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A Roman mosaic depicting modern-appearing flip-flops were discovered during recent excavations in Sicily. This was at the site where the “girls in bikinis” was previously discovered (pictured below). Here is the official press release on the find: At the Villa Romana del Casale in Piazza Armerina, new and extraordinary finds have been unearthed, further enriching the site's already vast archaeological heritage. Recent excavations uncovered two sandals, depicted in mosaic, reminiscent of modern flip-flops. These are not simple decorations, but a refined work created by a 4th-century AD mosaic artisan, part of a larger mosaic scheme that decorated the southern thermal baths of the Villa. Alongside this unique depiction, archaeologists also uncovered a mosaic inscription and three columns with their capitals [topmost part of column]. These discoveries further confirm the Villa's exceptional artistic and architectural quality, as well as the importance of the ongoing excavations for the historical and cultural reconstruction of the site. https://greekreporter.com/2025/08/05/roman-flip-flops-mosaic-sicily/ https://parchiarcheologici.regione.sicilia.it/blog/morgantina-e-villa-romana-del-casale-nuove-scoperte-mosaiche-e-successo-per-la-summer-school-archlabs/

I ran a similar query past grok.com which is the other new generation ai release (from x vs google). It gave very similar results, with just the order flipped a bit! That seems to indicate they both found pre-existing summaries and stopped at a shallow depth rather than deeper primary stuff. I had heard that with this latest ai generation you had to refine/engineer the queries less, but apparently still do. Chatgpt seems to condescend as if talking to a 15 year old simpleton. Grok talks like to a 20 something peer. Just doing a conventional search brings up much for Mussolini following the Roman prop. Not much for Goebbels, maybe due to his counterintuitive proclivity. Oddly both characters were far left before becoming far right, maybe using similar practices: P.S. I found I can only access older grok3 rather than 4.

Beware of unabashedly biased "AI" editorialized summaries of info entered in the internet. Note that in the treatment above, none of the things attributed to the Romans were original to them, the Sumerians having beat them to the punch by 4000 yrs (and who knows where they got them from)......and later usage of those concepts is by no means limited to Fascists. All govts mint coins honoring important people, build monuments and large public buildings, etc etc. All kings have traditionally derived legitimacy by invoking the support of the devine.