Archeologists get excited about some funny things. And bless them for it; their zeal for the more distasteful parts of Roman daily life helps literary scholars and teachers recreate that life for their students. Archeologists in Herculaneum, the
less tourist-choked neighbor of Pompeii, recently discovered
an 86-mile long sewage tunnel full of authentic ancient Roman excrement. By analyzing this find, they have discovered that the Herculaneans enjoyed spiky sea urchin, walnuts, dormice and olives, among other things. Cool.
In Rome, most of the ancient art designed to sit outdoors has been replaced by copies, sometimes less detailed than the original. The arts section of the Wall Street Journal has a
meditation
on the experience of seeing an
ancient equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius in a museum and its copy in the intended outdoor setting.
Pin It
No comments:
Post a Comment