Makin' mosaics

Lockdown (the second) has given us all a chance to slow down and look at things in a more leisurely way, and for me it's taken me back into  some of my travel photos from my past.  In 2008 I interrailed around Europe, visiting several  amazing cities and fabulous sites along the way.  On one sunny morning in Rome, I took the Metro out of the city in the direction of Ostia.  Something incredible happened that day -  though descended underground in blazing blue-skied sunshine, our train emerged 20 minutes later into a cacophonous thunder storm, and some of the heaviest rain I've ever seen.  Flashes of lightning and howling winds gave an apocalyptic feel - and I made an about-turn and caught the very next train back to Rome.  Incidentally it was on exiting Rome's Porta S. Paolo station that I ran into the Pyramid of Caius Cestius.  "A pyramid in Rome?!?", I hear you scream?  Well, yes, actually.  Built between 18-12 BC, and thought to be based on the pyramids of Nubia (which had been attacked by Rome a decade earlier), the structure is the tomb of the aforementioned Caius Cestius, who may have been a Roman general on that military campaign.  You can only imagine how exotic it must have looked 2,000 years ago.  

Anyway, I digress.  Take two, and the following day my train did emerge in more palatable weather, delivering me at Ostia Antica, the remains of an ancient Roman city, the major port of Rome itself.   In its heyday it sat at the very mouth of the Tiber, although two millennia of silt have had the final say, and the remains of the town are now a good two miles inland.  British archaeology is my true calling, but Ostia Antica must stand alone as the singular greatest archaeological site I've ever visited.  Now, granted I haven't yet been to Pompeii, but I defy even that famous city to impress me more.  It wasn't just that the site was so amazingly preserved, with its street system and buildings, its theatre and its mosaics - it was that on this day, I had the whole place virtually to myself, the town mine to wander and explore to my heart's content.  And I did. I spent all day there.  They couldn't get me out of the place.

One of the things that most stuck with me at Ostia was the abundance of mosaics, both on walls and floors.  And even more amazing to me was that, with a few exceptions, they didn't even bother to fence them off - you could walk on actual 2,000-year-old Roman mosaics of the highest quality.  Now as someone from Britain who sees even the most basic Roman mosaics placed behind glass in order to preserve them (Dorchester literally built a house over theirs) this was something of a revelation, although I couldn't bring myself to trot over them, but diligently marvelled from the sidelines.  

There are many - many - mosaics at Ostia, but my favourite depicts scenes of great importance to the city - fishing, shipping, and trade.  Far beyond anything else, they've stuck with me, and are probably the first thing I think of when I think of Rome (sorry, Colosseum!)  I forget, and cannot find any authoritative source to tell me, exactly where this mosaic was situated - could it have been a market, or a merchant's place of business?  The amphora clearly suggests trade to me, and it's an activity taking place with northern Africa (the palms are the giveaway - palms aren't native to Italy).  Whatever your interpretation, they're just stunning in my opinion.

So stunning, in fact, that over lockdown #2 I decided to grab a slab of air-drying clay, a big bag of glass pieces, and attempt my own version for the garden.  Now, I know it's a shadow of the original, but in a weird and wonderful way it ties in with our location - the Roman Army are known to have camped at Milber Down hillfort just up the road from us, and I have often sat in the garden imagining Imperial soldiers scrabbling down the slopes of what now forms our decking.  Fanciful maybe, but the mere fact that the same people who camped so close to here were also trading with Egypt across the Mediterranean should make us all marvel and the extent of the Roman Empire.

You can see all my photos from Ostia Antica in my photo album.  So that's how my lockdown's been going - what home adventures have you been on?