early christian persecution Archives - Biblical Archaeology Society

Gladiators, Graffiti, and Martyrs

Lauren McCormick — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 10:45:21 +0000

Still frame from RTI file of the previously unseen gladiator graffito alongside a modern tracing. Courtesy Louis Autin, Marie-Adeline Le Guennec, and Éloïse Letellier-Taillefer.

Few images capture the Roman world more vividly than the clash of gladiators in the arena. These spectacles drew enormous crowds across the empire and became one of the defining features of Roman popular culture. A small graffito recently discovered in a theater corridor at Pompeii offers a rare glimpse into how ordinary people experienced the spectacle of the games. It also connects to the broader cultural environment that shaped the New Testament, as Paul’s letters and later Christian writings show.

The etching comes from a recent study of graffiti found in a passageway linking two entertainment venues in Pompeii’s theater district. Before the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius buried the city in 79 CE, this corridor was a bustling avenue for spectators moving between performances. Over time, visitors left messages on its walls—declarations of love, jokes, insults, sketches, and prayers to the goddess Venus. In total, researchers documented nearly 300 graffiti, including 79 previously unknown examples. The textual inscriptions appear in Latin, Greek, and even Safaitic script—an Ancient North Arabian script normally found in the deserts of Syria and Jordan—revealing just how interconnected the Roman world was.

The faint gladiator etching provides a rare window into how an ordinary person absorbed and reproduced the experience of watching gladiatorial combat. Although one figure is fragmentary, the scene is surprisingly dynamic—a gladiator twists as if responding to an opponent’s strike. Researchers suggest the artist was recalling a live spectacle, attempting to capture the movement of combat from memory rather than copying an existing image.

Recovering these faint marks required advanced digital techniques. The team used Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI), a method that captures photographs under multiple lighting angles. When combined digitally, these images reveal surface texture and shallow reliefs that are otherwise difficult to detect. This technology allowed unprecedented precision in documenting the corridor’s walls.

FREE ebook: Paul: Jewish Law and Early Christianity. Paul’s dual roles as a Christian missionary and a Pharisee.

Gladiatorial culture was not confined to Rome or Italy. It extended deep into the eastern provinces of the empire—including the regions associated with the Bible.

Under Herod the Great, Roman-style entertainment venues appeared across Judea. Archaeological and textual evidence points to theaters, stadiums, and arenas at sites such as Caesarea Maritima, Jerusalem, Sebaste, Jericho, and Herodium. The historian Flavius Josephus reports that Herod even organized large public games honoring the emperor Augustus. He also notes that many Jews viewed these events as foreign customs linked to pagan worship and imperial ideology, and that the violence of the arena clashed with Jewish ethics. Gladiatorial combat was nevertheless part of the Roman environment in which Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity emerged.

This context helps explain why writers like Paul frequently used arena imagery. In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul describes the apostles as a “spectacle to the world,” language drawn directly from Roman public entertainment. He even speaks metaphorically of “fighting with beasts” at Ephesus—imagery that would have resonated immediately with audiences familiar with arena spectacles.

In the generations after the New Testament, such imagery sometimes became grim reality for Christians. Early Christian traditions describe believers being executed in public arenas by wild animals. The bishop Ignatius of Antioch, writing in the early second century, expected to face death by beasts in the arena at Rome. A century later, The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity records how the Christians Perpetua and Felicity were exposed to animals before being killed in the arena at Carthage in 203 CE.

Although such persecutions were sporadic rather than constant, these accounts show that the arena was a stage not only for entertainment but also for dramatic confrontations with Roman authority. Against this backdrop, the graffito at Pompeii—etched by a spectator remembering the thrill of combat—takes on an additional dimension, reminding us how deeply the culture of spectacle permeated the Roman world in which Christianity took shape.

Lauren K. McCormick is an assistant editor at Biblical Archaeology Review and a specialist in ancient Near Eastern religions, visual culture, and the Bible. She holds degrees in religion from Syracuse University, Duke University, New York University, and Rutgers University, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship on religion and the public conversation at Princeton University.

Become a BAS All-Access Member Now!

Read Biblical Archaeology Review online, explore 50 years of BAR, watch videos, attend talks, and more

All-Access members, read more in the BAS Library

No Guts, No Glory

Not a BAS Library or All-Access Member yet? Join today.

The post Gladiators, Graffiti, and Martyrs appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

Condemned to Mine Copper

Biblical Archaeology Society Staff — Thu, 19 Jul 2018 15:48:18 +0000

Early Christian persecution often calls to mind the martyrs who were tortured, crucified, burned or even killed by wild animals in the gladiatorial arenas of the Roman Empire. But it sometimes took another form, as explained by archaeologists Thomas Levy and Mohammad Najjar in their article “Condemned to the Mines” in the November/December 2011 issue of BAR. Damnatio ad metalla, or condemnation to the mines, meant that the convicted would be forced to mine copper, often in the copper-rich region of the Faynan, Jordan. With the grueling work that it took to mine copper in the oppressive conditions of the Faynan, the laborers were often worked to death, making this form of early Christian persecution tantamount to a death sentence.

Sending condemned prisoners to mine copper in the Faynan in present-day Jordan was a popular form of early Christian persecution in the Roman Empire. It was grueling work, and in the horrible conditions of the Faynan mines, it was essentially a death sentence for all who were sent here. Photo: Thomas E. Levy, UCSD Levantine Archaeology Lab.

People began to mine copper—or at least collect and work it—by the end of the Neolithic period (7500–5700 B.C.E.), and the process of copper smelting arose around 4500–4000 B.C.E. in the Chalcolithic period. Regions in Israel and south of the Dead Sea, such as the Faynan, are home to some of the world’s earliest copper production sites.

Watch the full-length lecture “Journey to the Copper Age – The Chalcolithic Metallurgical Revolution and Its Effects in Israel and the Neighboring Lands” by Thomas E. Levy online for free.

The Faynan district proved to be a productive region to mine copper, as was done at several points by the local rulers throughout ancient history. The Biblical king Solomon may even have exploited the copper here for the kingdom of Israel and sent laborers to mine copper ore and smelt it for use by metalsmiths and for trade.

It is clear that the Romans also took advantage of these natural resources when they gained control of the Faynan. The region became a destination for forced labor comprised of convicted criminals and slaves.

A few different methods were employed to mine copper during this period, including a shaft-and-gallery technique, as well as a room-and-pillar technique. Both required back-breaking work in almost total darkness around the clock, often with the miners struggling to breathe in the terrible air quality.

The pagan Roman emperors weren’t the only ones to condemn Christians to mine copper in the Faynan, however. Even after the Christians became rulers of the Roman Empire, this form of early Christian persecution continued in use to punish condemned heretics and adherents of rival sects.

Read more about early Christian persecution and the ancient process to mine copper in the Faynan (Jordan) in Thomas Levy and Mohammad Najjar’s “Condemned to the Mines,” Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 2011.

Not a BAS Library member yet? Join the BAS Library today.

Interested in the latest archaeological technology? Researchers at the UCSD’s Calit2 laboratory recently released the free BAS eBook Cyber-Archaeology in the Holy Land — The Future of the Past, featuring the latest research on GPS, Light Detection and Ranging Laser Scanning, unmanned aerial drones, 3D artifact scans, CAVE visualization environments and much more.

Thomas E. Levy Presents Cyber-Archaeology in a Holy Land

Noah Wiener — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 15:42:55 +0000

Tom Levy’s Cyber-Archaeology research with the UCSD-Calit2 researchers has been adapted into the comprehensive FREE BAS eBook Cyber-Archaeology in the Holy Land: The Future of the Past. Explore the new 21st-century toolkit—from site to lab to visualization—along with new insights on Biblical Archaeology.

At a recent TEDx conference in Sonoma County, archaeologist and BAR contributor Thomas E. Levy gave an illuminating lecture on technology and its usage in Biblical archaeology. His lucid talk makes the subject matter accessible to all, yet new and illuminating to archaeologists and techies alike.

Levy is Distinguished Professor and holds the Norma Kershaw Chair in the Archaeology of Ancient Israel and Neighboring Lands at the University of California, San Diego. He is a member of the Department of Anthropology and Judaic Studies Program, and leads the Cyber-archaeology research group at the California Center of Telecommunications and Information Technology. He is the co-director of the Khirbat Faynan (Biblical Punon) excavation in Jordan.

Download your FREE copy of the BAS eBook Cyber-Archaeology in the Holy Land: The Future of the Past by Thomas Levy and the UCSD-Calit2 team.

Read the Bible History Daily post “Condemned to Mine Copper: Early Christian persecution at Faynan, Jordan” to learn more about Thomas Levy’s research.

Visit the Digital Archaeology Atlas of the Holy Land.

BAS Library Members Exclusive Content

Read Thomas Levy’s full articles as they appeared in BAR.

Najjar, Mohammad and Levy, Thomas E., “Condemned to the Mines.” Biblical Archaeology Review, Nov/Dec 2011.

Levy, Thomas E., Najjar, Mohammad. “Edom & Copper.” Biblical Archaeology Review, Jul/Aug 2006.

Levy, Thomas E. “From Camels to Computers: A Short History of Archaeological Method.” Biblical Archaeology Review, Jul/Aug 1995

Levy, Thomas E. “How Ancient Man First Utilized the Rivers in the Desert.” Biblical Archaeology Review, Nov/Dec 1990.