In Amsterdam they recently started the new subway line and they put items from underwater in one of the stations. I can't express enough how cool it looks likehttps://www.google.nl/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/International...
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
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's also that the Romans thought they were going to be around forever so they built everything to last. If you look at the Colosseum, it looks the way it is because it was willfully destroyed and used for construction material over centuries: when Rome became the seat of the Papacy, the Colosseum was remembered as a place where the early martyrs were slaughtered by wild beasts, not as a nice building to be preserved…
The Pantheon is one of the most impressive buildings I have ever seen. The light coming through the top is just incredible.
Random tangent: As much as I love living in sunny California, it saddens me that due to earthquakes, nothing we build here will still be around in 2,000 years.
Re: Rome's Subway Expansion Reveals Artifacts From The Ancient Past
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Pantheon is one of the most impressive buildings I have ever seen. The light coming through the top is just incredible.
Random tangent: As much as I love living in sunny California, it saddens me that due to earthquakes, nothing we build here will still be around in 2,000 years.
That's only because the construction isn't as sturdy. Italy routinely experiences earthquakes similar in magnitude to California.
Re: Rome's Subway Expansion Reveals Artifacts From The Ancient Past
#24Interesting. 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…
I think they are doing this with temporary loans. Our Maritime Museum in Sydney had a very good exhibition about the destruction of Pompeii. All the stuff there was on loan from some a couple maritime museums in Italy.
Though I would leave Britain off your list.
Re: Rome's Subway Expansion Reveals Artifacts From The Ancient Past
#25The 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.
In my home town for one such project they came up with a really cool alternative. The basement of the building is encased in glass and you can go see the ruins. Little museum and everything.
And the building, or underground parking lot I think, still got built.
Re: Rome's Subway Expansion Reveals Artifacts From The Ancient Past
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's valuable (think about revenues from tourism) but we still have to live our lives. The ancients built on top of anything was there before. That's why we have so many archeological layers in Rome.
It's not valuable if all they find is standard roman clay pot # 123,312 to 124,312. There was an article about this when they were building the tunnel in Istanbul. They did find some significant stuff, but the vast majority of it was stuff they already had tons of. They literally filled warehouses with the stuff, and dumped most of it back in because it was not rare or significant.
IIRC there's literally a hill in Rome that is just ancient olive oil amphorae (clay jars) shards.
Re: Rome's Subway Expansion Reveals Artifacts From The Ancient Past
#27It’s weird how our great^5 grandchildren will only find treasures in our dumps, but the cities will still be full of ancient stuff.
It's also that the Romans thought they were going to be around forever so they built everything to last. If you look at the Colosseum, it looks the way it is because it was willfully destroyed and used for construction material over centuries: when Rome became the seat of the Papacy, the Colosseum was remembered as a place where the early martyrs were slaughtered by wild beasts, not as a nice building to be preserved…
> It's also that the Romans thought they were going to be around forever so they built everything to last.
Is that a cause or a byproduct?
Re: Rome's Subway Expansion Reveals Artifacts From The Ancient Past
#28In Amsterdam they recently started the new subway line and they put items from underwater in one of the stations. I can't express enough how cool it looks like https://www.google.nl/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/International...
That's fun. Neolithic all the way to cell phones. It's a neat reminder how far we've come and how short our lives are.
Re: Rome's Subway Expansion Reveals Artifacts From The Ancient Past
#29Reminds me of what I consider one of the most beautiful scenes in film from Federico Fellini's Roma
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wjtst-Vr87A
Re: Rome's Subway Expansion Reveals Artifacts From The Ancient Past
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not valuable if all they find is standard roman clay pot # 123,312 to 124,312. There was an article about this when they were building the tunnel in Istanbul. They did find some significant stuff, but the vast majority of it was stuff they already had tons of. They literally filled warehouses with the stuff, and dumped most of it back in because it was not rare or significant.
IIRC there's literally a hill in Rome that is just ancient olive oil amphorae (clay jars) shards.
Monte dei Cocci aka Testaccio - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Testaccio https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testaccio
Clubbing and nightlife area now, nice place...