp. However, once researchers examined the artifact in the laboratory, they identified it as a meticulously crafted, scaled-down replica of a Roman war galley. The miniature ship was complete with its rostrum, or battering ram that was used to sink enemy ships. The Romans were known to mount these in public places as trophies of war and symbols of Roman military might. The small facsimile was likely attached to the wall of an opulent second- or third-century a.d. villa in the city of Iuvavum, Salzburg’s predecessor. In the ancient novel Satyricon, which satirizes and lampoons the lives of Rome’s noveau riche, the author Petronius describes one over-the-top mansion that had similar bronze replica rostra hanging from the doorposts of its dining room. To read more about Austria's Roman archaeology, go to "Off the Grid: Carnuntum, Austria."