Archaeologists have presented gory visual evidence that problematic people were fed to lions in Roman Britain. Excavations at a Roman house in Leicester, England in 2017 unearthed a dirt-caked bronze artifact that turned out to be a Roman bronze key handle. It’s the only one that’s ever been found in all of the former territories of the Roman Empire!
The detailed figures and scenes on the handle paint a graphic picture of someone who’s literally been thrown to the lions! The artifact displays the figure of a man engaged in combat with a ferocious lion. Four fearful youths, stripped naked, look over the brutal scene.
The Friars Causeway Key Handle Shows Roman Britain Execution
The rare Roman artifact is known as the “Friars Causeway key handle,” so-called after the place it was found, in Leicester, England .
A team of archaeologists from the University of Leicester have now published a new study about the bronze key handle in the journal Britannia. Coauthor, Gavin Speed, said in a statement that when the key was first discovered it appeared as an indistinguishable bronze object. However, cleaning revealed “several small faces looking back at us… It was absolutely astounding.”
