Posted on 02/16/2016 9:05:00 PM PST by SunkenCiv
The Roman Emperors used to spend their summers in the city of Baia, near Naples. With the passage of time, however, the majority of their luxury villas became immersed under water. Italian and Spanish researchers have now applied microscopic and geochemical techniques to confirm that the marble used to cover these ancient Roman buildings came from Carrara and other marble quarries in Turkey and Greece...
The area which is now the Underwater Archaeological Park of Baia, just outside of Naples (Italy), was an important Roman bath city between the 1st century BC and the 3rd century AD where emperors such as Augustus and Nero owned leisure villas. Over the centuries, however, part of this ancient city became submerged five metres below sea level as a result of the subsidence coastal area.
Scientists from the University of Calabria (Italy), in collaboration with the Spanish researcher Mónica Alvarez de Buergo, took the plunge underwater to analyse one of the most valuable elements from those affluent Roman villas: white marble. The objective was to determine the origin of this material which was used in the production of floor slabs which can still be observed by divers in this area...
In order to compare the samples, the team selected some of the most well-known and widely-used white marble from the Roman period in the Mediterranean basin.
Specifically, they selected eight varieties from the best marble quarries in Italy, Greece and Turkey.
The data reveal that the parameters that have contributed the most to identifying the material and its origin have been the petrographic microscopy -more specifically, varying crystal sizes depending on the source of the marble-, the manganese content (whose content can vary between 0.84 parts per million and 1093.8 parts per million) and the difference in oxygen and carbon isotopes.
(Excerpt) Read more at eurekalert.org ...
LOL! Wouldn’t put it past her to try. But the Mellon family still has enough $ to put out a contract if she tries.
;>)
Ancient Baia was supposedly the place where the elite would throw some pretty wild parties.
It was also a destination for tourists (singles and couples) who had the means, even temporarily, to take a holiday away from home, kinda like Vegas. :’)
The rich households had slaves that specialized in different sets of skills, such as cooking, but I suspect that mosaic-layers were probably freelance pros.
Slaves were ubiquitous. Most agricultural laborers in Italy may have been slaves, as in the latifundiae. Industrial workers also; a craftsman could certainly have had slaves to do the tedious bits. Many slaves were also highly skilled.
Penny: What now?
Sheldon: Well, there’s some value to taking a multivitamin, but the human body can only absorb so much, what you’re buying here are the ingredients for very expensive urine.
Penny: Well, maybe that’s what I was going for.
Sheldon: Well then you’ll want some manganese.
Yup.
LOL!
What happens in Baia, stays in Baia.
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