- Italian archeologists digging near Rome's
Temple of Peace have stumbled on what could be the most ancient map from
Rome. Carved on a white marble slab, the half-meter-long map was found
under skeletons of horses near the ancient Macellum, or slaughter house.
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- The refined, skilled carving shows the
Augustus' Forum, complete with arches, staircases, and columns. "Unfortunately
it's an unfinished drawing," says Eugenio La Rocca, Rome's superintendent
of monuments. "The anonymous artist must have found a defect in the
marble, so he gave up his work."
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- Yet the marble slab wasn't throw away;
it was used to build a floor.
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- It has been a blessing -- ancient maps
are extremely rare. The only known "street map" of Rome is the
Forma Urbis Romae, a 60- by 45-foot map carved out of marble in the third
century, during the rule of the emperor Septimius Severus.
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- Adorning the walls of the Temple of Peace,
it detailed every building, street, and staircase in second-century Rome,
until it fell down and broke apart in hundreds of unrecognizable pieces.
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- The newly discovered map is older. According
to the Roman archaeologists, it dates from the first half of the first
century, most probably around 85 A.D.
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- "We got to know several unknown
details about the Augustus' Forum," says La Rocca. "For example
we knew from historical sources that this area was embellished with the
statues of the 'sommi viri,' the great men of imperial Rome. But we didn't
know were the statues stood. The map shows that they were in niches in
the exedras, and probably also along the colonnade."
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- The discovery has been hailed by the
Italian press as one of the most significant in recent times. "These
marble maps are extremely important for our knowledge of ancient Rome,
as they are more precise than literary and epigraphic sources," Andrea
Giardina, historian at Rome's University La Sapienza, tells the daily La
Stampa.
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- According to Giardina, the discovery
has also a symbolic value, related to the present excavations in the historic
center.
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- A few days ago, that excavation, in the
Capitoline Hill, uncovered a 2,800-year-old tomb of a four-year-old girl,
proving that the hill was actually inhabited before 754 or 753 B.C., when,
according to legend, Romulus and Remus founded Rome.
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