Three years ago archaeologists surveying Piazza Venezia in the center of Rome for a much-needed third subway line found the remains of an athenaeum built by the emperor Hadrian in the second century A.D. The brick manufacturers’ stamps confirmed that the arts center was built in 123 A.D., 12 years earlier than first suggested based on ancient documentary sources.
It had three rectangular rooms in which poets, philosophers, authors and rhetoricians recited their work and taught lessons to audiences of up to 900 people. Characteristic of Hadrian’s particular interests in architecture, it had an unusual arched roof. Hadrian loved him some domed roofs. According to Cassius Dio (Roman History, Book 69, Chapter 4), Hadrian had Trajan’s favorite architect Apollodorus of Damascus exiled and executed because he had once insulted Hadrian’s penchant for domes.
Once when Trajan was consulting him on some point about the buildings he had said to Hadrian, who had interrupted with some remark: “Be off, and draw your gourds. You don’t understand any of these matters.”
The gourd in question was apparently the dome of the Serapeum at Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli which Hadrian was in the process of designing at the time.
Apollodorus’ disdain notwithstanding, Hadrian combined his love of architecture with his love of art and Hellenophilic tendencies to create the athenaeum which he had built right next to the Apollodorus-designed Forum of Trajan. Hadrian also wrote poetry in both Latin and Greek, so the auditorium was a perfect storm of the emperor’s interests. Archaeological evidence indicates the space was used as an auditorium through the 5th century A.D., long after Hadrian’s death and well into the Christian period. Its marble began to be quarried around the sixth century. At the same time, metal ingots and the remains of furnaces found from the 6th and 7th centuries suggest it may have been used a mint in the Byzantine era for the production of bronze coins. It was also apparently used as a necropolis in the late 7th century, and following the trend of an increasingly depopulated, ruralized Rome, as a livestock barn in the 8th.
In the 9th century the roof collapsed during an earthquake in 848 A.D. After that, new structures were built on top of it, including a hospital in the 16th century. A microcosm of millennia of Roman life, t’s a major find, the most important in 70 years, some archaeologists believe.
So now that the excavation is complete, what about the Metro line? The problem isn’t the subway tunnel itself which will be 80 feet underground to avoid the layers and layers of Roman history. It’s the subway stop, which of course has to come up to modern ground level, causing all the headaches. The final decision has yet to be made, but transit authorities are hoping to work with archaeologists to build the exit along an ancient sewer line. The remains of the athenaeum will be right next to the stop, protected but still visible by tourists and riders.
The Dresden Codex was named in the tradition of all other codices: not for its point of origin, but for its final resting place. It lives in the Saxon State Library in Dresden, Germany, under glass and above mirrors, allowing for the viewing of both sides of the text.
It's the most complete of the three authenticated codices, and dates to pre-Columbian Mexico, 11th or 12th century Chichen Itza in the Yucatan, and is thought to be a copy of a much older work from two or three hundred years before. Though doomsday enthusiasts would love to believe it holds the secrets of the coming apocalypse, in reality it merely paints of picture of meticulous early astronomers, holding the astronomical charts of the Moon and Venus, including precise calculations of lunar eclipse. These charts would have served as an almanac and calendar for ritual celebrations.
It is speculated that this codex was taken from Chichen Itza by Hernando Cortes in 1519 and presented as a gift to King Charles I of Spain, who financed Cortes’ expeditions and appointed him governor of the Mexican territories. The over 200-year gap between this theorized trip across the ocean and 1739, when the codex was purchased from a private collection in Vienna by Johann Christian Götze, the director of Royal Library of Dresden (now the Saxon State Library), is completely undocumented.
After coming to live in Dresden, it stayed out of the public eye for another one hundred years before being displayed between two plates of glass. During the WWII firebombing of Dresden in 1945, the codex was badly water damaged, and after careful restoration put back under glass in the wrong order. This mistake was never fixed because parts of the Amatl paper (flattened fig bark) and pigment adhered to the glass, assuring its destruction if disturbed again.
The year 2011 was one of fascinating discoveries, some of which made international news. The year ends with something of a cliffhanger, as our #1 story has not yet come to a conclusion. Meanwhile, one of the top stories of 2011 did come to a happy ending with the recovery of a stolen manuscript. One also sees how the research being carried out by medievalists can shed some light on some of the most important issues happening today.
In September, archaeologists made the ‘mind-blowing’ discovery of the skeletal remains of a male body underneath a parking lot in Leicester. They believe that the remains might belong to King Richard III, who ruled England from 1483 to 1485. He was killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field on August 22nd, and he was buried somewhere inside the Greyfriars Church in Leicester. The church itself was demolished in later years, and for centuries it was believed that resting place of Richard III was a mystery. In August of this year the University of Leicester and Leicester City Council announced that they believed that they had figured out where the Greyfriars Church once stood, and a dig began in parking lot in the city. After several days of digging, two bodies were found, a male and a female, and several intriguing pieces of evidence point suggest the male could be the long-lost English king. DNA and other testing is currently being carried out, and an announcement is expected in early in the new year. If the remains are indeed of Richard III, it will mark one of the most important medieval archaeological finds of all time. It will also lead to debate on where Richard III should be reburied – Leicester, London, or York?
Bras are not usually associated with the Middle Ages, but a discovery in an Austria maybe changing all that. During renovations at Lengberg Castle workers discovered a portion of a room that had been sealed off, and inside were thousands of fragments of medieval textiles which had luckily been preserved. The most exciting part of the discovery was finding several examples of bras, along with an underwear that also looks remarkably like a string bikini. Radiocarbon testing has confirmed that this clothing comes from the 15th century, which has given historians new insights into medieval fashion.
The British Library announced in April that it had successfully acquired the St Cuthbert Gospel, a well-preserved seventh-century manuscript that is the oldest European book to survive fully intact and therefore one of the world’s most important books.
The civil war in Syria grew worse throughout 2012, as various rebel groups attempted to overthrow the authoritarian government of Bashar al-Assad. The fighting has endangered many of the ancient and medieval treasures of the country, and has partially destroyed the historic markets of Aleppo. Other important sites, such as the Citadel in Aleppo and Crac des Chevaliers have also been damaged. Observers are worried that the archaeological heritage of Syria could also be stolen or destroyed as the country descends into lawlessness.
In July Spanish police were able to recover one of the country’s most important medieval manuscripts, the Codex Calixtinus. The manuscript had been stolen from the Cathedral at Santiago de Compostela a year earlier, and their was a wide range of speculation on who stole the book, which experts had valued at over 10 million euros. Manuel Fernandez Castiñeiras, a former caretaker at the Cathedral, was arrested, along with his wife and son, after he confessed to stealing the manuscript.
Archaeologists working on a mass burial near London had long believed that many of the bodies found there belonged to victims of the Black Death. However, when radiocarbon dating revealed that the hundreds of people buried in mass pits came from the 13th century, researchers had to look for a new cause. The writings of English chronicler Matthew Paris provides an important clue to what may have happened.
“It’s clear from my analysis of the Bayeux Tapestry that the style of work is consistent throughout. Some people argue that the style of some figures are so different they must have been embroidered by different people. But my view is it’s not the embroidery which is different – but the way the characters were drawn.”
A recent article on sexuality and childbirth in early medieval Ireland reveals some surprising attitudes towards abortion held among the Christians during this period, and that hagiographical texts recount four Irish saints performing abortions.
Several news items this year have detailed how medieval treasures were setting record prices at auctions, including a sale in November where a rare medieval sword, which had been looted by a Crusader king during an attack on Egypt, was auctioned off for £163,250.
The crisis over Greek financial debt has often made headlines throughout 2012. A recent article published in the Journal of Medieval History shows that Greek debt was a problem back in the thirteenth-century, and led to the sacking of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade.
2 Bards, 35 Commoners, 16 Merchants, 8 Military Elite, 12 Nobles, 10 NPC Adventurers, 4 NPC VIPs, 4 Priests, 9 Shady Characters, 8 Town Guards, 16 Other
Today's Special
Locale (Swamp)
Roast pheasant in oyster sauce, High spirits
Atmosphere (Boring)
The food is bland and uninspired, as is the drink. No one seems capable of cracking a smile or talking to one another.
Topics of Conversation (4)
• Tankards click together in memory of a friend long passed away. Tales and memories are shared.
• Two patrons quietly negotiate a small business deal involving the sale of various local commodities.
• Half-drunk patrons grumble about their tithes and taxes.
• A server chuckles as a customer whispers into her ear—something about a "moonlight stroll."
Randon Events (3)
• A wonderful flowery smell wafts past you as someone moves by.
• There’s a screech as a server accidentally steps on the tail of a cat that has wandered into the area. The cat darts under tables and out of view.
• After dropping her fork, a customer curses as she knocks over her drink while trying to pick it up.
In his 1928 novel Nadja, Andre Breton, leader of the French surrealist movement, describes the experience of finding an object in a fleamarket as capable of
“admitting ( him ) to an almost forbidden world of sudden parallels, petrifying coincidences, and reflexes particular to each individuals of harmonies struck as though on the piano, flashes of lights that would make you see, really see.”
Breton illustrated the chapter in his book with surrealist photographer Jacques-André Boiffard's picture of the Saint Ouen Fleamarket, which in turn became a symbol of surrealist ideology: a place full of possibilities for chance encounters.
The story of Saint Ouen Fleamarket started in the 1870s when ragpickers, evicted from the center of Paris for insalubrity - in other words for being unwholesome and unhealthy - the ragpickers installed their bazar in Saint Ouen, situated in the capitals northern periphery.
The first draft of the market was truly anarchic. Items, usually founds in upscale Parisian garbage, were piled directly on the dirt or towered in stacks alongside the road. To rectify this chaos , Saint Ouen's municipality reorganized the settlement in several markets along Rue des Rosiers, providing the bric a brac dealers with water and electricity and the possibility to rent a wooden stand to display their goods.
In 1908 , with the opening of a metro station, Saint Ouen flea market's becomes a highly popular attraction, drawing in hundreds of Parisians each week, all thrilled by the eccentric displays and the opportunity for a good deal. With a steady flow of patrons to the fleamarkets “Guinguettes” - a type of small bar and restaurant where one could drink cheaply - and other entertainment venues began appearing. Music, above all Manouche Jazz, became a fundamental part of the faubourg or "suburban" atmosphere.
Ageless venues like La Chope des Puces hosted tremendous parties where Django Reinhardt, his Hot Club de France quintet, and generations of gypsies musicians have come to get wild and swing the place to the rafters.
Nowadays the flea market has changed, having grown more touristy, with entire sections selling nothing but T-shirts or new shoes. But don't be discouraged if you see only hippy jewelry and street-wear, it simply means you are in the wrong market.
The best “Marchés” are to be founds in a labyrinthian set of streets all merging to Rue des Rosiers. The most ancient, Marchés Vernsaison, remains the closest to the old time antique hodgepodge that the flea market was a hundred years ago. Named after its founder Jules Romain Vernaison, this market and its tortuous alleys presents an unlimited variety of randomly wonderfully odd things: japanese woodcuts, dolls, hybrid taxidermy, china, ancient devices…the only rule being the perennial "early bird catch the worm" at least if you want to find treasures for reasonable price.
Marché Paul Bert possess a less anarchic layout and installations are more fastuous and artful. Some dealers's displays, like Pierre Bazalgues's, embrace a refined curiosity cabinet esthetic, provoking astonishment and pure visual pleasure. Rue Paul Bert is itself full of surprise: after a moment of tropical disorientation at the nearby Colonial Concept at No. 8 - a menagerie of taxidermy, fossils, and other natural wonders - you'll find a thousand and one treasures at every price on the tables of the street sealers, from 60's french records to "Ex Ossibus" (from the bones) relics.
Visiting St Ouen Fleamarket on a spring Sunday, sitting at the terrace of a Manouche Jazz guinguette to sip a expresso, is for a lot of parisian people, a highly esteemed sunday ritual. Saint Ouen's dreamlike, surrealist beauty created through an accumulation of mysteries and amazements, serves as an outdoor museum that gathers both curious object and curious people. Travel Notes: It is useful to get a map of the area. Try to be very discrete with your cellphone, wallet, and money in general: the way between the metro and the actual antique market is paved with thieves and warm gambling game encouragements.
Above is a map of the various flea markets and below is a list of five of our favorite stops when visiting "Les Puces" or The Fleas as they are commenly called. No. 1: François Richard's Scientific Devices and Odd Machinery - Marche Vernaison, Rue des Rosiers, Allee 3, Stand 107
A charming flea market shop dedicated to scientific equipment and retrofuturistic apparati in general, it is something of a holy temple for obsolete modernity and a wonderful trip down a clanking, humming, hissing and wondrous memory lane. If you have questions about what anything is be sure to ask François.
Collection of antique taxidermy and natural specimens, complete with a polar bear in the piano room, alligators on type-writers, and a general assortment of natures wonders (all antique) beautifully arranged.
No. 3: Alain Baroux 's Antique Curiosity Cabinet - 99 Rue des Rosiers , Stand 90 - Allee 5, Saint-Ouen
An antique curios dealer and hybrid taxidermist, Monsieur Baroux sells naturalia, exotica and others traditional curiosity cabinet items but his real specialty is his own creations transforming dusty mounts into fantastic creatures that will make the standard two-headed duckings and jackalopes pale in comparison. No. 4: Pierre Bazalgues Macabre Antique Stand - rue des Rosiers, Stand 221 - Allee 4, Saint-Ouen
Skeletons, medical artifacts, and other obscure and precious treasures all displayed in a wooden pharmacists cabinet. A true "Memento Mori" specialist, Pierre Bazalgues eye for the morbid brings together animals skeletons, plaster ecorches and human skulls into breathtaking dispays. No. 5: La Chope des Puces: Temple of Gypsy Jazz - 122 rue des Rosiers, Saint-Ouen
After walking through the complex of 2,500 to 3,000 flea market stalls, winding your way from Colonial taxidermy, through medical specimens, among mysterious science antiques, and between the skulls and skeletons, one can grow quite exhausted. There is no better place to rest ones feet and drink a beer than La Chope des Puces an iconic and eccentric bar home to the origins of "Manouche" Jazz music.
If you are lucky you may catch a Gypsy Jazz show in progress!
The remains of what is believed to be a 2,000-year-old Roman settlement have been uncovered at the construction site of a new bypass.
Artefacts discovered in Kingskerswell include fragments of pots thought to be imported from southern Europe. Trenches used for defence were also found.
Devon county archaeologist Bill Horner said it was an "exciting find".
The artefacts will eventually go on show at Exeter's Royal Albert Memorial Museum. Locals 'Romanised'
Demolition work began in October to clear the route ready for the road linking Torbay and Newton Abbot.
The quantity and the quality of the finds suggested the people who lived there would have been part of the local ruling elite who were becoming "Romanised", Mr Horner said.
Remains of medieval buildings were also found
He said: "The Romans conquered the South West and, for much of the later 1st Century AD, the area was a military zone.
"After the army moved north to conquer the rest of the population, the native elite were becoming more Romanised, and assimilating into the Roman Empire and economy."
As well as the Roman finds, archaeologists also turned up evidence of 800-year-old medieval buildings.
The discoveries are not expected to delay the construction of the £110m, 5.5km (3.4 mile) bypass, construction managers said.
Devon County Council hopes the road will be completed by December 2015
In the same field in Hammerwich where three years ago metal detectorist Terry Herbert found the massive 3,900-piece collection of Anglo-Saxon gem-studded gold and silver known as the Staffordshire Hoard, archaeologists have now found another 90 pieces of gold and silver. Archaeologists excavated the find site right after the initial discovery in 2009 and thought they had recovered everything there was to find. The dig was closed.
This November the field was plowed for the first time since the discovery. On November 19th, a team of archaeologists aided by metal detectorists with experience in scanning delicate archaeological sites and a phalanx of volunteers from the Hammerwich and the Stoke-on-Trent Museum Archaeology Society examined the entire 13.69-acre field. First the metal detectors surveyed the field, then the archaeologists and volunteers walked all 13.69 acres of it looking for anything the machines might have missed. Wherever artifacts were discovered, archaeologists excavated the sites. The dig ended on December 1st.
“We think these items were buried at a deeper level which is why we didn’t find them first time around,” said county council archaeologist Steve Dean.
“We always wanted to come back and look for other items – pottery, other metalwork – so we always had the intention of coming back once the field had been ploughed.”
“We will be keeping an eye on the field and we would, with the farmer’s permission, like to go back in a couple of years when he ploughs again to see if it turns up anything else,” he added.
Most of the 90 pieces they discovered are small pieces, fragments that weigh less than a gram. Some are probably mounts from Anglo-Saxon weapons similar to the ones in the Staffordshire hoard. There are two mounts of particular interest: one shaped like an eagle and another shaped like a cross. The largest piece looks like it may be a cheek guard from a helmet. One very much like it was discovered in the original hoard, so this might just be its missing companion. The artifacts are still in the process of being cleaned and X-rayed. Researchers can’t definitely state at this point if these newly discovered objects were part of the original Staffordshire hoard, nor has their age been determined. We won’t have long to wait before an official determination. The South Staffordshire Coroner Andrew Haigh will hold an inquest on January 4th to decide if the gold and silver pieces are part of the same hoard discovered three years ago and whether they should be declared treasure.
If he rules that the artifacts are treasure (which is basically a given) and that they are part of the Staffordshire Hoard, it will be a new windfall for the original finder and the landowner, Fred Johnson. The original find was valued at £3.3 million ($5.5 million) and, as per the terms of the Treasure Act, two local museums — the Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery and the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery — raised the princely sum to secure the hoard. The money was then split, with half going to the finder Terry Herbert, who was on disability at the time, and half to Fred Johnson. Even though Herbert was not involved in this follow-up dig, if the gold and silver are ruled to be part of the hoard he found three years ago, he is still the finder as far as the law is concerned.
Because mo’ money mo’ problems, hitting the jackpot caused a rift between Herbert and Johnson which has yet to be mended. They were friends before the discovery. They are no longer. The details are murky, but Herbert says Johnson wanted to keep all the money for himself, which is weird because that’s just not how the Treasure Act works. The two men haven’t spoken in years. Depending on the coroner’s ruling, they might have a few hundred thousand pounds more to fight over.
Monday, December 17, 2012Jean Noël TriboloNo comments
Cranes, excavators, teams of workmen in hard-hats and foremen shouting into their mobile phones are a ubiquitous feature of today's Turkey, a country where, in spite of a global economic slowdown, new buildings continue to be erected at a staggering rate. Take a trip to Laodicea, however, and you'll see a “building site” with a twist. For here a long abandoned Greek-Roman city is being resurrected wholesale from its ruins by … construction cranes and teams of workmen in hard-hats!
Sprawling across a low hill between the prosperous textile town of Denizli and the iconic travertine formations of Pamukkale in western Turkey, ancient Laodicea is generally overlooked by the vast majority of visitors, who tend to be drawn instead to Pamukkale and its associated site of Hierapolis, or the wonderful remains at Aphrodisias, not too much further away. Only bible groups, attracted to Laodicea because it is one of the Seven Churches mentioned in the New Testament's Revelation of John, buck the trend.
That Laodicea is relatively little visited is hardly surprising given its press. The current edition of Lonely Planet Turkey says “there's not much of interest left,” the Rough Guide to Turkey doesn't even mention the site. A late 1980s version of the more specialist, archaeology and history-orientated Blue Guide writes of Laodicea, “Much of its worked stone has been removed for building purposes and, unfortunately, little is being done to preserve its remaining structures from further damage.”
Columns, capitals and freshly cut marble
The author of the latter guide particularly would be gobsmacked at the momentous changes under way at Laodicea in late 2012. Everywhere you look across the broad, uneven hilltop site are recently re-erected columns, many of which were once an integral part of the colonnades lining the city's grid-plan streets. The carefully grooved columns are surmounted in many cases by flamboyantly carved Corinthian-style capitals, hefty flared blocks decorated with acanthus leaves. Of course you can see re-erected columns at many similar sites across western Turkey, but visit Laodicea today and you can actually see how the reconstruction work is done, with cranes lifting the marble column drums up to the workers on a scaffolded section of colonnade, and blue-hatted workers maneuvering them into position.
Inevitably, where a column drum has been lost to the vicissitudes of time, re-erecting the complete column necessitates the insertion of a new one. Add to this the fact that many of the original parts have been cleaned up to blend in with the new, and the overall effect of the gleaming white marble reconstructions can be rather off-putting, for most of us are both used to -- and rather like -- seeing our ancient remains romantically tarnished by the weather and crusted with lichen. But thinking about it, isn't this how the city would have looked like when it was first being built back in the mid-third century B.C. by the Seleucid ruler King Antiochus II for his wife, Laodicea, or rebuilt in even grander fashion following one of the many quakes that devastated the region in the Roman and Byzantine periods, with freshly cut and polished marble dazzling ancient workmen and idle onlookers alike?
A new Ephesus?
To reconstruct ancient buildings or not is, of course, an argument that has long divided archaeologists and historians. Purists argue that ancient sites should be excavated and records kept of what is found but that they should be otherwise left as they are -- if for no other reason than that those involved in the reconstruction might get it wrong. Liberals counter that reconstruction enables both experts and ordinary people alike to better appreciate a building or site, and fosters an interest in the past among the general public that can only be of benefit to the preservation of the past. Fortunately the liberals appear to have won the day at Laodicea, where the excavation and reconstruction work is being carried out under the aegis of Denizli's Pamukkale University.
Newspaper talk of a “second Ephesus” may be a little premature, but there is no doubt that this is going to a major site on western Turkey's tourism circuit -- especially given its proximity to Pamukkale and its New Testament associations. For despite the numerous earthquakes that leveled the city from time to time, it nonetheless prospered and grew to be, at its height in the second and third centuries A.D., a major settlement covering some five square kilometers. Its wealth derived from its location controlling a major trade route between the Aegean and upland Anatolia, the production and export of fine quality wool, and because of the presence nearby of an important shrine to the moon god Men and its associated healing center, which drew in many pilgrims. The city retained its importance until the early sixth century, when it was abandoned after a particularly severe earthquake.
Exploring the site
But apart from the colonnades already mentioned, what is there left to see of this once important city? Once you've negotiated the entry point (admission TL 10, 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. daily except Monday) the most obvious place to start, just beyond the parking lot and café-cum-souvenir shop, is the southeast gate, also known as the East Byzantine Gate. Using masonry from previous Roman buildings, the gate was part of a defensive fortification thrown up around the city in the late fourth century A.D., a sign that the region was less secure than it had been during the preceding Roman period. The gate opens up onto the city's main thoroughfare, near one kilometer-long and impressively broad Syria Street, its large marble paving flags still in remarkably good condition. Lined on either side by imposing columns, it's every bit as impressive as any Roman street surviving in Turkey bar, perhaps, Curetes Street at Ephesus.
Probably the most intriguing remains are those rather prosaically known today as Temple A, on the north side of Syria Street. Some 19 columns of this temple and its sanctuary area have been re-erected, giving some idea of the vast scale of this place of worship. Enter the well-preserved doorway leading to the main body of the temple, which would have contained a statue of a deity in ancient times, and you find yourself, rather alarmingly until you get used to it, walking on tempered glass set in a steel canopy covering the arched vault below, still littered with finely carved marble statuary.
Further along Syria Street are the remains of the marketplace or agora, right at the heart of the settlement and the focal point of any Greek-Roman town. Just south of it are the so-called Central Baths, the typically monumental structure comprising the changing, warm, hot, super-hot and cold-plunge rooms of a typical Roman bath, very much the model for the later Turkish hamam. The holes where the metal pegs used to fix the marble cladding to the interior can still be seen and, in one spot on the east wall, a fragment of the marble itself is still in place, clinging to the original plaster. Marble jigsaw puzzles
Over to the northwest, heading towards the westernmost of Laodicea's two theaters, are neatly piled and labeled stacks, some of marble fragments, others of brick, tile and sections of terracotta water pipe. Recovered from the site by the excavators, these oversized jigsaw puzzle pieces will be painfully pieced back together in whichever building they came from -- or stored in a museum depot somewhere until their fate is decided. Close by, when I visited a couple of weeks ago, local workmen stood in the bottom of deep trenches cut into the accumulated debris of a couple of millennia or so, uncovering a jumble of marble column drums and other architectural pieces from long-tumbled buildings. Above them a massive crane was poised, ready to hoist the remains up and away, its driver listening to shouted instructions from a young, bearded archaeologist, while a tractor and trailer was loaded with earth from the dig.
It was rather a different scene to the one recorded by Society of Dilettante member Richard Chandler, who visited Laodicea in 1764 to record its antiquities. Although he reports seeing many remains, they were either “in a confused heap” or else covered with “risen soil.” The reconstruction of the ancient city and subsequent hordes of tourists envisaged by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Denizli's mayor were then unimaginable. Chandler and his party camped on the ruins of the desolate city and he wrote: “All was silence and solitude. Several strings of camels passed eastwards over the hill; but a fox, which we first discovered by his ears peeping over a brow, was the only inhabitant of Laodicea.”
A sight well-worth seeing
There is much else to discover in this sprawling site, from the massive outline of a 25,000-seater stadium to several basilica churches, and it would be easy enough to spend a whole day here. Although the sprawl of Denizli is encroaching upon the environs of Laodicea in the form of skeletal electricity pylons and the like, it remains a beautiful spot, raised up above the valley floor, with grand views across to the mountains on either side. The great white smudge on the hillside to the northwest is the travertine terraces of Pamukkale, behind which lie the remnants of Laodicea's northern neighbor, the spa-city of Hierapolis.
When the excavation and reconstruction work is completed -- which won't be for many years judging by the amount of architectural material still jumbled about the place -- Laodicea may just give Ephesus, another of the Seven Churches mentioned in Revelations, a run for its money in tourism terms. For the moment it is quiet and uncrowded. This sense of solitude, combined with the chance to see an ancient city resurrected, piece by piece, makes Laodicea a “building site” worth seeing rather than avoiding.
On its discovery in 2008, it was hailed as one of the most significant Roman finds in decades. Digging down between the railway line and mechanics' workshops where the Tiber winds its way north out of Rome, archeologists found the remains of a 45ft high structure fronted by four columns. This was what was left of the luxurious tomb of Marcus Nonius Macrinus, the swaggering Roman general whose ceaseless campaigning in the 2nd century helped inspire Russell Crowe's film Gladiator.
But now cuts mean the tomb may be buried all over again, according to Rome's extremely unhappy state superintendent forarchaeology. "I fear we are going to take into serious consideration the idea of protecting these sensational finds by re-covering the entire site with earth," said Mariarosaria Barbera.
Today, Macrinus's last resting place – in an industrial wasteland in the suburbs of Rome – appears forgotten. Delicately carved white capitals which were miraculously preserved for 1,800 years under thick clay now sit, discoloured by air pollution, in pools of rainwater, while cracks caused by winter ice have appeared in the stonework.
With funding for maintenance of Italy's archeological sites slashed by 20% since 2010 thanks to austerity cuts, the €2m-€3m (£1.6m-£2.4m) needed to preserve the tomb will not be available unless a sponsor is found soon, according to Barbera.
Covering up precious discoveries to protect them is getting more common in Italy as funding shrinks, she added. "Until now it has usually happened when remains are not that significant or monumental. In this case they clearly are."
A trusted friend of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, Macrinus won his spurs fighting Germanic tribes, just like Crowe's character, which was enough for the site to be known as "the Gladiator tomb". Beyond that the similarities end, since Macrinus did not fall out with the emperor's son nor become a gladiator but died a rich man, honoured by his massive mausoleum.
"The tomb was very grand, with marble roof tiles, not terracotta, and was probably inspired by what he saw in Turkey," said Daniela Rossi, the archaeologist who led the dig and has written a book about the finds.
A panel carved with Latin script spelling out Macrinus's military career has been dug up, revealing for the first time that he also travelled to Spain.
The discovery also raises new questions about the importance of the Via Flaminia, the Roman consular road running alongside the mausoleum which experts believe was flanked by tombs and rivalled the better known Appian Way.
Exposed by the dig, a stretch of the perfectly preserved, stone-flagged road dating from Rome's republican era abruptly disappears under a suburban railway line at one end of the site and beneath an abandoned graffiti-sprayed house on the other.
"This is an extraordinary site, it blows you away," said Darius Arya, an American archaeologist who has worked at the tomb and is campaigning to keep the bulldozers at bay. "Burying these remains is a disaster – you wonder what is the point of archaeology."
Maria Grazia Vernuccio, a spokeswoman for the heritage group Italia Nostra, said funding cuts were leaving a number of Italian sites at risk of crumbling, from Pompeii to the sprawling city of Ostia Antica near Rome, to Villa Jovis, the Emperor Tiberius's palace on the island of Capri, and Aquileia, the Roman city near Venice.
"Over 40% of Italy's archaeological sites are now closed due to lack of funds," she said. "Inspectors often cannot even get to the more remote sites in their cars because the ministry won't give them petrol and there is less money for guards to keep looters out."
Protected by a rusty padlocked gate, Macrinus's tomb was targeted by thieves after it was first excavated in 2008. "Luckily the piece of marble they selected was too heavy and they dumped it," said Rossi.
Carlo Brecciaroli, the contractor hired to help dig up the tomb and who may now be charged with burying it, warned that work could start any day if temperatures fall and the risk of ice damage increases.
"There are more mausoleums waiting to be revealed along this stretch of the Via Flaminia," said Rossi. "It's a gold mine we may never get to see."
Part of the extensive network of tunnels underneath the Baths of Caracalla will open to the public starting December 21st for the first time since their rediscovery in the late 19th century.
Construction on the 11-hectare thermal bath complex probably began under the Emperor Septimus Severus, but it opened in 216 A.D. during the reign of the Emperor Caracalla, hence the name. The baths were free for public use and could accommodate up to 5000 visitors a day. There were open-air gyms (palaestrae), a dry heat sauna and massage room (laconicum), a hot room (caldarium), a warm room (tepidarium), a cold room (frigidarium) and an outdoor Olympic-sized pool for swimming (natatio) that was 164 feet long and just three feet deep.
The swimming pool had no roof and was heated by radiant panels, bronze mirrors angled above to the pool to reflect the sun onto it. The inside rooms and their pools were heated by a hypocaust, an underfloor heating system that channeled hot air from coal and wood-burning furnaces. The closer to the furnace the hotter the room. The water was supplied by a branch of the Aqua Marcia aqueduct called the Aqua Antoniniana built by Caracalla specifically for this purpose. The aqueduct ended in a giant cistern two stories high with 64 vaulted chambers where the water was collected. A series of underground channels carried it from the reservoirs through the hypocaust for heating.
The scale of these baths was so massive the tunnels which ensured its proper operation had to be as well. There are two miles of tunnels along three levels. Each tunnel is 20 feet high and 20 feet wide, wide enough for two ox carts to pass through side by side. Driven by armies of slaves, the carts would transport tons of wood a day to stoke the 50 furnaces. The baths weren’t just for bathing, though. The complex also featured a public library with books in Latin and Greek, all kinds of shops and even conference rooms. The gardens were richly landscaped with plants, water features and sculptures. In fact, the Farnese Pope Paul III ordered the baths be excavated in 1545 with the hope that he could score some quality sculptures for the family collection. His dreams came true and then some. Among the treasures found Farnese Hercules and the Farnese Bull, both now in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples along with the rest of the Farnese sculpture gallery.
Even the tunnels had spaces dedicated to non-bath purposes. The largest Mithraeum in the world was built there. The mystery rites of Mithras were always held in natural caves or in dark underground spaces that resembled caves, and the Baths of Caracalla had room galore along those lines.
The baths remained in use until 537 A.D. when the city was besieged by the Ostrogoths under Witiges who cut off the aqueducts supplying Rome with its water. Since the baths were located at the base of the Aventine close to the southern city walls some distance from the historic center, the baths were left to their own devices during the post-imperial decline of Rome. They decayed into ruin but at least nothing was built over them. Over time people forgot about the complex system of tunnels that had once kept the water running hot; the excavations of the 1500s didn’t go down that far.
The palestrae with their elaborate mosaic floors were rediscovered the first half of the 19th century, and the rest of the complex was revealed over the course of multiple excavations throughout the rest of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th. The tunnels were not as glamorous as the topside finds, however, so even as the baths became a major tourist attraction, the guts of the complex remained off limits to visitors.
Mussolini attempted to strengthen them in the 1930s as part of his plan to use the ruins as a stage for operas. The first summer season opera, Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, debuted August 1st, 1937, on a stage 72 feet wide, the largest stage in the world at that time, built in the remains of the caldarium. The Rome Opera still puts on a summer season at the Baths of Caracalla to this day, although there was a break between 1940 and 1944 due to war and between 1994 and 2000 due to concerns that the productions were harming the structures. Now the operas are no longer held in the caldarium but rather on the grounds with the majestic remains as a backdrop. Over the past year, a restoration program has finally paid some overdue attention to the tunnels. The program started inauspiciously with the installation of skylights in the roofs of the tunnels. This turned out to be a bad idea. As soon as the formerly sealed walls were exposed to sunlight and airflow, algae began to make a home for themselves. Within a few months the skylights were closed, the walls cleaned and an electric lighting system installed so tourists can see.
The Mithraeum opened to visitors last month and will remain open until January. There’s little of the decoration left — a partial fresco, the black and white mosaic floor, a piece of a marble altar — but its sheer size is remarkable. The tunnels where restoration is complete will remain open indefinitely. Restoration continues for the rest of the tunnels. The full restoration project is expected to take another two years.
They may not look like much to the untrained eye, but these ancient Roman vine grape seeds, believed to back to the 1st century A.D., could provide “a real breakthrough” in the understanding of the history of Chianti vineyards in the area, de Grummond says.
This time around it's not the usual shards of pottery and vessels, remnants of building foundations or other ancient artifactsunearthed in past years, but rather a treasure that's far more earthy: grape seeds.Actually, Nancy Thomson de Grummond has discovered some 150 waterlogged grape seeds that have some experts in vineyard-grape DNA sequencing very excited.
The tiny grape seeds, unearthed during a dig this past summer in Cetamura del Chianti, were discovered in a well and are probably from about the 1st century A.D., roughly about the time the Romans inhabited what is now Italy's Chianti region. The seeds could provide "a real breakthrough" in the understanding of the history of Chianti vineyards in the area, de Grummond said.
"We don't know a lot about what grapes were grown at that time in the Chianti region," she said. "Studying the grape seeds is important to understanding the evolution of the landscape in Chianti. There's been lots of research in other vineyards but nothing in Chianti."
Clockwise from top left, FSU undergraduates Nat Coombes, Tyler Haynes and Ellie Margedant pose with Professor Nancy Thomson de Grummond, center, and Professor Cheryl Sowder of Jacksonville (Fla.) University, left, at the Cetamura site in Italy.
Nearly every summer since 1983, de Grummond, the M. Lynette Thompson Professor of Classics, has shepherded teams of enthusiastic Florida State students into Italy's Tuscany region to participate in archaeological digs at Cetamura del Chianti, a site once inhabited by the Etruscans and later by ancient Romans.
Over the years, she and her students have unearthed numerous artifacts that have reshaped current knowledge of the religious practices and daily lives of a long-gone people.
De Grummond is a leading scholar on the religious practices of the Etruscans, a people whose culture profoundly influenced the ancient Romans and Greeks. Her book "Etruscan Myth, Sacred History, and Legend," the first comprehensive account of Etruscan mythology, was published in 2006. She also co-wrote another book, "The Religion of the Etruscans," with fellow Etruscan scholar Erika Simon; that book was published the same year.
The Etruscans, who once ruled most of the Italian peninsula, were conquered and absorbed by the Romans in the second and first centuries B.C.E. ("Before the Common Era"). Prior to that time, however, they were a highly advanced civilization that constructed roads, buildings and sewer systems and developed the first true cities in Europe. They also built large, complex religious sanctuaries.
De Grummond, who next summer will celebrate her 30th anniversary of taking Florida State students on research trips to Cetamura, said that fellow scholars at the site now include professors who were her former students at FSU. And those professors are now leading their own teams of students.
"We're now getting the 'grand-students,'" de Grummond said—a fond reference to the third generation of researchers she now works with in Cetamura.
Florida State's international archaeological summer program in Italy features field trips to sites and museums that help enrich students' knowledge of the cultures under excavation at Cetamura. It's open to all interested students and is particularly recommended for students majoring in anthropology, art history and classics. Learn more about the program at
De Grummond said researchers in southern France who are compiling a database of vineyard seeds will study the grape seeds from this year's dig.
"It's kind of hard for me as an art historian who studies religion to think that these grape seeds might be my finest hour," de Grummond said with a laugh. "But they might be."
According to the ancient texts, Ostia was founded by Ancus Marcius, the fourth King of Rome. The goal was threefold: give Rome a led to the sea, ensure its supplies of wheat and salt and finally, to prevent an enemy fleet up the River Tiber. Archaeological excavations have shown that the initial urban core (castrum) back at the earliest at the turn of the 4th s. and 3rd s BC.
If large ancient buildings and the main roads have been gradually updated, the location of the river port of Ostia mouth remained unknown so far. For some, it was seen as a port lost forever. Indeed, since the Renaissance, many attempts to location of the port of Ostia were undertaken, without success. It was not until the 19th and 20th century that Italian archaeologists define an area to the Northwest of the city, near the Imperial Palace. At the beginning of the 21st century, archaeologists confirm the probable location of the basin in the northern sector, using geomagnetic instruments. But there is still no consensus on the exact location of the port and the debate remained bright.
A Franco-Italian team led by Jean-Philippe Goiran, researcher at the Archeorient Laboratory (CNRS / Université Lumière Lyon 2), so tried to permanently testing the hypothesis of a port in the North with a new geological cores. With the latest technological advances, this enables to overcome the problem of the table water that prevented traditional archaeological excavations down beyond 2 m depth.The sediment cores obtained helped to update the complete stratigraphy at a depth of 12 m and an evolution in 3 steps:
1. Layer deep, prior to the foundation of Ostia, indicates that the sea was present in the area at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC.
2. Stratum median, rich in clay-silty sediments of grey colour, which characterizes a port facies. The calculations give a depth of 6 m to the pool at the beginning of its operation, dated between the 4th and 2nd century b.c. Regarded until then as a primarily river port, which can accommodate shallow draft boats, the port of Ostia was in reality a deep pool to accommodate large marine vessels; This is what showed the depth measurement.
Mockeries, the most recent layer testifies to the abandonment of the basin in Imperial Roman times by massive accumulations of silt. With radiocarbon dates, it is possible to deduce that a succession of episodes of major floods of the Tiber River came to permanently seal the harbour basin of Ostia from the 2nd century BC BC to the first quarter of a century a.d. (and this, despite possible phases of cleaning). At that time, the depth of the basin is less than 1 m and makes all navigation impossible. These results are consistent with the speech from the geographer Strabo (58 BC – 21/25 ad) that indicates a filling of the port of Ostia by sediments of the Tiber at its time. It was then abandoned in favour of a new port complex built 3 km north of the mouth of the Tiber River, the name of Portus.
This discovery of the harbour basin of mouth in Ostia, North of the city and to the West of the Imperial Palace, will allow to better understand the relationship between Ostia, its port and the creation ex-nihilo Portus, started in 42 BC and completed under Nero in 64 a.d. This gigantic port of 200 ha will then become the port of Rome, and the largest ever built by the Romans in the Mediterranean.
Between the abandonment of the port of Ostia and Portus construction operations, the researchers estimate that nearly 25 years have passed. How Rome, capital of the world ancient and first city to reach a million people, was fed in wheat during this period? The question arises now researchers.
Three years ago archaeologists surveying Piazza Venezia in the center of Rome for a much-needed third subway line found the remains of an athenaeum built by the emperor Hadrian in the second century A.D. The brick manufacturers’ stamps confirmed that the arts center was built in 123 A.D., 12 years earlier than first suggested based on ancient documentary sources. 
The gourd in question was apparently the dome of the Serapeum at Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli which Hadrian was in the process of designing at the time.
Archaeological evidence indicates the space was used as an auditorium through the 5th century A.D., long after Hadrian’s death and well into the Christian period. Its marble began to be quarried around the sixth century. At the same time, metal ingots and the remains of furnaces found from the 6th and 7th centuries suggest it may have been used a mint in the Byzantine era for the production of bronze coins. It was also apparently used as a necropolis in the late 7th century, and following the trend of an increasingly depopulated, ruralized Rome, as a livestock barn in the 8th.
