From Associated Press today:
Nero’s dining room unveiled in RomeSee also here.ROME – Archaeologists say they have unveiled what they believe to be remains of the “dining room” of the Roman emperor Nero, part of his palatial residence built in the first century.
Lead archaeologist Francoise Villedieu says her team discovered part of a circular room, which experts believe rotated day and night to imitate the Earth’s movement and impress guests.
Villedieu told journalists Tuesday that the room on the ancient Palatine Hill was supported by a pillar with a diameter of 4 meters (more than 13 feet). She says only the foundation of the room was recovered during the four-month excavation.
The Golden Palace, also known by its Latin name Domus Aurea, rose over the ruins of a fire that destroyed much of Rome in 64 A.D. and was completed in 68 A.D.
‘Nero’s dining room found’
Room rotated on wooden platform to follow movement of Earth
(ANSA) - Rome, September 29 - A ‘rotating room’ built by Roman Emperor Nero to please his dinner guests has been unearthed, Italian archaeologists say. Excavations in the Domus Aurea (’Golden House’) on the Palatine Hill have revealed remains of a room experts think is the one described by the ancient historian Suetonius in his Lives of the Caesars.
The room contained a wooden platform, Suetonius said, which rotated day and night to follow the movement of the Earth.
It was one of the many attractions of the pleasure dome of the ill-famed emperor who reigned from 54 to 68 AD.
‘’This discovery has no equal among ancient Roman architectural finds,'’ said the superintendent of work on the Palatine, Maria Antonietta Tomei.
Tomei is overseeing a project to shore up the hill that houses the villas of ancient Rome’s great.
Architect Antonella Tomasello is leading the efforts while archaeologists like Francoise Villedieu, leader of the team that made Tuesday’s discovery, have taken the opportunity to make fresh digs.
Rome’s commissioner for urgent archeological work, Roberto Cecchi, on Tuesday earmarked new funds to verify the ‘’hypothesis'’ that the dig has indeed found Nero’s fabled dining room. Recent work has shown that the Domus Aurea is even bigger than previously thought and takes up a huge chunk of the Palatine as well as spilling over onto the Oppian Hill across from the Colosseum.
The only part of the immense structure that has been opened up is a series of underground halls on the Oppian.
But they have been opened and closed several times over the last few decades as restorers and structural engineers struggle to keep the mighty complex from collapsing.
DOMUS CLOSED FOR TWO YEARS.
In June the Domus was again closed, this time for two years, for work to make it completely safe.
In 2005 the palace was shut after masonry fell from flaking walls and a high level of dangerous seepage was detected.
Officials said some 2,600 square metres of the site would be opened after the two-year scheme, leaving several areas still needing attention.
The top of the Domus Oppian Hill is covered with parks, trees and roads whose weight and polluting effect are a constant threat.
Meanwhile, archaeological experts are still trying to unearth more of the massive baths that Emperor Trajan (reigned 98-117 AD) built over the Domus.
The golden palace first re-opened in June 1999 after 21 years in which it was Rome’s best-kept secret - open only to art officials and special guests.
Some five billion lire (2.5 million euros) were spent in refurbishing the visitable rooms filled with surprisingly fresh and lively frescoes of weird animals like winged lions, griffins and tritons which led to the original coinage of the word ‘grotesque’, from the Italian word for cave (grotto).
FLAVIANS BURIED IT.
After Nero’s suicide in 68 AD the Flavian emperors who succeeded him proceeded to bury all trace of the man who already in life was a byword for dissolution, cruelty and excess.
The Flavian amphitheater, better known as the Colosseum, was built on the site of Nero’s palace-side lake, while Trajan built his baths on top of the main part of the sprawling pleasure dome.
Ironically, the Colosseum is so-called because of the massive statue of Nero that his successors dragged beside their own monument - after changing the head, according to some ancient accounts.
Another irony is that, by burying the palace, they actually preserved it so that the finest wall-paintings outside Pompeii, with almost equally vivid colours, can be admired today.
Other interesting touches are the chalk and tallow marks left by Renaissance masters like Raphael who were let down through a hole in the roof to admire its splendours.
Architecturally, the piece de resistance is the eight-sided Sala Ottagonale where Nero is supposed to have entertained his guests with his singing and lyre-playing, all on a rotating floor.
At suitable moments in the fun, the sybaritic emperor is also reported by Suetonius to have given the signal for marble panels to slide back, showering guests with petals and perfume.
When it was completed, a 50-hectare complex spanning the Palatine, Celian and Oppian hills, Nero was reputed to have remarked that finally he was beginning to be ‘’housed like a human being'’.
Comment by Administrator — September 29, 2009 @ 11:37 pm