villa

It takes a leap of faith to walk into a darkened room where the only light you can see is reflected off a floor two metres below you – even if it is the luxury marbled floor of a Roman nobleman's house. Luckily the heavy-duty glass floor was enough to hold my weight, along with that of the other 15 or so visitors exploring the underground space in Italy's first multi-media museum underneath Rome's Palazzo Valentini.

Experts think that the head of a marble statue depicting a young boy, found at Fishbourne Roman Palace in Sussex 45 years ago, might actually be the emperor Nero. This theory has yet to be proven and a 3D laser scan of the marble head on 15 October may provide further evidence.

While Heritage Key's virtual engineers and construction team are still building away on our Nile Villa - a virtual, avatar-accessible reconstruction of an ancient Egyptian villa from the city of Akhetaten, Amarna - Flickr user Higdon took a more physical approach, and resurrected an ancient Egyptian nobleman's villa using Lego blocks.

IMGP6481, originally uploaded by d-higdon.

Each time I visit Pompeii I discover something new that I had not seen before.  Likewise, with exhibits about Pompeii and the ancient Roman communities surrounding Mount Vesuvius, I learn something about Roman culture that I had not encountered before.  Last week when I attended the exhibit, "Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture Around The Bay of Naples" at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, I was fascinated by information about and examples of archaeized Roman art of the 1st century BCE - 1st century CE.

%QUOTEArchaism is the term applied to art produced after 480 BCE that incorporates stylistic elements used in Greek art of the archaic period (700-480 BCE).  These elements include facial features, such as hair with spiral or corkscrew or tight curls across the forehead, high cheekbones, heavy lidded eyes or a slight smile. 

A luxurious villa dating from the time of the emperor Titus Flavius Vespasian has been uncovered in the Sabine countryside about 100km north east of Rome. The size, opulence and date of the villa are very strong indications that it is in the fact the villa of Vespasian himself, who is known to have owned a summer residence in the area near Cittareale, north east of the provincial town of Rieti (also a Roman town).

In September of 2008 a paper came out in the Journal of Applied Geophysics, which reported on a Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) survey of the site of “Le Pozze” in Lonato, Northern Italy. Most of the findings were from the Roman period and include the discovery of a large villa and public building. The researchers estimate that the two structures combined extended over nearly 10,000 square meters of space.

Here is the stopper – the survey was done in 2004. It took four years until it appeared in a journal.

You've just finished a Calippo, had a lunchtime cider and staggered towards the tube in shorts and flip flops - and not a green leaf in site. You stumble onto a packed train and instantly lose ten pints of water, face buried in the pungent pits of a Bulgarian banker. You could go to the city's myriad museums this weekend to grab a piece of the ancient world - but why not escape the madness of the metropolis, and get your fix outside the city limits? Three beautiful Roman villas are waiting for you with open arms, and stunning scenery. All you have to do is jump on a train (or car - or even bicycle if you're feeling really intrepid/suicidal). Not only will you be able to breathe easy once again, but you'll also get a slice of daily Roman life you can't get from looking inside dusty cabinets.

1. Lullingstone Roman Villa, near Eynsford, Kent