A Roman prison, described as a "lawless place," has been identified thanks to a collection of disturbing ancient graffiti, a study reported. The site, located at the archaeological site of Corinth in Greece, appears to have been used as a place of incarceration during the Late Antique Period, according to a paper published in . Corinth was an ancient city-state that became one of the largest and most important Greek settlements in antiquity.
The city was captured and almost completely destroyed by in 146 B.C., remaining largely deserted for more than a century.
It was only in 44 B.C. when Roman general and politician Julius Caesar reestablished the city as a provincial capital that it began to recover.
Corinth underwent a series of renovations during the late 4th-early 5th century, and the structures that served as the prison were among those affected by the works. The structures appear to have been repurposed and renovated at the end of the 4th century, when the site was transformed into a prison, according to the study. The structures were used to incarcerate people for at least a couple more centuries after that, if not more, study lead author Matthew Larsen with the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, told .
Documented evidence of such an incarceration site from antiquity is significant, given the rarity of such finds. "I have been working, along with several colleagues, on the history and archaeology of ancient Mediterranean incarceration for eight years. The archaeologic.