“Nero’s Rotating Banquet Hall Unveiled In Rome - The Bulletin” plus 1 more

Nero’s Rotating Banquet Hall Unveiled In Rome - The Bulletin

Posted: 04 Oct 2009 01:30 AM PDT

Archaeologists on Tuesday unveiled what they think are the remains of Roman emperor Nero's extravagant banquet hall, a circular space that rotated day and night to imitate the Earth's movement and impress his guests.

The room, part of Nero's Golden Palace, a sprawling residence built in the first century A.D., is thought to have been built to entertain government officials and VIPs, said lead archaeologist Francoise Villedieu.

The emperor, known for his lavish and depraved lifestyle, ruled from 37 A.D. to 68 A.D.

The dig so far has turned up the foundations of the room, the rotating mechanism underneath and part of an attached space believed to be the kitchens, she said.

"This cannot be compared to anything that we know of in ancient Roman architecture," Villedieu told reporters during a tour of the cordoned-off dig.

She said the location of the discovery atop the Palatine Hill, the rotating structure and references to it in ancient biographies of Nero make the attribution to the emperor most likely.

The partially excavated site is part of the sumptuous residence, also known by its Latin name Domus Aurea, which rose over the ruins of a fire that destroyed much of Rome in A.D. 64.

The purported main dining room, with a diameter of over 50 feet (16 meters), rested upon a 13-foot (4-meter) wide pillar and four spherical mechanisms that, likely powered by a constant flow of water, rotated the structure.

The discovery was made during routine maintenance of the fragile Palatine area, officials said.

Latin biographer and historian Suetonius, who chronicled his times and wrote the biographies of 12 Roman rulers, refers to a main dining room that revolved "day and night, in time with the sky."

Angelo Bottini, the state's top official for archaeology in Rome, said the ceiling of the rotating room might have been the one mentioned by Suetonius, who wrote of ivory panels sliding back and forth to shower flowers and perfumes on the guests below.

"The heart of every activity in ancient Rome was the banquet, together with some form of entertainment," Bottini said at the dig. "Nero was like the sun, and people were revolving around the emperor."

That part of the palace — which sprawled across nearly 200 acres (80 hectares) occupying parts of four out of Rome's seven ancient hills — offered a panoramic view over the Roman Forum and a lake, later drained by Nero's successors to build the Colosseum, Bottini said.

Described by Suetonius as one of Rome's most cruel, depraved and megalomaniac rulers, Nero often indulged in orgies and, fancying himself an artist, entertained guests with his own performances of poetry and songs.

However, Nero did not enjoy the frescoed halls and gold-encrusted ceilings of his Golden Palace for too long. It was completed in A.D. 68 — the year the unpopular emperor committed suicide amid a revolt.

AP

Our histories, carved in stone - Medford Mail Tribune

Posted: 04 Oct 2009 02:06 AM PDT

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We mark our history like shallow footprints left in snow, and what little trace we leave, quickly melts away.

Too busy in our daily lives, we forget to ask our passing relatives what they did and why, until it's too late. And they don't write it down. "Who would care?" they ask.

If you go

The Hugo Neighborhood Association & Historical Society offers a self-guided tour of the Hugo granite quarry, including driving instructions that can be accessed on its Web site, www.jeffnet.org/~hugo. To visit the Pleasant Valley Pioneer Cemetery, drive north on Interstate 5 to Exit 61 (Merlin). Turn left at the stop sign and continue a short distance to Monument Drive and turn right. Drive 3.5 miles to the cemetery entrance on your right. Because the cemetery's dirt roads are narrow and deeply rutted, you may want to park in the lower parking area and take a short walk up to the cemetery.

How frustrating that must be for small-town historical groups trying to gather together the history of their happy home. As each voice and memory of those who came before, quickly and inevitably fades away, only a few fragmentary clues are left behind to follow.

Few community organizations have dedicated themselves so tenaciously to recovering their past, as has the Hugo Neighborhood Association & Historical Society.

Beginning in the 1970s and growing through the 1990s, the group's history investigations have blossomed in the 21st century.

Through oral history interviews and hours of research in government and private archives, the group has compiled biographies of pioneer settlers, rediscovered the original route of the Applegate Trail and documented their area's historic buildings.

Hugo is a small village a few miles north of Grants Pass. Its origins date back to the Applegate Trail when a few covered wagon emigrants from the east began to take up land claims nearby.

Three years ago, members of the Hugo Historical group discovered the remains of a quarry that ties together with the earliest remnants of their community.

Said to be the only granite quarry in Josephine County, its stone probably was first used as fill for rail beds by the Oregon & California Railroad in the 1880s. The railroad was inching south toward the California border and the small station near the quarry was called "Gravel Pit."

But, the Hugo group's most exciting discovery came in 2007, when an examination of stone remains at the rediscovered quarry, confirmed that the quarry was without a doubt the source for finished headstones in the nearby Pleasant Valley Pioneer Cemetery.

There are many undated stones in the cemetery, so it's difficult to say when the first pioneer was buried there. The earliest dated marker is for 35-year-old William A. Gibson, who died July 23, 1869.

Best estimates say the quarry was in operation perhaps as early as the 1870s and ceased operation in the late 1920s.

Chinese workers who fell while constructing the rail line may have been buried near the current cemetery entrance. Early residents remembered wooden stakes on what they thought were graves in the now flat and empty area near the old Applegate Trail.

If there were graves, they were temporary. Because of religious beliefs, nearly all Chinese remains in the West were disinterred by Chinese officials early in the 20th century and returned to China.

There are nearly 800 individuals buried in the Pleasant Valley Pioneer Cemetery. Too busy to tell their tale, with descendants now buried with them, most of their stories were lost to us a long, long time ago.

Ours is a fragile history and we mark it in the shallowest of footprints.

Writer Bill Miller lives in Shady Cove. Reach him at newsmiller@yahoo.com.

Biographies

Sunday, October 4, 2009