Rome's Mountain of Ancient Garbage

Transcript
· Introduction
0:08 · The ancient world's largest garbage dump was located on the outskirts of Rome. As
0:14 · tall as the Pantheon, it towered over the concrete labyrinth of the warehouse district:
0:20 · Monte Testaccio, the mountain of pots. As the name suggests,
0:25 · it consisted entirely of broken pottery – by one estimate, 53 million amphorae.
0:32 · Almost all of these amphorae held olive oil. Perhaps a tenth were imported from the rich
0:38 · olive groves of North Africa. But the vast majority came from Spain – more specifically,
0:45 · from the province of Baetica, modern Andalusia. The Spanish oil amphorae were huge, heavy vessels,
0:53 · capable of holding about 70 liters (18.5 gallons). From the first to the third centuries AD, tens of
1:02 · thousands were shipped to Rome every year, emptied into holding vats, and smashed on Monte Testaccio.
1:10 · Let's imagine the journey of a single batch of amphorae from Spain to Rome at the end of the
1:15 · second century. The long civil war that made Septimius Severus master of the Roman world
· Spanish olive groves
1:22 · has finally ended – just a few years ago, the new emperor ceremoniously rode his horse over
1:29 · the naked corpse of his last remaining rival. With peace has come renewed prosperity. Along
1:37 · Spain's Guadalquivir River, demand for olive oil is booming as never before.
1:43 · Our story starts on one of the many estates that checkered the fertile valley between
1:48 · Seville and Cordoba. It belongs to an absentee landlord, a man of Equestrian rank who prefers
1:55 · his comfortable frescoed townhouse in Cordoba to the villas scattered across his rural properties.
· From olives to oil
2:03 · This particular estate, located among rolling hills a short distance from the river, is almost
2:09 · entirely planted with olive trees. The groves are worked by both free and slave laborers. Although
2:16 · the slaves live in cramped quarters near the main villa and the tenant farmers have houses of their
2:22 · own, they do much the same work, eat the same simple foods, and celebrate the same festivals.
2:29 · Slave or free, the workers on the estate spend most of the year maintaining the olive groves,
2:35 · cutting down weeds and ploughing the land between the trees to aerate the
2:40 · soil. The busiest months are November and December. This the wettest time of the year,
2:47 · when rainstorms break over the hills and fill the river. But it also the
2:52 · season when the olives ripen and fall into the rain-pocked mud.
2:57 · On a clear, cool morning, the olives are gathered, washed, and dumped into a trough,
3:03 · where a mule-driven millstone crushes them to a paste. The paste is shoveled into backets,
3:09 · which are stacked beneath a press – a heavy beam lowered with a winch. As the beam is brought down,
3:16 · and the wicker of the baskets creaks and snaps, golden olive oil drips to the ground.
3:22 · Once the oil has settled and separated, it is decanted into amphorae. For this year's batch,
3:29 · several hundred amphorae have been made at the local claypit,
3:33 · each stamped with the estate owner's name before being fired in a large kiln. Even empty,
3:40 · the amphorae are too heavy to handle easily. When full, they have to be moved on muleback.
· The voyage to Portus
3:47 · The amphorae are brought to storage depots near the banks of the river. Months pass. Then, in
3:53 · April or May, a merchant sails down from Cordoba with a purchase contract signed by the estate
3:59 · owner, and the amphorae are loaded into the hold, joining hundreds of others from estates upstream.
4:06 · So heavily-laden that its keel scrapes a few sandbars, the ship floats downstream to the sea.
4:13 · Like most ancient vessels, it stays near the coast – close enough for the sailors
4:17 · to see the red roofs of port cities and smell the reek of garum factories.
4:23 · Twenty-two days after leaving Spain, the ship sails into Portus. Over the past century,
4:31 · this artificial harbor has definitively displaced the older facilities at Puteoli
4:37 · and neighboring Ostia. The outer basin, with its smoking lighthouse, is crowded with ships.
4:43 · Our ship pauses to pick up a harbor pilot, who guides it into the hexagonal inner
4:49 · basin. Moments after it noses into a berth, customs officials descend upon the decks,
4:56 · demanding to see the captain's contracts and inspect his cargo. After the usual rigmarole,
5:03 · members of the stevedores' guild, stripped to their loincloths, begin to use pulleys
5:08 · and treadwheel cranes to lift the two thousand amphorae in the ship's hold onto wagons. As these
· The emperor's oil
5:15 · are filled, they shuttle the amphorae into a vast concrete warehouse perfumed with oil.
5:22 · This warehouse belongs to the emperor, as does everything inside. Olive oil
5:27 · is a staple of the Roman diet, a vital source of protein and fat
5:32 · for the multitudes who live primarily on bread. At Rome, the price of olive oil,
5:38 · like that of grain, has been controlled by the emperors since the time of Augustus,
5:43 · and oil has occasionally been included the grain dole. Recently, Septimius Severus decreed that
5:50 · all citizens eligible for a grain ration should also receive olive oil every month.
5:56 · The merchant who brought the amphorae from Cordoba is under
6:00 · contract with the imperial government to supply oil at a fixed rate. He has
6:05 · spent most of his career dealing with subordinates of the praefectus annonae,
6:10 · the official responsible for overseeing both the grain dole and the olive oil supply.
· Up the Tiber
6:16 · Then, at last, the amphorae begin the final leg of their journey. Sprawling though the
6:22 · warehouses at Portus are, they are only meant to shelter goods for a brief time,
6:27 · until they can be brought up the Tiber to the capital.
6:31 · The amphorae, their handles lashed together for security, are loaded onto a dozen barges. To cope
6:38 · with the current, which makes it difficult to row upstream, each barge is hitched to a team
6:43 · of mules, who patiently tow it the twenty miles to Rome. It takes three days – partly because
6:51 · the mule teams have to switched every few miles, and partly because the river is so crowded with
6:56 · barges and boats of every description, all straining to reach the center of the world.
7:03 · Before we follow the amphorae to their destination,
7:06 · a brief word about this video's sponsor.
· Romanis Magicae
7:10 · Last year, I advertised a Kickstarter campaign for the first issue of "Romanis Magicae," a
7:16 · comic about a former legionary who stumbles upon a plot to destroy the Roman Empire.
7:22 · Now, the Romanis Magicae team is back with a second issue.
7:27 · As before, the setting is imperial Rome:
7:30 · cosmopolitan, chaotic, filled with opportunity and danger.
7:35 · Amid the crowds and confusion,
7:36 · the characters we met in the first issue are trying to live their lives.
7:41 · But the dark magic that brought them together has
7:44 · not disappeared – and they are still being hunted by monsters.
7:49 · The Romanis Magicae team is currently seeking funding on Kickstarter. To learn
7:54 · more about the project and support the new issue, follow the link in the description.
8:00 · Returning to our topic. As the barges carrying the amphorae approach Rome,
· The warehouse district
8:05 · river traffic slows to a crawl. Towering tombs and villas crowd the banks. At last, the metropolis
8:13 · comes into the view: an incomprehensible accumulation of white and tan buildings, shrouded
8:19 · by the smoke of ten thousand charcoal fires. Where the current slows, just below the temples
8:26 · and tenements of the Aventine Hill, a tangle of piers marks the port of Rome. Around it sprawl
8:33 · the warehouses that hold oil, grain, marble, wood, and everything else consumed by the world-city.
8:41 · The barges are unloaded into one of these warehouse complexes.
8:45 · After the stamps and inscriptions on each amphora have been recorded and checked,
8:50 · the seals are broken, and the oil within is tipped into cavernous storage tanks.
8:56 · In Rome, many amphorae are recycled as storage containers, repurposed as pipes or flowerpots,
9:03 · or shattered and mixed into concrete as aggregate. The amphorae that carry olive oil from Spain,
9:10 · however, are not reused. Their bulbous shape and thick walls make them unsuitable for most
9:17 · secondary applications. They are difficult to break into small fragments, and the oil that
9:23 · clings to their surfaces weakens any concrete made with them. Last but not least, they stink.
· Monte Testaccio
9:30 · So, once they have been drained, Spanish oil amphorae are tied in pairs over the backs of
9:35 · mules and sent to the state amphora dump – the future Monte Testaccio. The dump is already as
9:42 · tall as the Seven Hills, and it's growing every day. Although the lower slopes are overgrown
9:48 · with grass, most of the mound is the chalky red of broken pottery. One access road winds to the top;
9:56 · another twists back down. Both paths are crowded with mules and drivers.
10:02 · Near the top of the hill, slaves with sledgehammers smash pots into hand-sized
10:07 · pieces. Other slaves rake the fragments into even layers and sprinkle them with
10:12 · lime to cut the stench of rancid oil. As they descend the long path down to the
10:18 · warehouses, the drivers have a spectacular view of Rome, radiating in every direction.
10:24 · But the mules, heads down, see only the reddish dust that coats the path,
10:29 · and bits of pottery crunching beneath their hooves.
10:34 · Dumping continued at Monte Testaccio until the late third century,
10:38 · when the construction of the Aurelian Wall cut the roads between the dump and
10:42 · the river. As the empire collapsed and the city of Rome contracted,
10:47 · the mountain of pots remained. Medieval legends sprang up around it – some claiming that it
10:54 · had been built with rubble from the great fire of Nero, others that it was composed
10:59 · of pagan cinerary urns. The most prevalent explanation, however, was that the hill was
11:06 · made of vessels sent to the emperors as tribute from the provinces. In a sense, this was correct.
· Significance of a dump
11:13 · Monte Testaccio is a microcosm of the Roman Empire. It reflects the reach of imperial power,
11:20 · which could draw millions of oil amphorae from distant parts of the Mediterranean.
11:25 · It attests to the productivity and complexity of the Roman economy,
11:29 · which could support long-distance trade on such a vast scale. It is evidence of
11:35 · consumerism that would not be excelled until the Industrial Revolution. And it bears witness
11:40 · to the inequality and exploitation that made Rome's grandeur possible.
· Visiting Monte Testaccio
11:47 · Last month, with the help of my friends at Through Eternity Tours, who often organize walks in the
11:53 · area, I visited Monte Testaccio for the first time in years. Though surrounded by a bustling
12:00 · and increasingly trendy neighborhood, the hill itself is quiet. Knee-high grass and clumps of
12:07 · shrubs cover most of its surface. But along the paths, and wherever erosion has cut the surface,
12:14 · you can see the broken pots. In places, the fragments are still stacked as neatly as they
12:21 · were 17 centuries ago, when the Roman emperors built the largest garbage dump in ancient history.
·

Identifying the portable toilets of the ancient Roman world [02/15/2022]
Reconstructing the history of mankind with the help of fecal sterols -- first test on the Maori [10/15/2018]
Taking Out the Trash in Ancient Jerusalem [Roman era] [02/12/2018]
Roman rubbish dump reveals secrets of ancient trading networks [06/07/2015]
An ancient wreck tells the tale of Romans in France [03/20/2014]
Trash Talk [ Monte Testaccio, imperial Roman landfill ] [05/05/2012]
Roman Shipwreck Discovered Near Aeolian Islands [07/02/2010]

Old garbage dumps are where you should look, at least that is what we found in Israel..

recycling is important so start sharing that garbage with the rest of the world.

With our garbage dumps, we will appear as gods to the pygmies who follow us.

They will attribute some religious purpose to the microwave oven.

When I was around 9 the DPW Showed up to dig a big hole at the end of our dead end street.
What they ended up digging up were hundreds of OLD glass bottles.
Cobalt blue ones, green, clear..
All bottles that required a cork of some kind.

Us kids were thrilled over the mystery of it all.
We brought them home as decorations..

Most likely an Old dumping ground from way back when..

That is a very nice story. Thank you!

Told In Stone makes good videos. Thanks for posting this one.

Interesting. What would be in America’s dumps? Frozen dinner boxes?

Norwood, MA 1976

Might be the original Mount Trashmore.

Inoperable electronic devices that only show an inscrutable, smooth, black surface

AOL disks, broken windmill blades, and respirators.

From 2009...

TRASH TALK Sorting through a mountain of pottery to track the Roman oil trade

I do use my microwave at the same times each day, ritualistically. :^)

As a kid I had to pull a wire through the crawl space of the house next door (elderly relative, my dad was doing some wiring for her) and found an old linament bottle up near the front wall. I brought it out to her and she was so pleased. She slowly cleaned out the concretion inside it and displayed it.

My pleasure. The other topic I posted yesterday is from his new channel. And I’m not sure there isn’t a third channel, which is is video blog.

It’s almost ideal, it’s an archive of what people ate, and otherwise used (up), and preserved in chronological order. :^)

Thanks. I’ll check it out.

Transcript
	·	Introduction
0:08	·	The ancient world's largest garbage dump was located on the outskirts of Rome. As
0:14	·	tall as the Pantheon, it towered over the concrete labyrinth of the warehouse district:
0:20	·	Monte Testaccio, the mountain of pots. As the name suggests,
0:25	·	it consisted entirely of broken pottery – by one estimate, 53 million amphorae.
0:32	·	Almost all of these amphorae held olive oil. Perhaps a tenth were imported from the rich
0:38	·	olive groves of North Africa. But the vast majority came from Spain – more specifically,
0:45	·	from the province of Baetica, modern Andalusia. The Spanish oil amphorae were huge, heavy vessels,
0:53	·	capable of holding about 70 liters (18.5 gallons). From the first to the third centuries AD, tens of
1:02	·	thousands were shipped to Rome every year, emptied into holding vats, and smashed on Monte Testaccio.
1:10	·	Let's imagine the journey of a single batch of amphorae from Spain to Rome at the end of the
1:15	·	second century. The long civil war that made Septimius Severus master of the Roman world
	·	Spanish olive groves
1:22	·	has finally ended – just a few years ago, the new emperor ceremoniously rode his horse over
1:29	·	the naked corpse of his last remaining rival. With peace has come renewed prosperity. Along
1:37	·	Spain's Guadalquivir River, demand for olive oil is booming as never before.
1:43	·	Our story starts on one of the many estates that checkered the fertile valley between
1:48	·	Seville and Cordoba. It belongs to an absentee landlord, a man of Equestrian rank who prefers
1:55	·	his comfortable frescoed townhouse in Cordoba to the villas scattered across his rural properties.
	·	From olives to oil
2:03	·	This particular estate, located among rolling hills a short distance from the river, is almost
2:09	·	entirely planted with olive trees. The groves are worked by both free and slave laborers. Although
2:16	·	the slaves live in cramped quarters near the main villa and the tenant farmers have houses of their
2:22	·	own, they do much the same work, eat the same simple foods, and celebrate the same festivals.
2:29	·	Slave or free, the workers on the estate spend most of the year maintaining the olive groves,
2:35	·	cutting down weeds and ploughing the land between the trees to aerate the
2:40	·	soil. The busiest months are November and December. This the wettest time of the year,
2:47	·	when rainstorms break over the hills and fill the river. But it also the
2:52	·	season when the olives ripen and fall into the rain-pocked mud.
2:57	·	On a clear, cool morning, the olives are gathered, washed, and dumped into a trough,
3:03	·	where a mule-driven millstone crushes them to a paste. The paste is shoveled into backets,
3:09	·	which are stacked beneath a press – a heavy beam lowered with a winch. As the beam is brought down,
3:16	·	and the wicker of the baskets creaks and snaps, golden olive oil drips to the ground.
3:22	·	Once the oil has settled and separated, it is decanted into amphorae. For this year's batch,
3:29	·	several hundred amphorae have been made at the local claypit,
3:33	·	each stamped with the estate owner's name before being fired in a large kiln. Even empty,
3:40	·	the amphorae are too heavy to handle easily. When full, they have to be moved on muleback.
	·	The voyage to Portus
3:47	·	The amphorae are brought to storage depots near the banks of the river. Months pass. Then, in
3:53	·	April or May, a merchant sails down from Cordoba with a purchase contract signed by the estate
3:59	·	owner, and the amphorae are loaded into the hold, joining hundreds of others from estates upstream.
4:06	·	So heavily-laden that its keel scrapes a few sandbars, the ship floats downstream to the sea.
4:13	·	Like most ancient vessels, it stays near the coast – close enough for the sailors
4:17	·	to see the red roofs of port cities and smell the reek of garum factories.
4:23	·	Twenty-two days after leaving Spain, the ship sails into Portus. Over the past century,
4:31	·	this artificial harbor has definitively displaced the older facilities at Puteoli
4:37	·	and neighboring Ostia. The outer basin, with its smoking lighthouse, is crowded with ships.
4:43	·	Our ship pauses to pick up a harbor pilot, who guides it into the hexagonal inner
4:49	·	basin. Moments after it noses into a berth, customs officials descend upon the decks,
4:56	·	demanding to see the captain's contracts and inspect his cargo. After the usual rigmarole,
5:03	·	members of the stevedores' guild, stripped to their loincloths, begin to use pulleys
5:08	·	and treadwheel cranes to lift the two thousand amphorae in the ship's hold onto wagons. As these
	·	The emperor's oil
5:15	·	are filled, they shuttle the amphorae into a vast concrete warehouse perfumed with oil.
5:22	·	This warehouse belongs to the emperor, as does everything inside. Olive oil
5:27	·	is a staple of the Roman diet, a vital source of protein and fat
5:32	·	for the multitudes who live primarily on bread. At Rome, the price of olive oil,
5:38	·	like that of grain, has been controlled by the emperors since the time of Augustus,
5:43	·	and oil has occasionally been included the grain dole. Recently, Septimius Severus decreed that
5:50	·	all citizens eligible for a grain ration should also receive olive oil every month.
5:56	·	The merchant who brought the amphorae from Cordoba is under
6:00	·	contract with the imperial government to supply oil at a fixed rate. He has
6:05	·	spent most of his career dealing with subordinates of the praefectus annonae,
6:10	·	the official responsible for overseeing both the grain dole and the olive oil supply.
	·	Up the Tiber
6:16	·	Then, at last, the amphorae begin the final leg of their journey. Sprawling though the
6:22	·	warehouses at Portus are, they are only meant to shelter goods for a brief time,
6:27	·	until they can be brought up the Tiber to the capital.
6:31	·	The amphorae, their handles lashed together for security, are loaded onto a dozen barges. To cope
6:38	·	with the current, which makes it difficult to row upstream, each barge is hitched to a team
6:43	·	of mules, who patiently tow it the twenty miles to Rome. It takes three days – partly because
6:51	·	the mule teams have to switched every few miles, and partly because the river is so crowded with
6:56	·	barges and boats of every description, all straining to reach the center of the world.
7:03	·	Before we follow the amphorae to their destination,
7:06	·	a brief word about this video's sponsor.
	·	Romanis Magicae
7:10	·	Last year, I advertised a Kickstarter campaign for the first issue of "Romanis Magicae," a
7:16	·	comic about a former legionary who stumbles upon a plot to destroy the Roman Empire.
7:22	·	Now, the Romanis Magicae team is back with a second issue.
7:27	·	As before, the setting is imperial Rome:
7:30	·	cosmopolitan, chaotic, filled with opportunity and danger.
7:35	·	Amid the crowds and confusion,
7:36	·	the characters we met in the first issue are trying to live their lives.
7:41	·	But the dark magic that brought them together has
7:44	·	not disappeared – and they are still being hunted by monsters.
7:49	·	The Romanis Magicae team is currently seeking funding on Kickstarter. To learn
7:54	·	more about the project and support the new issue, follow the link in the description.
8:00	·	Returning to our topic. As the barges carrying the amphorae approach Rome,
	·	The warehouse district
8:05	·	river traffic slows to a crawl. Towering tombs and villas crowd the banks. At last, the metropolis
8:13	·	comes into the view: an incomprehensible accumulation of white and tan buildings, shrouded
8:19	·	by the smoke of ten thousand charcoal fires. Where the current slows, just below the temples
8:26	·	and tenements of the Aventine Hill, a tangle of piers marks the port of Rome. Around it sprawl
8:33	·	the warehouses that hold oil, grain, marble, wood, and everything else consumed by the world-city.
8:41	·	The barges are unloaded into one of these warehouse complexes.
8:45	·	After the stamps and inscriptions on each amphora have been recorded and checked,
8:50	·	the seals are broken, and the oil within is tipped into cavernous storage tanks.
8:56	·	In Rome, many amphorae are recycled as storage containers, repurposed as pipes or flowerpots,
9:03	·	or shattered and mixed into concrete as aggregate. The amphorae that carry olive oil from Spain,
9:10	·	however, are not reused. Their bulbous shape and thick walls make them unsuitable for most
9:17	·	secondary applications. They are difficult to break into small fragments, and the oil that
9:23	·	clings to their surfaces weakens any concrete made with them. Last but not least, they stink.
	·	Monte Testaccio
9:30	·	So, once they have been drained, Spanish oil amphorae are tied in pairs over the backs of
9:35	·	mules and sent to the state amphora dump – the future Monte Testaccio. The dump is already as
9:42	·	tall as the Seven Hills, and it's growing every day. Although the lower slopes are overgrown
9:48	·	with grass, most of the mound is the chalky red of broken pottery. One access road winds to the top;
9:56	·	another twists back down. Both paths are crowded with mules and drivers.
10:02	·	Near the top of the hill, slaves with sledgehammers smash pots into hand-sized
10:07	·	pieces. Other slaves rake the fragments into even layers and sprinkle them with
10:12	·	lime to cut the stench of rancid oil. As they descend the long path down to the
10:18	·	warehouses, the drivers have a spectacular view of Rome, radiating in every direction.
10:24	·	But the mules, heads down, see only the reddish dust that coats the path,
10:29	·	and bits of pottery crunching beneath their hooves.
10:34	·	Dumping continued at Monte Testaccio until the late third century,
10:38	·	when the construction of the Aurelian Wall cut the roads between the dump and
10:42	·	the river. As the empire collapsed and the city of Rome contracted,
10:47	·	the mountain of pots remained. Medieval legends sprang up around it – some claiming that it
10:54	·	had been built with rubble from the great fire of Nero, others that it was composed
10:59	·	of pagan cinerary urns. The most prevalent explanation, however, was that the hill was
11:06	·	made of vessels sent to the emperors as tribute from the provinces. In a sense, this was correct.
	·	Significance of a dump
11:13	·	Monte Testaccio is a microcosm of the Roman Empire. It reflects the reach of imperial power,
11:20	·	which could draw millions of oil amphorae from distant parts of the Mediterranean.
11:25	·	It attests to the productivity and complexity of the Roman economy,
11:29	·	which could support long-distance trade on such a vast scale. It is evidence of
11:35	·	consumerism that would not be excelled until the Industrial Revolution. And it bears witness
11:40	·	to the inequality and exploitation that made Rome's grandeur possible.
	·	Visiting Monte Testaccio
11:47	·	Last month, with the help of my friends at Through Eternity Tours, who often organize walks in the
11:53	·	area, I visited Monte Testaccio for the first time in years. Though surrounded by a bustling
12:00	·	and increasingly trendy neighborhood, the hill itself is quiet. Knee-high grass and clumps of
12:07	·	shrubs cover most of its surface. But along the paths, and wherever erosion has cut the surface,
12:14	·	you can see the broken pots. In places, the fragments are still stacked as neatly as they
12:21	·	were 17 centuries ago, when the Roman emperors built the largest garbage dump in ancient history.
	·