Many people interested in history are amazed by the secrets of the Roman Empire, which conquered many countries, leaving behind grandiose structures that have survived literally millennia. Alternative history adepts believe that the famous aqueducts, the Colosseum, St. Peter's Cathedral and many other incredible buildings in Rome were built using high technology. But these are well-known traces of this great civilization. However, there are several mysteries of Ancient Rome, which are not so widely known, but just as amazing.
1. Ceiling of the Pantheon
The Roman Pantheon is one of the most mysterious buildings in the world. This grandiose structure is not less than 2000 years old. And what is interesting, all these years it has not been repaired. Moreover, from an engineering point of view, the Pantheon is an absolute masterpiece. A huge, sturdy construction, built with incomprehensible precision in detail and the use of mysterious timeless materials.
For example, its floors have not been erased at all over the centuries. Especially striking is its amazing coffered ceiling - absolutely correct geometric shape. Moreover, its size is 43 meters, and its thickness is 12 meters. The Pantheon is illuminated through a single round hole (its diameter is 9 m) in the ceiling, which is called the oculus.
2. Tomb of Evrysak
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This mysterious tomb in Rome looks so strange that even official historians cannot find a decent explanation for its extraordinary form. It was found in the 19th century, when it was decided to remove medieval buildings in Porta Maggiore.
Under one dismantled tower, there was a 13-meter-high Roman tomb. The inscription on it said that this was the grave of the baker Mark Virgil Euryzak. On the top of the tomb there are reliefs that depict the various stages of baking. However, what lies beneath them is still the subject of heated debate. In the lower tier of the table, there are straight vertical pipes, and above them there are the same even horizontal holes. There are different versions of what these mysterious pipes and holes mean. Under one of them - they depict grain storage and elements of dough mixers. On the other hand, these are real dough mixers and a real elevator built into the tomb. In any case, this ancient structure is clearly made with the help of some ancient mysterious tools. Perhaps before becoming the tomb of Euryzac,this building was something else, and the inscription and bas-reliefs on it appeared only later.
3. Portland vase
The Portland Vase is an enigmatic glass vessel from antiquity on display in the British Museum.
Presumably the vase was made at the end of the 1st millennium BC. This decorative vessel is made of two layers of dark blue and white glass, which depicts figures of gods and mortals. The vase was found in the Middle Ages near Rome, for a long time it belonged to the Dukes of Portland, from where it got its name. It is curious that many craftsmen tried to reproduce this vase, but the most skilled carvers and glassblowers did not succeed. The technology for its creation has not yet been clarified.
4. Pyramid of Cestius
Few people know, but in Rome, near the gate of San Paolo, there is a real ancient pyramid. The official history says that it was built between 18 and 12 BC. The height of the pyramid is about 36 meters, the length of the base is about 30 meters. There is a crypt inside it, and according to legends, Rem, one of the founders of Rome, was buried in it.
It is curious that according to the same legends, his brother Romulus was buried in another similar pyramid, which was located in the Vatican and was destroyed in the 16th century. This pyramid is made of very high quality, its blocks are processed without flaws. Interestingly, the pyramid of Cestius in the 3rd century was built into the wall of Aurelian. And this brickwork seems primitive against the background of a much older pyramid.
5. Flexible glass
Flexible glass is a modern development that has appeared not so long ago. With the help of nanotechnology, glass has been created that can bend. But the most interesting thing is that flexible glass first appeared thousands of years ago.
Pliny the Elder wrote that at the beginning of our era a glassblower gave the Roman emperor Tiberius a flexible glass vessel. The master threw this vessel on the floor, but it did not break, but only deformed. The glassblower straightened the vessel with his hands, and it returned to its original shape. Many ancient Greek and Roman vessels have survived, which amaze with their technology, for example, the same Portland vase. Perhaps some of the ancient glass vessels were made of flexible glass - it just never occurred to anyone to test their strength by throwing them on the floor.
6. Storm runoff in Ostia
Ostia Antica is an ancient city close to Rome's Fiumicino airport. Many amazing traces of the past have been preserved here, for example, the sewage system, which is thousands of years old.
But the most surprising is the mysterious hole. It is a storm runoff through which rainwater flows into an ancient sewer. Its shape is also mysterious, as well as how it was carved into solid stone by an unknown way.
7. Roman dodecahedrons
Roman dodecahedrons are objects made of bronze or stone, up to 4 to 11 cm in size. They have twelve flat pentagonal faces, with a round hole in the center that coincides with a similar hole on the opposite face.
They usually date back to the 2nd or 3rd century AD. In total, about a hundred such artifacts were found - in various countries of Europe, but most of them were found in Germany and France. Until now, the functions of these objects remain a mystery. There is no mention of them in historical texts or images of that time.
8. Giant size
Ancient Roman buildings are striking in their size. The already mentioned Colosseum, Pantheon, St. Peter's Cathedral, triumphal arches, Forum are simply huge in size.
By the way, the Colosseum in Italian is called colosseo - from the Latin word colosseus, which means huge - and we call tall buildings and structures colossal. In addition, the surviving ancient Roman statues of people are also significantly taller than human growth - as if they represent representatives of another civilization.
9. Painting of the Capriccio genre and the ruins of Rome
In the XIII century, the genre of painting, which is called capriccio, was very fashionable. Famous artists Robert Hubert, Charles Louis Clerisso, Giovanni Piranesi, Giovanni Paolo Panini and others painted the ruins of Rome, which looked as if the city had survived a devastating war. In these paintings you can see dilapidated grandiose buildings, majestic structures, traces of fires, etc.
The capriccio genre is considered an architectural fantasy - that is, these buildings and these ruins are supposedly fictional. However, many places have survived in Rome, which still look almost the same as in the paintings of the 18th century - this is the same pyramid of Cestius, the Pantheon, the Colosseum, the Forum, etc.
At the same time, many ruins, fragments of columns, even processed stone blocks that lie in the most unexpected places, and sometimes literally in landfills, are still preserved in Rome. Maybe the artists' fantasies were not fantasies after all?
10. Acoustics of the Colosseum
According to legend, the famous Roman Colosseum had incredible acoustics. The word spoken in the arena, even in a whisper, could easily be heard in the back rows. For many years this effect was attributed to the incredible skills of the ancient builders.
However, it is possible that the Roman Empire simply had its own acoustic technique, similar to ours today, including with amplifiers. Naturally, it has not survived millennia, unlike stones. And the incredible audibility in the Colosseum is explained by the presence of high technologies in antiquity …
Author: Natalia Trubinovskaya