Ancient Romans dropped their bling down the drain, too

Down the drain is where British archaeologists recently discovered 36 artfully engraved semiprecious stones, in an ancient bathhouse at the site of a Roman fort near Hadrian's Wall in Carlisle, England. The colorful intaglios — gems with incised carvings — probably fell out of signet rings worn by wealthy third-century bathers, and ended up trapped in the stone drains.

The delicate intaglios, fashioned from amethyst, jasper and carnelian, range in diameter from 5 millimeters to 16 millimeters — bigger than a pencil eraser, smaller than a dime. Some bear images of Apollo, Mars, Bonus Eventus and other Roman deities symbolizing war or good fortune. Others showcase Ceres, the god of fertility, Sol (the sun) and Mercury (commerce).

How and why these stones were lost is a subject of some debate among classicists. After six years of archaeological detective work that has provided a tantalizing glimpse of Roman Britain, Frank Giecco, technical director of the Carlisle project, believes that he and his team have solved the mystery.

Historically, two kinds of engraved gems were worn mounted on finger rings: intaglios, which have designs cut as a depression into the surface of the gem; and cameos, with designs that project from the background, a raised image in relief.

Statesman Cicero observed that people wore portraits of their favorite philosophers on their rings, a tradition that has not survived on today's QVC Network.

The excavation at the Carlisle Cricket Club began in 2017 and quickly revealed a bathhouse that "was truly colossal in scale," Giecco said.

The bathhouse was built along the river Eden and safely situated behind Hadrian's Wall, the empire's northern border.

Upon entering the bathhouse in the third century, your first stop was the apodyterium, or changing room, where you removed everything but your bath sandals, which were needed to protect your feet from the heated floors. Prosperous patrons had slaves to guard their belongings; poorer bathers paid the attendants. Some may have held on to their baubles in the pools to prevent the valuables from being stolen.

If a thief made off with your jewelry, you might call on the gods for justice, by means of a curse tablet: a priest would scrawl a message, sometimes backward or in code, on a slab of lead or other metal, then cast it into the mineral waters. In 1979 and 1980, a large haul of curse tablets was recovered from the hot springs of Aquae Sulis — now Bath, England — many of them listing the wrongdoing, the alleged wrongdoers and a suggested punishment. "May he who carried off Vilbia from me be as liquid as the water," one curse reads.

The Carlisle gems were found along with more than 700 items, including 105 glass beads, pottery, weapons, coins, clay figures, animal bones, tiles stamped with the imperial mark and about 100 hairpins.

The presence of hairpins suggest that the gems' owners were probably female, Giecco said. And dips into bathhouse water may have loosened jewelry adhesives, such as birch bark resin, and caused metal settings to expand and contract.