Posted on 06/07/2015 9:12:42 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
The world's largest ancient Roman rubbish dump is revealing intriguing details about the extent and sophistication of trade in the Mediterranean 2,000 years ago.
Monte Testaccio is an artificial hill in the centre of Rome that is made up of an estimated 25 million shards of broken amphorae, many from as far afield as Spain and North Africa.
The amphorae, containing wine and olive oil, were broken up and dumped on the spoil heap after being unloaded from a nearby port on the River Tiber.
They could not be reused because wine and oil residue seeped into the clay, turning rancid after a while and preventing the containers from being recycled for fresh shipments.
Each amphora was painted or stamped with an inscription detailing which product it contained, how much it weighed, where it was produced, when it was shipped to Rome and how much import duty was paid.
Archaeologists are digging up thousands of shards and studying the inscriptions in order to map patterns of trade and to better understand the complex system by which products from around the Mediterranean were brought to the imperial capital -- then the most populous city in the world.
They are calculating the huge quantities of olive oil and wine that Rome imported in order to supply its civilian population as well as its vast legions as they pushed the boundaries of the Roman Empire ever further outwards in the first and second centuries AD.
Some of the amphorae were used to transport "garum", a smelly sauce made from fermented fish blood and intestines that the Romans relished as a condiment.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
That woman I was talking about got the stuff at the oriental market near the base-it had a label, but I don’t read oriental characters-the fermented soybean curd she would make herself, and was very proud of the fact that she allowed it to ferment for several months...
Damn government regulations..........................
They had technology we had to rediscover after the Dark Ages. The Romans has sophisticated machinery and engineers........................
It’s an acquired taste, but once you have it, YUUUMMMMYYYYY!!!.........................
I believe that cement not only sets under water but also has a tensile strength more or less equal to our reinforced concrete, without the reinforcement.
I think there's a company in Arizona or New Mexico that is marketing a similar concrete made from American volcanic material.
;’)
It's in the Oxford handbook of ancient technology. They're not sure why the Romans needed needed a high-speed turbine.
Must be aliens! /s
They were no slouches, that's for sure. The obelisk that stands in St. Peter's Square is 25 meters tall and weighs something like 320 tons. People are justifiably amazed by what the Egyptians were able to do with huge stones, but no one seems interested in the fact that the Romans moved that huge obelisk first to Alexandria and later shipped it to Rome, where they positioned it in what became known as the Circus of Nero. In the 1500s, the Italians decided to move and the obelisk to St. Peter's, 250 meters away; it took a titanic effort and nearly failed.
I believe God has intervened a couple of times in the past to ‘slow down’ the advancement of knowledge just as he did in the Tower of Babel.
The burning of the Library at Alexandria, the repository of the sum total of the world’s knowledge, then after Rome fell, the Dark Ages lasted a thousand years until the Renaissance began and the New World was discovered.................
I’ll just have to take your word for that, since I have no intention of trying even a drop of the stuff...
I’ll eat just about anything that doesn’t eat me first......................
I’m fond of grilled rattlesnake, barbacoa-the whole cow head, eyes and all-cooked overnight in a covered pit, and just about any cheese, no matter the odor-but even I draw the line at fermented fish offal...
I won’t eat RAW oysters. Fried, boiled, baked or steamed, but not raw....................
I love them raw-better than cooked, actually-and two of my least favorite foods are cooked carrots and cabbage-but I like both raw.
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