Rome's Subway Expansion Reveals Artifacts From The Ancient Past
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Re: Rome's Subway Expansion Reveals Artifacts From The Ancient Past
#2Interesting. I really like that they're displaying the things they found in the stations rather than just carting them away to the basement of some museum.
Re: Rome's Subway Expansion Reveals Artifacts From The Ancient Past
#3Interesting. I really like that they're displaying the things they found in the stations rather than just carting them away to the basement of some museum.
Same happens in the metro stations at Athens.
Re: Rome's Subway Expansion Reveals Artifacts From The Ancient Past
#4The really funny thing about doing any construction work in basically any Italian city is that you already know from the start that there is going to be several years of delay due to finding ancient stuff...
But it's impossible to dig all of that out (reasons: too big, too disruptive, no funds, happens everywhere, etc). So what usually happens is: take pictures, save some artifact, cover with concrete and go on with the works.
Re: Rome's Subway Expansion Reveals Artifacts From The Ancient Past
#5Sad that this great trove will end up with a name linked to one of the most shameful pages of Italian history [1], just because postwar politicians in Rome didn't have the guts to do the right thing and rip colonial-era names from the map.
Re: Rome's Subway Expansion Reveals Artifacts From The Ancient Past
#6Interesting. I really like that they're displaying the things they found in the stations rather than just carting them away to the basement of some museum.
The threshold for “museum worthy” is fairly high in ancient cities such as Rome.
Chances are builders tried to avoid finding artifacts as much as possible. They certainly did in Istanbul when extending the subway: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/31/the-big-dig
Re: Rome's Subway Expansion Reveals Artifacts From The Ancient Past
#7The really funny thing about doing any construction work in basically any Italian city is that you already know from the start that there is going to be several years of delay due to finding ancient stuff... But it's impossible to dig all of that out (reasons: too big, too disruptive, no funds, happens everywhere, etc). So what usually happens is: take pictures, save some artifact, cover with concrete and go on with…
What a damn shame.
Re: Rome's Subway Expansion Reveals Artifacts From The Ancient Past
#8The really funny thing about doing any construction work in basically any Italian city is that you already know from the start that there is going to be several years of delay due to finding ancient stuff... But it's impossible to dig all of that out (reasons: too big, too disruptive, no funds, happens everywhere, etc). So what usually happens is: take pictures, save some artifact, cover with concrete and go on with…
Seems similar in the UK. Development pauses for a week of archaeologists, then the skyscraper gets built anyway.
Re: Rome's Subway Expansion Reveals Artifacts From The Ancient Past
#9Interesting. I really like that they're displaying the things they found in the stations rather than just carting them away to the basement of some museum.
Museums in Rome would throw them out, their basements are already full.
I know it's controversial, but I personally think that there should be the possibility for the State to sell (or "permanently loan" for money) significant amounts of minor artifacts to other nation-states. Countries like the US, Britain or Australia would build academic cathedrals around the crappiest 1% of the stuff we have to stockpile in Italy.
Re: Rome's Subway Expansion Reveals Artifacts From The Ancient Past
#10It’s weird how our great^5 grandchildren will only find treasures in our dumps, but the cities will still be full of ancient stuff.