commissioned by Mussolini, Il Duce.
We can also see, in this view the Capitoline Hill with the oval piazza
designed by Michelangelo, and down here the famous Circus
Maximus, as you can see, the great stadium, the greatest stadium of Rome.
It wasn't the only stadium of Rome, but it was the largest.
And you can see its hairpin shape right
down here.
The hill in question right now is the Palatine Hill,
and this is the Palatine Hill, all of this area here.
And as you look down on it, as you gaze down on
it, you will see the remains of a colossal structure which is actually
a late first century AD palace that was designed under the direction
of the Emperor of Rome at that particular time a very colorful character
that we'll talk about in some detail later in the term, by the name of Domitian.
This is Domitian's Palace on the Palatine Hill.
But that, that, discussion of that palace lies in the future.
What I want to say today is miraculously, the remains of Romulus's village on
the Palatine Hill, founded in the eighth
century BC, actually lies beneath the remains of
the Palace of Domitian in Rome.
And it's two of Romulus's huts on, on
the Palatine Hill that I want to turn to today.
Believe it or not, remains of those huts from the Iron Age are still there.
Now they don't look like much I'm showing
you [LAUGH] what remains of Romulus's huts right there.
And you're probably having a hard time
figuring out exactly what we're looking at.
But what were looking at,
the, the architects that were working for the designers
that were working for Romulus were very clever indeed.
And they realized that the best way to
create a foundation or pavement for their huts
was to use the natural rock of the
Palatine Hill, and that's exactly what they did.
What you're looking at here is the tufa,
tufa, the natural tufa rock of the Palatine Hill.
And what
they did, was they created a rectangular plan.
They gave it rounded corners, and they cut the stone
back about 20 inches down to create that rectangular shape.
They rounded the corners.
And then they put holes in the tufa rock. The holes were to
support wooden poles that serve to, to to support the
superstructure of the hut and also to support the walls of the hut.
So the pavement of the, the tufa rock of
the Palatine is the, is the floor of the hut.
And then these holes support the wooden
poles that supported, in turn, the superstructure.
I now show you a restored view on the left.
And you should all have your monument lists, and should be able to follow along
with the major monuments.
You won't see every image that we're, that I'm going to
be showing here, but you'll show, see a selection there of
the ones that you'll need to learn and be able to
talk about for the midterm the two midterm exams in this course.
But you'll see there this restored view of one of these Palatine huts,
as well as a view of the model that one can actually see in the archaeological
museum that's on the Palatine Hill today.
You can see, as you look at this restored view on the
left, you can see that rectangular plan that we talked about here.
You can see the rounded corners.
And you can see the wooden poles that were placed into
those holes to support the walls and the superstructure of the building.