The Curia of Pompey is famous for being the place where Julius Caesar died on the Ides of March 44 BC. was stabbed to death. It is of great interest to tourists, historians and archaeologists alike. After analyzing samples of mortar collected by the Curia, researchers from Italy and Spain have confirmed a previous hypothesis that the structure was constructed in three distinct phases a current paper published in the journal Archaemetry.
In ancient Rome, a curia was a structure where the members of the senate met. The great Roman general Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompeius) built this particular Curia as a memorial to his own military achievements. A large theater section contained a temple, stage, and seating at one end; a large portico (which houses the general’s art and books) surrounded a central garden; and the Curia of Pompey was at the other end.
During the reign of Julius Caesar, the Roman senators met temporarily in the Curia of Pompey, after their usual Comitium Curia was discontinued in 52 BC. Chr. (Supporters of a murdered tribune named Publius Clodius Pulcher set it alight while cremating his body.) Caesar’s planned replacement (Curia Julia) was under construction as a backup meeting place when the ruler met his own brutal death at the foot of the Curia of Pompey. The senators who killed him thought assassination was the only way to preserve the Republic, but the assassination ultimately led to the Republic’s collapse.
While the theater complex endured for centuries, the Curia of Pompey did not remain open. After the assassination, the curia was walled up (and possibly set on fire) just 11 years after it opened. A latrine was later built on the site. Buried under more recent construction as Rome expanded, the Curia was only excavated in the 1930s when Italian dictator Benito Mussolini destroyed parts of modern Rome to uncover ancient historical sites. In addition to the Curia of Pompey, these efforts uncovered four temples. The remains of the structure can still be seen in an area of Rome called Largo di Torre Argentina.
The suggestion that the Curia was built in phases is not new. A previous archaeological study analyzed the rock strata (strata) at the site and found that the construction of the curia dates back to around 55 BC. BC began pozzolan roses (pink pozzolan) extracted from volcanic deposits near the city center. Around 19 BC A second phase of construction took place during the reign of Augustus Caesar pozzolan roses taken from a remote location. The third and final phase of construction took place in the Middle Ages.
Fabrizio Marra from the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Rome and his co-authors sought additional confirmation of this hypothesis from the perspective of archaeometry. In particular, they wanted to carry out a chemical analysis of the mortar (concrete) used to build the Curia to determine which quarries provided the building material for each phase of construction. The team also analyzed samples from three basins at the site: two on the west side of Largo di Torre Argentina and the third on the north side of Pompey’s Curia.
As we have already reported, ancient Roman concrete was basically a mixture of a semi-liquid mortar and aggregate. Portland cement (a basic ingredient in modern concrete) is typically made by heating limestone and clay (as well as sandstone, ash, chalk, and iron) in a kiln. The resulting clinker is then ground into a fine powder, with just a touch of gypsum added to give a smooth, even surface. But the aggregate used to make Roman concrete was fist-sized chunks of stone or brick.
In his treatise Architecture (c. AD 30), Roman architect and engineer vitruvius wrote about how to build concrete walls for burial sites that will last a long time without decaying. He recommended that the walls be at least 2 feet (0.6 m) thick and made of either “square red stone, or brick or lava laid in layers”. The brick or volcanic rock aggregate was to be joined with mortar made from hydrated lime and porous glass fragments and crystals from volcanic eruptions (known as volcanic tephra).
“A multitude of works over the past 15 years have demonstrated the extraordinary care with which Roman master builders produced mortar and concrete,” Marra said et al. wrote. scientist have analyzed the mortar used in the concrete that makes up the Markets of Trajanbuilt between 100 and 110 AD (probably the oldest shopping mall in the world). 2017, The same team analyzed the concrete from the ruins of dikes along Italy’s Mediterranean coast that have stood for two millennia despite the harsh marine environment. Researchers found that the secret to this longevity was a special recipe involving a combination of rare crystals and a porous mineral.
And just last year, scientist analyzed samples of the ancient concrete used to build a 2,000-year-old mausoleum along the Appian Way known as the Appian Way Tomb of Cecilia Metella, a noblewoman who lived in the first century AD. The scientists discovered that the tomb’s mortar was similar to that used in the walls of the tomb Markets of Trajan: volcanic tephra from the pozzolan roses pyroclastic flow, connecting large boulders of brick and lava aggregates. However, the tephra used in the tomb’s mortar contained much more potassium-rich leucite.
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