Assistant professor of classics David Hernandez discusses his excavation of a Roman forum during a lecture Wednesday.
Posted on 12/12/2011 4:21:21 PM PST by SunkenCiv
After six grave sites, 133 coins and over 10,000 fragments of animal bone, archaeologists with assistant professor of classics David Hernandez's excavation team hit pay dirt, or rather, pay pavement, in the form of an ancient Roman forum.
This summer, Hernandez and a team of Notre Dame undergraduates embarked on a six-week excavation trip to Butrint, Albania, where they made the discovery...
Since the 1920s archaeologists have probed the site, producing evidence of a Greek sanctuary of Asclepius, a medieval house, a Venetian castle and now, a Roman forum, he said.
The forum was a rectangular plaza surrounded by government buildings in ancient Rome, and its discovery holds key insight into the urban history of the area of Butrint, Hernandez said.
Before the most recent excavation began, a small corner of the forum had already been discovered, and the goal was to find just how far it expanded eastward. The discovery of the intact pavement slabs was a critical moment, he said.
"The pavement slabs themselves, just flush and intact, it's easy to take it for granted in retrospect, but really, we had no idea if these pavement slabs were going to be preserved this far away from where we had found them before," Hernandez said. "The entire pavement was preserved, and I knew at this moment, that this is one of the best preserved Roman forums in the provinces of the Roman Empire. There just aren't forums like this that are preserved in this way."
...
"Right at the very end of the excavation, we found the head of a goddess figurine, which was a votive offering that dates to the fourth century B.C.," Hernandez said. "It was really a beautiful find, in the 11th hour, and it was one of these electrifying moments."
(Excerpt) Read more at ndsmcobserver.com ...
Assistant professor of classics David Hernandez discusses his excavation of a Roman forum during a lecture Wednesday.
|
|
|
| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
|
|
Butrint, Albania. |
|
|
|
|
“A funny thing happened on the way to the dig site ...”
He told about how Enver Hoxha brought Nikita Khrushchev to visit the site--Khrushchev had no interest in antiquities. Before the visit, fearing that Khrushchev might be bitten by a snake, they had workers search for and kill all the snakes they could find. They forgot to tell them to dispose of the carcasses, so when Khrushchev visited there were lots of dead snakes around the site.
I wouldn't be caught dead out there in the middle of nowhere!
Butrint is an Adriatic port in what in ancient times was known as Epirus. Roman name: Buthrotum. It sounds like a lovely site to visit.
Complete with a Roman Admin Moderators, Roman Trolls, Roman Single-Issue Banshees and all of the other fauna that typically inhabit such places.
And a pile of lent ears.
ROFL
Don’t forget the Romans In Name Only.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
