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SPQR - News Thursday, 08 May 2008 |
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SPQR News
Archaeology news on Ancient Rome and the Roman Empire _______________
Archeology news from around the world |
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A Roman holiday in Libya Leptis Magna, a well-preserved outpost of an ancient empire, is slowly emerging from the desert sands alongside some of the Mediterranean's best - and emptiest - beaches PETER NEVILLE-HADLEY Meridian Writers' Group
Saturday, April 26, 2008
With its sandy Mediterranean beaches, therapeutic baths, extensive shopping, plentiful live entertainment and considerable architectural grandeur, Leptis Magna sounds like the ideal holiday destination. But it now lies partly buried under sands blown in from Libya's deserts, and few could find it on a map today.
While most of the Mediterranean shoreline is thronged all summer long by Europe's beautiful and bronzed, the coastline at Leptis Magna near the modern Libyan town of Al-Khoms is largely empty of all but domestic visitors, and so is the town itself, despite being one of the largest and best-preserved Roman cities anywhere.
But there's a growing realization in Libya that every foreign visitor who goes home speaking of quiet courtesy, a calm pace of life and spectacular yet curiously empty historic sites brings public-relations dividends to a country looking to emerge from long isolation.
Suddenly there's a "new" Mediterranean destination with Leptis Magna as its star attraction, and cruise ships are once again starting to call at Tripoli, the Libyan capital.
The Phoenician trading city known as Labra became Leptis Magna after annexation and reconstruction by the Romans in the first century BC. It's an hour-and-a-half's drive east of Tripoli, down a smooth highway, past tousle-headed palms that nod gently in the offshore breeze, and herds of goats grazing at the roadside.
The long strip of fertile land between desert and ocean through which the highway passes once provided much of Leptis Magna's wealth, and nearby Al-Khoms ("one-fifth") is named for the proportion of the olive-oil production that was sent to Rome as tax.
And it was the matter of taxation that indirectly led to the construction of the first monument encountered beyond the ruins' sandy and sparsely occupied car park. The city's greatest son, Lucius Septimus Severus, was born here in AD 145 and in 193 became the only citizen of Rome's North African colonies ever to be hailed as its emperor. He promptly relieved the city of its taxes and funded its expansion into the third-most-important metropolis in Africa.
So when he returned home for a visit in 203, grateful citizens erected a four-sided arch on the Decumanus, a straight Roman super-highway running between Leptis Magna's rivals of Carthage in present-day Tunisia and Alexandria in Egypt.
Along with much else in Leptis, the arch was felled by an earthquake in 365, and, after the city was finally abandoned in the late 6th century, it gradually disappeared under wind-blown sands. The scattered pieces of its giant, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle were slowly reassembled by Italian archaeologists, a task only completed in 1999. Marble reliefs show the imperial family, assorted deities and various military victories believed to have been the result of their combined efforts. But having got the politics out of the way, other large panels decorated with vine leaves and cupids suggest that the pleasures that prosperity made possible were never far from anyone's mind. Further evidence of this can be found a short walk eastward down the weathered stone blocks of the carefully engineered and drained Decumanus to the magnificent Hadrian Baths, a series of pools and leisure areas that formed the ancient equivalent to a spa, which in this case was also a VIP gentlemen's club.
The pillar-lined halls are now all open to the sky, the blocks of the original domed roof, which once stood 15 metres high, are stacked along the walls, wildflowers peeping from among them. In places the rooms' marble lining has fallen away to reveal the now cracked and broken slender brick piping that carried hot air for the sweat room, which rose and condensed in an ingenious recycling system. While luxuriating in the various pools, receiving massage treatments with olive oil and making visits to the library, Leptis's powerful discussed the business of the day.
But if the bath was a social place, so was the bathroom. Such discussions were often continued in the equally luxurious public latrine, at rows of marble seats with keyhole-shaped cut-outs. In cold weather, slaves would be sent ahead to sit and warm up the stone to spare their masters any discomfort; live musicians provided background music.
From here Leptis's main shopping street stretched for half a kilometre all the way down to the harbour, and yet more shopping lay to the left surrounding the 100-metre-long New Forum created during a second-century period of expansion. Some of the arches that once formed covered walkways surrounding the vast square have been re-erected with their large stone reliefs of the head of Medusa, all scowl and writhing hair, intended to scare away evil. High walls are pitted with square holes where mounts once clamped marble cladding to the granite behind. Such luxury must have housed the ancestors of Gucci and Armani, and, thanks to Septimus Severus, shopping was tax-free. Perhaps, while the wives spent the proceeds of trade, the men drank at the U-shaped bar at one end of the forum, where wine or beer from large jars stacked on a higher level was fed through holes in the stone to waiting cups below.
And if drinking led to drunkenness, and drunkenness to rowdiness, the second-century court house, nearly as big as the forum itself, was just behind it. Two storeys high, it's lined with marble pillars. These, brought hundreds of kilometres from Aswan in Egypt, once supported beams carved with the names of emperors. They're now mostly tumbled down, but with lettering looking as if it had been cut yesterday. Perhaps the archaeologists' most spectacular achievement was the reconstruction of the theatre, where the better-educated part of Leptis's 80,000 to 100,000 population went for its song. The soaring, semi-circular bank of stone seats could hold audiences of up to 5,000, and its acoustics still seem to amplify sound. Today, the twitter of birds is the loudest sound in Leptis. The crowds are now long silent, the baths are dry and a home to lizards, and everything in the shops is out of stock. Nevertheless, the city looks likely to reappear on Mediterranean itineraries as the latest fashionable resort. Already Leptis's few visitors find that the one day most spend there isn't nearly enough. |
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Cave May Hold Secrets to Legend of Ancient Rome Italian archaeologists have inched closer to unearthing the secrets behind one of Western civilization’s most enduring legends.
Tomb of Cleopatra and lover to be uncovered Cairo, 24 April(AKI) - Archaeologists have revealed plans to uncover the 2000 year-old tomb of ancient Egypt's most famous lovers, Cleopatra and the Roman general Mark Antony later this year.
New findings around the Colosseum The work to repave the area around the base of the Colosseum on its western side has brought to light new archaeological findings.
Ancient marble staircase found in Rome ROME, April 20 (UPI) -- Italian archeologists said an ancient staircase made of marble was uncovered during excavations beneath Rome's Piazza Venezia.
Rome celebrates jubilee Ancient Rome enthusiasts have paraded in front of the Coliseum as part of celebrations to mark Rome's jubilee. Several hundred people from Italy, Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom marched through ancient Rome's centre dressed as centurions and legionnaires.
Ostia Antica is a ruin, but it once buzzed with commercial activity When in Rome, many travelers focus only on the blockbusters. Such as the Colosseum, where so many men and beasts gave their lives for a bit of jolly fun for a bloodthirsty audience.
The Complete Guide To: Hadrian's Empire With a domain stretching from the Sahara to Cumbria, this Roman emperor was always on the move – and he left a legacy that remains to this day.
Rare Statue of Roman Emperor Found ROME (AP) — Italian police have recovered a rare statue of a Roman emperor who co-ruled alongside Marcus Aurelius and was known for his reluctance to sit for portraits.
Subway Dig Unearths Rome's Ancient Past It's been centuries since archaeologists excavated Rome's central Piazza Venezia, but just a few hundred yards from the Roman Forum, skeletons of the city's past are surfacing.
Ancient Love Stars at Rome's Eros Exhibit An exhibit in Rome aims to explain the role of Eros, the most powerful and most elusive of the ancient gods. The show at the Colosseum seeks to illustrate the huge gap between contemporary attitudes to erotic love and how the subject was treated in antiquity.
Wife-beating in Ancient Rome For all the glory and glamour of its art and literature, classical antiquity produces household statistics that make the heart sink. Greek and Roman girls were normally married in their mid-teens to men twice their age.
Bound to repeat it: The late American empire? If a present-day American suddenly warped backwards in time, he would likely find the streets of ancient Rome, during the city's cosmopolitan zenith, a comfortable enough place to visit.
Light Beams to Color Rome Column April 10, 2008 -- The Trajan Column, one of Rome's most famous monuments, will be shown next year under a totally new light.
Ancient statue discovered in Rome Rome, 9 April (AKI) - A fragment of an ancient Roman equestrian statue that once adorned the Colosseum has been found during excavations near the world famous Italian landmark.
Lifestyles of the Rich and Imperious in Rome April 10, 2008 · Lovers of ancient Rome have another treasure to behold as the home where future Roman Emperor Augustus lived in about 30 BC is now open to the public.
Limit the number of tourists to Pompeii, says expert 17 March (AKI) - Pompeii, one of Italy's most popular ancient attractions, should limit the number of visitors and be used for special events, according to a proposal from a leading tourism official.
Battle of Actium in 31 B.C. changed the world Washington, March 31: The Battle of Actium in 31 B.C. between Mark Antony and Cleopatra against spurned former ally Octavian, led to the eventual end of the Roman Republic, thus changing the world.
Houston museum shows latest Pompeii relics - Thursday, March 20, 2008 "The worst disaster of the ancient world preserved such amazing art." So says Frances Marzio, strolling among remains from one of history's most famous volcanic eruptions.
After 1,500 years as a ruin,Circus Maximus to be restored It still bears its thrilling ancient name, and the antique ruins on the Palatine Hill, the heart of ancient Rome and home of the Caesars, still gaze down upon it.
Ancient Roman Emperor Augustus first house opens in Rome Italian experts believe the rooms, found in the 1970s below the ruins of Augustus's sprawling imperial palace, were part of a smaller house where he lived when he was still just Julius Caesar's adoptive son Octavian and not Rome's first emperor.
Ancient Roman Temple Reconstructed Experts have digitally reconstructed one of Rome's earliest major temples, the Temple of Apollo, built by the first Roman emperor, Augustus. The temple dates to 28 B.C., and its ruins stand adjacent to the emperor's imperial palaces on the city's famous Palatine Hill.
The overlooked wonders of Italy's Ostia Antica Sitting on the top row of the ancient arena, I scan the ruins of Ostia Antica, letting my imagination take me back 2,000 years to the days when this was ancient Rome's seaport, a thriving commercial center of 60,00 people.
Appian Way blighted by voracious property developers It was the first modern road in the world, shooting like an arrow from the Porta Capena in Rome's city walls all the way to Brindisi on the Adriatic coast, more than 500km away.
Tourists 'stripping ancient Rome bare' Archaeologists said that Trajan's Forum, in the heart of the city's classical ruins, had been stripped of all the fragments of statues and shards of amphorae that adorned the site until recently. |
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Nero's gate unearthed in Cologne By Harry de Quetteville in Berlin Last Updated: 1:37am BST 26/04/2008
A two thousand year old Roman gate thought to have been built by Emperor Nero has been discovered in the western German city of Cologne. The gate, and 11 metres of town wall alongside, were discovered by builders excavating Cologne's new metro line. More than two million pounds has now been allocated to preserve the gate, with the metro line running underneath, and a road passing overhead. "This is finest Roman handiwork,” said Hansgerd Hellenkemper, director of the Roman museum in the city, where a number of Roman artefacts have been found in recent times. Emperor Nero, who ruled from AD 54 to 68, had close links to Cologne because his famously beautiful but ruthless mother, Agrippina the Younger, was born there. Archaeologists have dated the gate to Nero's reign, adding that he probably funded it when the city would have too poor to afford sizeable fortifications against marauding Frankish tribes. |