Posts Tagged ‘Italy’

Venice stages its own ‘funeral’

Once the centre of a mighty trading empire that dominated the eastern Mediterranean, the “Queen of the Adriatic’s” population has been dropping for years and has just dipped beneath the psychologically crucial threshold of 60,000.
The calamitous population decline, due to a lack of jobs and the [...]

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Ancient auditorium in Rome unveiled

Archaeologists on Wednesday unveiled the remains of an ancient auditorium where scholars, politicians and poets held debates and lectures, a site discovered during excavations of a bustling downtown piazza in preparation for a new subway line.
The partially dug complex, dating back to the 2nd century A.D., is believed to have been funded by Emperor Hadrian [...]

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Archaeologists discover amphitheatre at Portus

University of Southampton archaeologists leading a major excavation of Portus, the ancient port of Rome, have uncovered the remains of an amphitheatre-shaped-building, solving a mystery which has puzzled experts for over 140 years.
The excavation team, working in collaboration with the British School at Rome, is conducting the first ever large-scale dig at Portus on the [...]

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Emperor Nero’s rotating dining room ‘discovered’

Remains of the fabled dining hall have been discovered on the city’s Palatine Hill, where emperors traditionally built their most lavish palaces.
The hall is said to have had a revolving wooden floor which allowed guests to survey a ceiling painted with stars and equipped with panels from which [...]

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Venice in peril

Italian authorities plan to expand Venice’s port into a bustling shipping hub with a new terminal, further “endangering” the fragile lagoon and contributing to the sinking of the city, it has been claimed.
Venice in Peril, a British conservation group that works to preserve the treasured city, [...]

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