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Cocciopesto
''Opus signinum'' ('cocciopesto' in modern Italian) is a building material used in ancient Rome. It is a form of Roman concrete (''opus caementicium''), the main difference being the addition of small pieces of broken pot, including ''amphorae'', tiles or brick, instead of other aggregates. Its main advantage over ''opus caementicium'' was that it is waterproof, the reason for its widespread use in Roman baths, aqueducts, cisterns and any buildings involving water. In floors it provided damp-proofing. Pliny the Elder describes its manufacture: Pliny's use of the term ''signine'' references Signia (modern Segni), the town in Latium which was famous for its tiles. Origins, spread, disuse The technique, most probably invented by the Phoenicians, is documented in the early 7th cent. BC at Tell el-Burak (Lebanon), then in Phoenician colonies in North Africa, some time before 256 BC, and spread north from there to Sicily and finally to the Italian peninsula. Floors of ''signinu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Rome
In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC), the Roman Republic (50927 BC), and the Roman Empire (27 BC476 AD) until the fall of the western empire. Ancient Rome began as an Italic peoples, Italic settlement, traditionally dated to 753 BC, beside the River Tiber in the Italian peninsula. The settlement grew into the city and polity of Rome, and came to control its neighbours through a combination of treaties and military strength. It eventually controlled the Italian Peninsula, assimilating the Greece, Greek culture of southern Italy (Magna Graecia) and the Etruscans, Etruscan culture, and then became the dominant power in the Mediterranean region and parts of Europe. At its hei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opus Caementicium
Roman concrete, also called , was used in construction in ancient Rome. Like its modern equivalent, Roman concrete was based on a hydraulic-setting cement added to an aggregate. Many buildings and structures still standing today, such as bridges, reservoirs and aqueducts, were built with this material, which attests to both its versatility and its durability. Its strength was sometimes enhanced by the incorporation of pozzolanic ash where available (particularly in the Bay of Naples). The addition of ash prevented cracks from spreading. Recent research has shown that the incorporation of mixtures of different types of lime, forming conglomerate "clasts" allowed the concrete to self-repair cracks. Roman concrete was in widespread use from about 150 BC; some scholars believe it was developed a century before that. It was often used in combination with facings and other supports, and interiors were further decorated by stucco, fresco paintings, or coloured marble. Further inn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amphorae
An amphora (; ; English ) is a type of container with a pointed bottom and characteristic shape and size which fit tightly (and therefore safely) against each other in storage rooms and packages, tied together with rope and delivered by land or sea. The size and shape have been determined from at least as early as the Neolithic Period. Amphorae were used in vast numbers for the transport and storage of various products, both liquid and dry, but mostly for wine. They are most often ceramic, but examples in metals and other materials have been found. Versions of the amphorae were one of many shapes used in Ancient Greek vase painting. The amphora complements a vase, the pithos, which makes available capacities between one-half and two and one-half tons. In contrast, the amphora holds under a half-ton, typically less than . The bodies of the two types have similar shapes. Where the pithos may have multiple small loops or lugs for fastening a rope harness, the amphora has two exp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thermae
In ancient Rome, (from Greek , "hot") and (from Greek ) were facilities for bathing. usually refers to the large Roman Empire, imperial public bath, bath complexes, while were smaller-scale facilities, public or private, that existed in great numbers throughout Rome. Most Roman cities had at least one – if not many – such buildings, which were centers not only for bathing, but socializing and reading as well. Bathhouses were also provided for wealthy private Roman villa, villas, domus, town houses, and castra, forts. They were supplied with water from an adjacent river or stream, or within cities by aqueduct (watercourse), aqueduct. The water would be heated by fire then channelled into the caldarium (hot bathing room). The design of baths is discussed by Vitruvius in ''De architectura'(V.10) Terminology '','' '','' '','' and may all be translated as 'bath' or 'baths', though Latin sources distinguish among these terms. or , derived from the Greek language, G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pliny The Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24 79), known in English as Pliny the Elder ( ), was a Roman Empire, Roman author, Natural history, naturalist, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the Roman emperor, emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic (''Natural History''), a comprehensive thirty-seven-volume work covering a vast array of topics on human knowledge and the natural world, which became an editorial model for encyclopedias. He spent most of his spare time studying, writing, and investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field. Among Pliny's greatest works was the twenty-volume ''Bella Germaniae'' ("The History of the German Wars"), which is Lost literary work, no longer extant. ''Bella Germaniae'', which began where Aufidius Bassus' ''Libri Belli Germanici'' ("The War with the Germans") left off, was used as a source by other prominent Roman historians, including Plutarch, Tacitus, and Suetonius. Tacitus may have used ''Bella Ger ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Segni
Segni (, ) is an Italian town and ''comune'' located in Lazio. The city is situated on a hilltop in the Lepini Mountains and overlooks the valley of the Sacco River. History Early history According to ancient Roman sources, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the seventh king of Rome, established a Roman colony at the town, then known as ''Signia''. Additional colonists were reportedly sent there in 495 BC. The ancient architectural remains include a circuit of fortification walls built using polygonal masonry. The walls incorporated a system of gates, including the ''Porta Saracena'' which is covered by a large monolithic architrave. Atop the ancient acropolis of Segni sits the podium of the temple of Juno Moneta, which now supports a Medieval church of Saint Peter (tenth century). Later history Segni was a refuge for various popes with Pope Eugene III erecting a palace in the middle of the twelfth century. The Counts of Marsi, hereditary enemies of the Orsini, obtained Segn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tell El-Burak
Tell el-Burak is an archaeological site located in a lush agricultural section of southern littoral of Lebanon, it has been under investigation by the American University of Beirut and the University of Tübingen since 1998. The excavations have revealed three occupations on the tell, the latest in the Ottoman Period, the next in the Iron Age, and the earliest in the Middle Bronze Age. Excavations The German-Lebanese team of archaeologists had conducted most of the excavations of Tell el-Burak by 2011, and the study and analysis of the site is ongoing. During the 2024 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, UNESCO gave enhanced protection to 34 cultural sites in Lebanon including Tell el-Burak to safeguard it from damage. The tell stands prominently amidst agricultural lands on a strip of plain fronted by the Mediterranean Sea and backed by a range of hills. The plain, a well-watered zone, is home to a large agricultural area where fruit trees currently predominate. The conical purpose-buil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Journal Of Archaeology
The ''American Journal of Archaeology'' (AJA), the peer-reviewed journal of the Archaeological Institute of America, has been published since 1897 (continuing the ''American Journal of Archaeology and of the History of the Fine Arts'' founded by the institute in 1885). The publication was co-founded in 1885 by Princeton University professors Arthur Frothingham and Allan Marquand. Frothingham became the first editor, serving until 1896. The journal primarily features articles about the art and archaeology of Europe and the Mediterranean world, including the Near East and Egypt, from prehistoric to Late Antique times. It also publishes book reviews, museum exhibition reviews, and necrologies. It is published in January, April, July, and October each year in print and electronic editions. The journal's current editor-in-chief is Jane B. Carter. The journal's first woman editor-in-chief was Mary Hamilton Swindler. From 1940 to 1950 the journal published articles by Michael Vent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vitruvius
Vitruvius ( ; ; –70 BC – after ) was a Roman architect and engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work titled . As the only treatise on architecture to survive from antiquity, it has been regarded since the Renaissance as the first book on architectural theory, as well as a major source on the canon of classical architecture. It is not clear to what extent his contemporaries regarded his book as original or important. He states that all buildings should have three attributes: , , and ("strength", "utility", and "beauty"), principles reflected in much Ancient Roman architecture. His discussion of perfect proportion in architecture and the human body led to the famous Renaissance drawing of the ''Vitruvian Man'' by Leonardo da Vinci. Little is known about Vitruvius' life, but by his own descriptionDe Arch. Book 1, preface. section 2. he served as an artilleryman, the third class of arms in the Roman military offices. He probably served as a senior of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
