Anyway as I have already mentioned I have been very busy while in Rome and much of that comes from traveling around. As a part of my program I take a class titled The Ancient City. Essentially this course uses Rome as a classroom. We have a lecture on Monday (usually about 3 hours long) about what we will be studying and seeing for the upcoming week. Tuesday we are out all day. Usually about 8-5 we are on site. The course is set up as a history course and so the early weeks deal with the earliest sites. Thursday is another half day on site. The rest of my time during the week is spent between language and art history. It is a lot of work and can be very tiring at points, but it is very rewarding. It is pretty unbelievable to learn about the early Forum Romanum one day and then to spend the next looking at the actual remains.
Yesterday we went to a few sites outside of Rome. We visited Tarquinia and Cerverteri, which are located north of Rome in the area of ancient Etruria. The Etruscans were early inhabitants of Italy and interacted with the early Romans quite often. There is not much left of their ancient cities (most lie under modern towns), but they have unbelievable necropoleis. The bulk of information we have about the Etruscans comes from their necropoleis.
Here are some pictures:
The pictures are of tombs from Tarquinia. The necropolis has tombs dating from the 6th-5th centuries BC.
Inside of a tomb at Tarquinia. The deceased were laid in sarcophagi on the floor with the walls painted like this:
One of the more impressive ones:
Sorry if the picture quality is a little lackluster, but I had to take them through a plexiglass door.
I will try to be better about updating and adding more pictures.
Adam
I'm glad to be following your travels!
ReplyDeleteLove,Mom