As an American, where we have comparatively little history (we’re celebrating 250 years - some folks in Europe live in houses older than that!) visiting Rome is almost mind blowing to see SO MUCH ancient history right there, and almost everywhere. So cool!
Comparatively few historical ruins built out of materials that would have lasted this long, but a long history, actually, and some you can still see...
Mexico City is a quick plane ride from the USA, and while some of their ruins are buried, you can hop a short bus ride outside the city to walk among standing ruins of Teotihuacan, the largest city in the Western Hemisphere at the time Jesus walked on the Earth. It was 20 square kilometers whereas Rome at the height of the empire had only 14 square kilometers within the Aurelian Walls.
I've been on the Great Wall of China and all over the world and Teotihuacan was fascinating for me to see. Even more intriguing, no one knows who built it. Aztecs discovered it many centuries after it was abandoned and forever wondered about its origin.
There are older structures and artifacts than 250 years, they're just not European in origin. Like Cahokia Mounds in Illinois: https://cahokiamounds.org/
Arrowheads are an example of something that's not too difficult to find in the wild if you know where to look.
> (we’re celebrating 250 years - some folks in Europe live in houses older than that!)
We used to smoke weed on the roman wall behind my friend’s high school. Very popular hangout spot. Lots of people using it for rock climbing practice (you’re not far off the ground and can climb laterally for hundreds of meters).
The local castle, about 1000 years old, is a popular makeout spot for teens.
250 years is longer than the existence of a country called Italy, let alone the Italian Republic. Just like in Italy, the history of people in your area did not start with the founding of your country.
The adobe structures of the American southwest, and mounds in many other areas survived, but for the most part there was not much left of historical value in terms of ruins of structures of the native americans. Europeans more often build with stones, rock, brick, etc and more regularly other more survivable building materials.
I was in Pompeii just 2 weeks ago, the thing that absolutely blew my mind was that there is a section where archeologists are working _right now_ still uncovering more buildings, and you can see them exactly as they are coming out of the ground - I think with the rest of the ruins I've had this feeling that you know, it got somehow cleaned up and repaired a bit for tourists, but nope, you can see in that section of active excavation works that these 2000 years old structures are really coming out of the dirt with the frescoes and mosaics still intact.
And then we went to Paestum, which is an even older Greek settlement in Italy - with the original Greek temples still standing. Mindblowing, and I'm used to old stuff being around(a friend of mine lives in a house where a portion of it is a listed structure dating to the 12th century, it's just a bathroom and a storage room for them lol).
> To William’s complete lack of surprise, the little cellar under the shed was much better built than the shed itself. But then, practically everywhere in Ankh-Morpork had cellars that were once the first or even second or third floors of ancient buildings, built at the time of one of the city’s empires when men thought that the future was going to last for ever. And then the river had flooded and brought mud with it, and walls had gone higher and, now, what Ankh-Morpork was built on was mostly Ankh-Morpork. People said that anyone with a good sense of direction and a pickaxe could cross the city underground by simply knocking holes in walls.
For a modern example, see the Raising of Chicago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago. I think I've seen an image of what the old ground level looks like now, and / or that you can take tours there. There's probably loads of stuff buried there now.
There must be a metaphor somewhere in this, when somehow it is the angry youth that discovers something of value hidden in plain view that no one bothered to look at before !
I visited Rome last year. There was a lot of talk about how long it was taking to build a new subway line, because they kept running into ancient artifacts. It was also commonly said that the city was like a lasagna, with layers upon layers of history under everything. Building that were originally built elevated are now at street level.
It almost seems hard not to find ancient ruins. It then becomes a question of priorities and resource allocation.
If they're so common, why not incorporate into the construction project?
Walk through a modern subway, see bits & pieces of ancient history all over the place. Buy icecream, sit on a bench that labourers hacked out of stone 2ky ago.
I visited Athens in 2006 shortly after the Olympics were held there and the city had been refreshed. The Syntagma Square subway station did exactly this, with layers of archaeology revealed behind glass as you descended the stairs. It was magnificent!
I thought the buildings getting lower was just the ground compressing. The foundation is solid, but the ground underneath still compresses. There are circumstances like Seattle where they literally built up the city, but those are less common
No. The ground does not usually significantly compress under those loads. Remember for much of human history buildings are build with wood and non vitrified bricks that readily break back-down into mud/gravel/organic matter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tell_(archaeology)
In my tuscanian city the university is building a new building for the engineering department. While digging they randomly found an ancient etruscan well. In this case everything went smoothly and timely and it will be preserved, an underground parking near the center had ww2 remains and deeper than that, archeological ones that slowed down the whole thing
Are you okay? They were teenagers. We were all there and we all tried. The logistics of having 7 billion people quarantine while international flights and asymptomatic carriers carried on made it _impossible_ to not play out like it did
In January 2021, the date from the article, it was a totally different scenario from early in the pandemic in Northern Italy. Calling these students murderers is a little histrionic at best.
Mexico City is a quick plane ride from the USA, and while some of their ruins are buried, you can hop a short bus ride outside the city to walk among standing ruins of Teotihuacan, the largest city in the Western Hemisphere at the time Jesus walked on the Earth. It was 20 square kilometers whereas Rome at the height of the empire had only 14 square kilometers within the Aurelian Walls.
I've been on the Great Wall of China and all over the world and Teotihuacan was fascinating for me to see. Even more intriguing, no one knows who built it. Aztecs discovered it many centuries after it was abandoned and forever wondered about its origin.
Archeology is my fav.
Arrowheads are an example of something that's not too difficult to find in the wild if you know where to look.
We used to smoke weed on the roman wall behind my friend’s high school. Very popular hangout spot. Lots of people using it for rock climbing practice (you’re not far off the ground and can climb laterally for hundreds of meters).
The local castle, about 1000 years old, is a popular makeout spot for teens.
And then we went to Paestum, which is an even older Greek settlement in Italy - with the original Greek temples still standing. Mindblowing, and I'm used to old stuff being around(a friend of mine lives in a house where a portion of it is a listed structure dating to the 12th century, it's just a bathroom and a storage room for them lol).
Edit: Actually it was Seattle, you can still visit its old ground level: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Underground
It almost seems hard not to find ancient ruins. It then becomes a question of priorities and resource allocation.
Walk through a modern subway, see bits & pieces of ancient history all over the place. Buy icecream, sit on a bench that labourers hacked out of stone 2ky ago.
So instead of keeping lockdown, they killed bunch of innocent people just to have a party! What sort of person would do that!?
At that time we had military trucks in Italy hauling dead bodies, because regular services could not keep up with all the corpses!
I do not understand why people like that are celebrated now!
And why are u even defending people like that?!