Monte Testaccio and Vatican Museums

Our next field trip was Monte Testaccio, fondly called “Trash Mountain,” by me. We had seen the outside of this place much earlier in the semester, but were’ allowed to climb Trash Mountain on this trip! While we toured it, our fearless leader went to stand in line for us at the Vatican Museum (the line itself is legendary).

The view from 'Trash Mountain' is good.. and you can see some of the pieces of pottery at the bottom!

Monte Testaccio is made up of pottery. Broken pottery, specifically, pieces of ancient amphorae used to transport oil. They re-used the wine ones, but for some reason, oil-holders were smashed and piled up here, back in the day. It’s a great time for scholars who can figure out when the amphorae were used, and from where they came! The Roman Empire reached some pretty great distances..

The pile itself if pretty wide.

SHERDS!

After that, we were on our way to the Vatican Museum. There is far too much awesomeness contained there to have seen even half of it, let alone post it all here, but we did what we could. Our line experience was nonexistent, and we went right in to see the good stuff.

In one of the first rooms we found this, from the tomb of a family of builders. Sweet crane, eh? I was excited because we had studied this in art history at Vandy.

Then we saw him. Primaporta Augustus.

For Classicists, Primaporta Augustus is a big deal. He's got a lot of symbolism going on in this one little pose. First off, he's studly and authoritative. Then you've got the conservative haircut, with the breastplate depicting the return of the standards from the Parthians. And that's a little Cupid by his foot, mythologically speaking, his cousin. Nice and small compared to big, awesome Augustus, right?

We react to his majesty.

I really enjoyed the Nile River depicted here. Rivers are often seen in a reclining position, surrounded by things that make them special. Check out the Sphinx and other Egytptian stuff with this guy.

Also part of the Nile sculpture: Babies can totally handle alligators.

I've seen this before...

Laocoon and his sons being eaten by serpents is a really famous sculpture at the Vatican Museum. It's from the Aeneid story, wherein Laocoon the priest warns his fellow Trojans not to trust the Giant Wooden Horse the Greeks have left. The Greek suggestion is that it's a gift for Minvera, but Laocoon doesn't buy it. He throws his spear into the side of it. Shortly thereafter he is killed by serpents which come out of the sea and hide in Minvera's temple shortly after devouring him. What Trojan could ignore that kind of a sign?

Augustus. With patera.

Augustus liked to portray himself as a pious guy. This is him with his head covered, in ritual manner, and there is a patera, a little dish used for offerings, in his hand. He wanted to be immortalized making libations to the gods.

I took some pictures of the paintings after we were turned loose, but they didn't come out well.

This is my "I WAS THERE!" photo.