Villa Romana del Casale

An Unesco World Heritage Site mainly owing to the largest collection of Roman mosaics in the world - there are 3535 square metres of them. Built as a hunting lodge starting in the late 4th century, it is believed to have been used by Diocletian's co-emperor, Marcus Aurelius Maximianus. The buildings were covered by a mudslide in the 12th century, after some medievil infractions unfortunately, (like building ovens for firing clay on some of the floors,) and they place has only started to be cleaned up in the last 60 years.
Very naturalistic in style they give an insight into Roman life. The 100 foot "hunting gallery" is a depiction of every stage of the 'hunt', from capturing animals in Africa to chasing them down in the park or arena.
Two sets I particularly liked. The girls in bikinis taking part in the womens pentathlon would not have aroused much comment if they appeared on TV today. They remind us how little different people were then compared to now. The children's chariot race, mimicing the grown up ones even down to the four team colours, (white, red, blue,green;) but using birds to draw the chariot is something I can hardly imagine - geese? ducks? pheasant? - but that is how it is recorded, even down to the little boys whose job it was to keep the birds moving and throwing water to cool them.
The painting is an archaeological reconstruction of what it may have looked like based on the fragments of paint etc recovered from the stone.
Since it was dark and the viewing angles difficult, I did not take many shots but better pictures can be seen here:
https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/832/gallery/
https://martinaway.com/villa-romana-del-casale-…Leggi altro