A face appears eerily from beneath the ground at the site of an ancient port that once hustled and bustled supplying goods to the rulers of Rome. The well-preserved statue is one of many stunning artefacts uncovered by British archaeologists, who have unearthed a major amphitheatre at Potus, close to Fiumicino airport.
Blast from the past: A statue head uncovered after a six-year dig by British archaeologists at the site of the ancient port of Portus, which supplied Rome
The ancient gateway to the Mediterranean was twice the size of the port of Southampton and supplied the centre of the Roman Empire with food, slaves, wild animals, luxury goods and building materials for hundreds of years. It is now two miles inland.
The excavation team conducted the first ever large-scale dig at Portus, which has been described by experts as one of the major archaeological sites in the world.
Today it sits incongruously next to the airport runway and the team digs to the sound of jet engines.
The project concentrated on the banks of a hexagonal-shaped man-made lake which formed part of the 2nd century harbour, about 20 miles from the Italian capital, and found the amphitheatre inside a gigantic imperial-style palace. It could have held up to 2,000 people and is similar in size to the Pantheon in Rome.
The unearthed statue
Professor Simon Keay inspecting cellars, untouched for almost 2,000 years (r)
portus
The Roman port is now two miles from the current coastline
Portus project director Professor Simon Keay said he thought the material used to build the amphitheatre means it could have played host to the famous Roman emperors in the 2nd century.
Prof Keay said: 'This amphitheatre is, in fact, tucked away. It's at the eastern end of the palace and it's a very intimate building and you would not even know it was there unless you approached from the east.
'Its design, using luxurious materials and substantial colonnades, suggests it was used by a high status official, possibly even the emperor himself, and the activities that took place there were strictly private: it could have been games or gladiatorial combat, wild beast baiting or the staging of mock sea battles, but we really do not know.
'What we do know is it's unusual to find this type of building with elements of imperial architecture so close to a harbour.'
The well-preserved site of Portus, is close to Fiumicino airport near Rome
Portus was close to the ancient river port of Rome Ostia and was certainly very important and vital to the survival of the Roman Empire and so would have been of interest to the emperors, who would have used it to travel to and from the city.
The team has found a 295ft-wide canal that linked two huge basins where ships weighing up to 350 tonnes unloaded their cargo to Ostia. Cargo could then use the Tiber to travel to Rome.
Geophysical surveys have found what could be remains of a bridge across the canal.
Prof Keay said the dig is very important and has also uncovered thousands of smaller finds.
Stairs to a Roman warehouse, where goods would have been stored at the busy ancient port
'It's going to generate a lot of rethinking about how ports were used and that will change the way we think about Rome's relationship with the Mediterranean,' he said.
'The site has been known about since the 16th century but it has never ever been given the importance it deserves. It has been grossly understudied. This is one of the most important archaeological sites in the world.
'Certainly it should be rated alongside such wonders as Stonehenge and Angkor Wat in Cambodia. So much of this imperial port has been preserved and there is much more to learn about its role in supplying Rome and in the broader economic development of the Roman Mediterranean.'
Discover more by visiting the University of Southampton's website
Southampton University created this computer generated image of how the port may have looked like from the top of the inner lighthouse
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quote:Op donderdag 1 oktober 2009 18:21 schreef Dagonet het volgende:
Nam Portus nou de rol van Ostia over of was het meer een aanvulling erop?
Grr, dat was Boulogne.
Ik denk dat dit Portus de haven is die Claudius liet aanleggen om het verzande Ostia te ontlasten.
-edit-: Ja dus: De juiste Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portus
)wacht met smart op meer foto's en bijzondere vondsten!
Wat konden ze toch al veel in die tijd.
quote:Dan moet je eerst precies weten waar te zoeken. Maar als ze zelfs vlak naast de Pyramiden af en toe nog nieuwe dingen vinden....Op donderdag 1 oktober 2009 19:05 schreef Marble het volgende:
Raar. Je zou toch denken dat alles anno nu wel al ontdekt zou zijn. Desnoods met infrarood of x-rays of wat ze daar ook voor mogen gebruiken.
quote:Er worden dagelijks nog vele vondsten gedaan. Overal ter wereld.Op donderdag 1 oktober 2009 19:05 schreef Marble het volgende:
Raar. Je zou toch denken dat alles anno nu wel al ontdekt zou zijn. Desnoods met infrarood of x-rays of wat ze daar ook voor mogen gebruiken.
.Van de week ook iets in de Grotto Azura op Capri waar Tiberius zwom: zeven voetstukken van een beeldenpartij. Drie van die beelden hadden ze al dus nu gaan ze op zoek naar de andere vier die ergens onder water moeten liggen.
Over de wc:
quote:made of marble near the outside wall of the amphitheatre. It is still possible to sit on the toilet, which was designed to be used by three people at a time and had holes in the front so that users could clean themselves with a brush.
Rose Ferraby, from Cambridge, who helped with the discovery, said: “We are taking out the dirt from the toilet, which is basically ancient human waste, and sampling it to find seeds and even parasites so we can build a picture of diet and the people who were here.
“Toilets also bring up good finds because people tend to lose things down them, like rings, and they are not keen to recover them.
“It’s a very important find and a total surprise but it’s also very human — everyone can relate to a toilet.”