Posted on 05/15/2019 9:26:38 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
A beautifully decorated room has been discovered at Emperor Nero's famed Domus Aurea (Golden House) in Rome and brought back to light after 2,000 years. The hall is decorated with panthers, centaurs and a delightful sphinx. Experts chanced upon the room while they were doing restoration work on the vault of a neighbouring part of the palace...
It was made thanks to a platform erected to restore the vault of room 72 od the sprawling and sumptuous complex, one of the 150 rooms hitherto rediscovered in the grand House the controversial emperor built in 64 AD after the great fire that devastated Rome...
(Excerpt) Read more at ansa.it ...
What a great artist the world lost.....
Fascinating. Peter and Paul might have been in the area around that time (if they were not under arrest by then).
I think the original story I saw is this one, the pics are more numerous but not great:
LOL, in his own mind...
It looks like a culvert with graffiti.
It appears to be an artificial grotto. It's amazing to me that the fire of Rome happened in 64 AD, and Nero ordered the construction of the Domus Aurea not long after it had burned itself out. The construction was rapid, and included the Colossus, a 90 foot statue of Nero, which was moved to a new location outside the Flavian amphitheater, which is why it is still called the Colosseum. And Nero died in 68 AD, a mere four years after the fire.
The "delightful sphinx" is almost certainly a long-lost family portrait. We've been looking for it for years. Any idea where I can file a claim?
Pales in comparison to Elvis’ Jungle Room.
PS Elvis died on his throne.
Maybe, but you're seeing just the ceiling. If pictures of other areas of the structure are any indication, the actual floor is many feet below the level of the dirt fill.
For example...
One of the many people giving Hell a tiny bit of it’s ambiance.
Technically, he died *in* his throne...
There's a claims office in Trajan's market, but you'd have to go in person, because they don't have a phone, oh, and the "be back in XV minutes" sign has been hanging on the door for what seems like centuries.
Which means, probably a lot more art to be found.
My only time there was for a conference. I had one extra day to see the city, so I did Rome in a day. I am a pretty efficient tourist, but even I must admit that a little more time would have been desirable.
A day and a half, at least.
The Sistine Chapel is closed on Mondays.
A small crack in a vaulted ceiling led archaeologists to a new room of the Domus Aurea, or “Golden House,” the immense pleasure palace built by the emperor Nero after a fire devastated Rome in A.D. 64. After Nero’s death, the Domus Aurea was seen as the emperor’s folly, and the structure’s interior was completely filled in. A public park for all Romans to enjoy was built on top. It was not until the fifteenth century that, quite by accident, the vast property was rediscovered. Since then, the Domus Aurea has been the site of exploration, excavation—and nearly constant restoration. During one such restoration project, archaeologists found the new room, which is covered in frescoes. “It was very emotional for us to find a previously unknown room, or maybe one that we had lost track of,” says archaeologist Alessandro d’Alessio of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage. The frescoes depict a centaur and other mythological figures, a whistle-like instrument, decorative plants, and a column topped with a golden bowl and sphinx that has given the space its name, the “Room of the Sphinxes.”
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