First off, I’d like to wish a warm happy birthday 2,765th birthday to the eternal city of Rome (taking the traditional date of founding, being April 21, 753 BCE). Though the areas was inhabited long before that and it is impossible to say for sure when exactly the city itself was founded, sometime in the 8th century BCE does indeed seem likely. However you look at it, 2,765 years is a good long run, especially given how much of that period it has spent as one of the most important and powerful cities in Europe and the Mediterranean. What do you get a city for its 2,765th birthday anyway?

Next up, a new study (Rare Ancient Statue Depicts Topless Female Gladiator) of a nearly 2,000 year old statue of a naked woman with a bandage on her knee indicates that it depicts a female gladiator, holding a sica (a curved short sword) in a pose of victory, perhaps looking down at a defeated opponent. There are numerous reports from ancient historians that women did indeed compete in gladiatorial combat, but this is only the second depiction of one known to exist.

Finally, Egyptian Archaeologists have found 4 rock-hewn tombs in old Alexandria where they were digging in order that the area could be cleared for a residential development, which has been put on hold. Funerary Pots, perfume containers, and a finely decorated clay pot are among the discoveries. Mohamed Mostafa, the directer of Alexandrian antiquities reports that the most important discovery is a Greco-Roman era tomb with an open courtyard and two rocky cylindrical columns in the middle. This discovery increases our knowledge and detail of old Alexandria and indicates that we can still find and learn new things from the ancient world.

Sources

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/9/41/39166/Heritage/GrecoRoman/Greek-and-Byzantineera-tomb-discoveries-in-Alexand.aspx

http://www.livescience.com/19729-female-gladiator-statue-rome.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladiators#Women_as_gladiators

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome