The Declaration of Independence

Note: The following text is a transcription of the Stone Engraving of the parchment Declaration of Independence (the document on display in the Rotunda at the National Archives Museum.) The spelling and punctuation reflects the original.

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Georgia

Button Gwinnett

Lyman Hall

George Walton

North Carolina

William Hooper

Joseph Hewes

John Penn

South Carolina

Edward Rutledge

Thomas Heyward, Jr.

Thomas Lynch, Jr.

Arthur Middleton

Massachusetts

John Hancock

Maryland

Samuel Chase

William Paca

Thomas Stone

Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia

George Wythe

Richard Henry Lee

Thomas Jefferson

Benjamin Harrison

Thomas Nelson, Jr.

Francis Lightfoot Lee

Carter Braxton

Pennsylvania

Robert Morris

Benjamin Rush

Benjamin Franklin

John Morton

George Clymer

James Smith

George Taylor

James Wilson

George Ross

Delaware

Caesar Rodney

George Read

Thomas McKean

New York

William Floyd

Philip Livingston

Francis Lewis

Lewis Morris

New Jersey

Richard Stockton

John Witherspoon

Francis Hopkinson

John Hart

Abraham Clark

New Hampshire

Josiah Bartlett

William Whipple

Massachusetts

Samuel Adams

John Adams

Robert Treat Paine

Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island

Stephen Hopkins

William Ellery

Connecticut

Roger Sherman

Samuel Huntington

William Williams

Oliver Wolcott

New Hampshire

Matthew Thornton

PANTS: From Banned to Required

Go to a meeting with any male politician today and you’re almost certainly going to be standing in front of a man wearing pants, except perhaps in Bermuda, where the eponymous shorts are the nation’s official dress. But in Imperial Rome, obviously, things were a little different—no man of honor would think of wearing what was considered the garb of a savage barbarian.

*Gaulish chief Vercingetorix, wearing trousers, surrenders to Julius Caesar after the battle of Alesia in 52 B.C. (Public Domain)*

When Marcus Tullius Cicero, an eloquent orator and lawyer, was defending the former Gaul governor Fonteius from accusations of extortion, he cited the wearing of pants as a sign of the “innate aggressiveness” of the Gauls—and an extenuating circumstance for his client:

‘Are you then hesitating, O judges, when all these nations have an innate hatred to and wage incessant war with the name of the Roman people? Do you think that, with their military cloaks and their breeches, they come to us in a lowly and submissive spirit, as these do (…)? Nothing is further from the truth.’

Think of it as the “Trouser Defense.”

“Good orators were using rhetoric in a rather sophisticated way—they were picturing foreign tribes in the way that mostly suited their needs, from fierce aggressors to backwards folks, and they were relying on visual imageries to make sure that ‘barbarian otherness’ would stand out,” says Susanne Elm, a historian from the University of California, Berkeley, who studies Rome’s relationship with the tribes to the north, which they collectively referred to as “barbarians.” The breeches were, in this case, a powerful symbol of “otherness.”

A bronze statue of a German, wearing pants, from the 2nd century. Baden-Wurttembergisches Landesmuseum, Suttgart, Germany

Cicero was not alone in relating pants to a primordial, uncivilized life. In 9 A.D. Ovid, by then an acclaimed poet, was exiled by Emperor Augustus, for reasons that remain unclear (but may have had to do with Augustus’s niece). In what is now Tomis, Romania, the poet first encountered barbarians:

‘The people even when they were not dangerous, were odious, clothed in skins and trousers with only their faces visible.’

There were no particular hygienic reasons for the Roman distaste for pants, says Professor Kelly Olson, author of “Masculinity and Dress in Roman Antiquity.” They did not like them, it appears, because of their association with non-Romans.

But opinions change with time, and not long after, the historian and senator Publius Cornelius Tacitus listed pants among a range of “exotic” behaviors of Germanic tribes, whom he praised for having morals unweakened by civilization: river-bathing, ponytails (“wisted tufts resembling horns or plumes”), and pants.

It is not as though every person walking around ancient Rome was wearing a toga—they were more like formal wear. Tunics where the most common garment, sleeveless or short-sleeved for men, and long-sleeved, ankle-length for women. Squeezing one’s legs into stitched fabric was simply not tradition, and not generally demanded by the Mediterranean climate.

*A marble statue of Emperor Augustus, clad in a magistrate’s toga. NY Carlsbert Glytotek, Copenhagen*

However, as the empire expanded, this began to change. Romans and tribes from newly annexed northern lands fought side-by-side to protect their borders from still other barbarians, such as the Visigoths. So military trousers used by Germans or Gauls became the outfit of choice for Roman troops—presumably because they’re more practical on a northern battlefield than flappy tunics.

Evidence of this early trouserization of Roman troops can be seen in the spiral bas-relief of Trajan’s Column, the 98-foot-tall, 12-foot-thick marble monument erected in 113 to honor the emperor’s triumph over the Dacians, pants-wearers from what is now Romania and the region around it. In that depiction, generals and other high-rank figures wear tunics or togas, while common soldiers wear leggings.

*Trajan’s Column, showing Roman soldiers wearing leggings. (Public Domain)*

Like with GPS and the internet, innovations from the military sector slowly spread to civil society. By 397, trousers, in all their odiousness, were becoming so common that brother-emperors Honorius and Arcadius (of the Western and Eastern empires, respectively) issued an official trouser ban. The ban is cited in a code named for their father, Theodosianus, which read:

‘Within the venerable City no person should be allowed to appropriate to himself the use of boots or trousers. But if any man should attempt to contravene this sanction, We command that in accordance with the sentence of the Illustrious Prefect, the offender shall be stripped of all his resources and delivered into perpetual exile.’

“What the ban basically does is that it bans civilians from wearing a military outfit in the capital,” says Elm, “so one could see it as an indirect way to make it easy to distinguish civilians from military men at a time where tension was high.” Four years prior, Emperor Valens had been killed in battle within Roman borders, and a third of the army had been wiped out. So banning trousers could have been a way to make sure that the capital was easier to police, and that fighters were kept out.

The ban could also be read as the desperate attempt of late-period emperors to cling to a sense of Roman identity at a time where the empire had become a melting pot of traditions, after hundreds of years of expansion and cultural appropriation. Long hair and flashy jewels soon joined boots and pants as forbidden fashion.

“Barbarian influence on fashion was something that emperors wanted to control, but then their own bodyguards, which presumably they trusted, were barbarians,” says Elm. “So rather than anti-barbarian, they were mostly anti-barbarian-identity.” Restoring concepts such as “purity” and “identity” is not uncommon in fading empires—authoritarian ways to make rulers feel in control at home in the face of external weakness.

It’s not clear whether the trouser ban had any impact on Roman identity, or was even actually enforced. There is no legal evidence or angry letters. But 13 years after the ban, Visigoth fighters led by King Alaric violently marched into and sacked Rome, an event that most historians consider a critical shove in the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476. The ban was more or less rendered moot.

*An 1890 painting by French artist Joseph-Noel Sylvestre depicts the sacking of Rome by the Visigoths. (Public Domain)*

Of course, pants won in the end. By a century later, the barbarians had claimed the battle for the sartorial soul of the court of Constantinople, the only Roman court left.

“By the fifth and sixth centuries, suddenly the so-called barbarian custom, sleeved top and trousers, had become the official uniform of the Roman court. If you were close to the emperor, that’s what you would wear.” says Olson. “Scholars have not yet been able to explain how that happened, trousers going from being banned to be legally required clothes for the Roman court.”

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/trousers-pants-roman-history-banned-trajan

The REAL Tom Sawyer!

The real Tom Sawyer has been revealed, with new research detailing his life as a hard-drinking and heroic firefighter who once saved 90 people from a steamship fire.

*Samuel L. Clemens, better known as Mark Twain*

Known to generations as one of the most beloved characters in American literature, an extensive feature in Smithsonian Magazine details the life of the man who inspired the fictional child and title character of Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.”

Twain and Sawyer first met in San Francisco in 1863, quickly becoming firm friends who seemingly drank in every saloon the city had to offer, according to the article.

On a rainy afternoon in June 1863, Mark Twain was nursing a bad hangover inside Ed Stahle’s fashionable Montgomery Street steam rooms, halfway through a two-month visit to San Francisco that would ultimately stretch to three years. At the baths he played penny ante with Stahle, the proprietor, and Tom Sawyer, the recently appointed customs inspector, volunteer fireman, special policeman and bona fide local hero.

In contrast to the lanky Twain, Sawyer, three years older, was stocky and round-faced. Just returned from firefighting duties, he was covered in soot. Twain slumped as he played poker, studying his cards, hefting a bottle of dark beer and chain-smoking cigars, to which he had become addicted during his stint as a pilot for steamboats on the Mississippi River from 1859 until the Civil War disrupted river traffic in April 1861. It was his career on the Mississippi, of course, that led Samuel Clemens to his pen name, “mark twain” being the minimum river depth of two fathoms, or roughly 12 feet, that a steamboat needed under its keel.

After Twain’s first usage of the “character” in a book three years later, Sawyer is said to have told a reporter at the time, “He (Twain) walks up to me and puts both hands on my shoulders. ‘Tom,’ he says, ‘I’m going to write a book about a boy and the kind I have in mind was just about the toughest boy in the world. Tom, he was just such a boy as you must have been.'”

Smithsonian magazine details how Sawyer was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. where he was a torch boy for Columbia Hook and Ladder Company Number 14. In San Francisco, he worked for Broderick 1, the city’s first volunteer fire company.

Sawyer had proved his heroism February 16, 1853, while serving as the fire engineer aboard the steamer Independence. Heading to San Francisco via San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua and Acapulco, with 359 passengers aboard, the ship struck a reef off Baja, shuddered like a leaf and caught against jagged rocks.

Sawyer raced below deck and dropped into two feet of water. Through a huge rent, the sea was filling up overheated boilers below the waterline, cooling them rapidly. Chief Engineer Jason Collins and his men were fighting to keep steam up to reach shore. After the coal bunkers flooded, the men began tossing slats from stateroom berths into the furnaces. Sawyer heard Collins cry, “The blowers are useless!”

Loss of the blowers drove the flames out the furnace doors and ignited woodwork in the fire room and around the smokestack. Steam and flames blasted up from the hatch and ventilators. “The scene was perfectly horrible,” Sampson recalled later. “Men, women and children, screeching, crying and drowning.”

Collins and James L. Freeborn, the purser, jumped overboard, lost consciousness and sank. Sawyer, a powerful swimmer, dove into the water, caught both men by their hair and pulled them to the surface. As they clung to his back, he swam for the shore a hundred yards away, a feat of amazing strength and stamina.

Depositing Collins and Freeborn on the beach, Sawyer swam back to the burning steamer. He made a number of round trips, swimming to shore with a passenger or two on his back each time. Finally, a lifeboat was lowered, and women, children and many men, including the ship’s surgeon, who would be needed on land, packed in and were rowed to shore. Two broken lifeboats were repaired and launched. Sawyer returned to the flaming vessel in a long boat, rowing hard despite burned forearms to reach more passengers. He got a group into life preservers, then towed them ashore and went back for more. An hour later, the ship was a perfect sheet of flame.

The Smithsonian article quotes a 1898 newspaper article in which Sawyer told a reporter about the influence he had had on Twain’s most famous novel. “You want to know how I came to figure in his books, do you?” Sawyer asked in the interview, cited by the article. “Well, as I said, we both was fond of telling stories and spinning yarns.”

“Sam (Clemens, Twain’s real name), he was mighty fond of children’s doings and whenever he’d see any little fellers a-fighting on the street, he’d always stop and watch ’em and then he’d come up to the Blue Wing [saloon] and describe the whole doings and then I’d try and beat his yarn by telling him of the antics I used to play when I was a kid and say, ‘I don’t believe there ever was such another little devil ever lived as I was.’

“Sam, he would listen to these pranks of mine with great interest and he’d occasionally take ’em down in his notebook. One day he says to me: ‘I am going to put you between the covers of a book some of these days, Tom.’

‘Go ahead, Sam,’ I said, ‘but don’t disgrace my name.'”

“But [Twain’s] coming out here some day,” Sawyer added, “and I am saving up for him. When he does come there’ll be some fun, for if he gives a lecture I intend coming right in on the platform and have a few old time sallies with him.”

The nonfictional character died in the autumn of 1906, three and a half years before Twain. “Tom Sawyer, Whose Name Inspired Twain, Dies at Great Age,” the newspaper headline announced. The obituary said, “A man whose name is to be found in every worthy library in America died in this city on Friday….So highly did the author appreciate Sawyer that he gave the man’s name to his famous boy character. In that way the man who died Friday is godfather, so to speak, of one of the most enjoyable books ever written.”

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-adventures-of-the-real-tom-sawyer-35894722/

Reconstruction of the Peoples’ House

The 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump, was unlikely to find the White House in anything other than tip-top condition. [NF: Which we now know was untrue!] However, things weren’t quite the same when the 33rd President of the United States, Harry S. Truman, moved into the residence in 1945. To his surprise and dismay, it had serious problems. Not only was it drafty and creaky – it was downright unsafe. Chandeliers in the house were observed swaying for no apparent reason, and floors moved underneath people’s feet when stepped on.

All of the above resulted in a structural investigation being conducted on the building, revealing haphazard retrofitting, fire hazards and a second floor that was on the verge of collapsing. What’s more, the White House’s foundations were sinking, walls were peeling away, and disused water and gas pipes were weighing down the building and making it unsustainable. The situation was so bad that, in June 1948, one of the legs of First Daughter Margaret Truman’s piano fell right through a floorboard of her second-floor sitting room. This event, along with others, made the Presidential family and its aides realize that serious measures were required to save the historic building.

In 1949, Congress approved a $5.4 million project to gut the building in its entirety, replacing its interior while retaining its historic facade. Architects, engineers, and workers toiled for the next 22 months, trying to figure out how to remove unstable structural elements while somehow ensuring the exterior of the building remained intact. All of the construction equipment used on the site had to be carried inside in pieces, then re-assembled before being used in order to prevent exterior damage. The first and second floors were replaced, while several expansions and basement levels were added, including a bomb shelter that was capable of withstanding a nuclear attack. President Truman and his family returned to reside in the White House in 1952, with a small ceremony marking the occasion. The First Family received a gold key to its newly-refurbished residence.

January 3, 1950: A second floor corridor.

November 6, 1950: Workers lay concrete ceilings for basement rooms below the northeast corner of the White House.

February 6, 1950: View from the servants’ dining room.

February 10, 1950: Workers dismantle a bathtub.

February 14, 1950: Workers gut a lower corridor.

February 23, 1950: Workers remove the main staircase.

February 27, 1950: A crane lifts a 40-foot beam towards a second-floor window while workers load debris onto a truck.

March 1, 1950: The east wall of the state dining room.

March 9, 1950: Men stand in the second floor Oval Study above the Blue Room.

May 17, 1950: Bulldozers move earth around inside the gutted shell of the White House.

November 21, 1951: The state dining room.

December 4, 1951: A third floor corridor.

January 4, 1952: Workers install new steps on the South Portico.

January 23, 1952: The state dining room.

February 16, 1952: The South Portico with scaffolding removed.

March 24, 1952: Library of Congress employees place books on the shelves of the West Sitting Room.

March 27, 1952: President Harry S. Truman and First Lady Bess Truman return to the White House after the renovation.

Source: https://www.ba-bamail.com/design-and-photography/the-white-house-renovation-of-the-1950s/

Andrew Jackson’s 1400-pound block of cheese

Despite a humble beginning, Andrew Jackson grew to become a legend. Born in the backwoods of South Carolina, he attended school only sporadically as a boy. By the age of 14, he had been predeceased by both of his parents and his brothers and fought in the American Revolutionary War (during which time he contracted, and survived, smallpox). He was known for his fiery temper and propensity for fighting.

Still, he managed to pull himself up by the bootstraps to become a wealthy lawyer, celebrated general, influential politician and, eventually, President of the United States of America. And, at some point, he was gifted a really, really big wheel of cheese.

Andrew Jackson’s early life

Andrew Jackson was born on March 15, 1767, in the Waxhaws region of the Carolinas. The exact location of his birth is unknown, and both states have claimed him as a native son, though he always said he was from South Carolina. The son of Irish immigrants, his father died before he was born, and his mother and both of his brothers died during the American Revolution. As a result, Jackson would hold a life-long grudge against the British.

Career and political achievements

Despite very little formal education as a child, Jackson started reading law books as a teenager and, in 1787, earned admission to the North Carolina bar. He soon moved to the region that would become Tennessee and began working as a prosecuting attorney. Later, he opened a private practice.

Jackson did quite well in his business and earned enough to build a mansion, the Hermitage (still standing in Nashville today), and to buy slaves. In 1796, he became the first man elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Tennessee and was later elected to Senate in 1797. Only a year later, he was elected judge of Tennessee’s superior county and later chosen to head the state’s militia.

*The Hermitage. The plantation was owned by Andrew Jackson, the seventh President of the United States, from 1804 until his death at the Hermitage in 1845. It also serves as his final resting place.*

During the War of 1812, he held the role of general and twice led the Americans to victory. Later, he ordered an invasion of Florida and, defeating the Spanish, claimed the land for the United States. Though his actions were controversial, they ultimately sped up the U.S. acquisition of the land.

Due to his popularity, many suggested that he run for president. Though he initially protested, supporters managed to get him a nomination. In a five-way race, Jackson neatly won the popular vote, but no candidate received the majority of electoral votes. The House of Representatives was charged with deciding between the three leading candidates: Jackson, John Quincy Adams and Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford. Adams won.

President Andrew Jackson

Four years later, Andrew Jackson won the election, despite an unusually large number of personal attacks. He was the first president not from Massachusetts or Virginia, and people either loved him or hated him–there was no middle ground.

The newly minted president made it clear that he was in charge, and almost immediately he made a decision that would mar his reputation for centuries to come: he suggested moving Native American tribes in the United States to the west of the Mississippi. The forced removal wasn’t completed until two years after he left office, but the great loss of life is largely attributed to his ignoring the corrupt actions of government officials.

On the upside, Jackson’s penny-pinching ways, along with increased revenue, enabled him to pay off the national debt in 1835 and keep the nation debt free for the remainder of his term. This is the only time in the history of the United States that the federal government was debt free.

In October 1840, the city of New Orleans held a silver jubilee celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the American victory over the British in the Battle of New Orleans. This portrait of Andrew Jackson, the aging hero of that battle, was based on a larger oil painting created during the jubilee. Later, to the chagrin of many, Jackson vetoed the re-charter of the Bank of the United States (who was aligned with the opposing party). Despite the unpopularity of this move, he easily won reelection with more than 56 percent of the popular vote.

The big block of cheese

On New Year’s Day 1836, Andrew Jackson received a giant block of cheese. It wasn’t as much a gift as it was a testament to the great state of New York.

Dairy farmer Colonel Thomas S. Meacham of Sandy Creek, NY, came up with the idea in 1835. He believed that creating a gargantuan wheel of cheese from all the local cows, and then shipping it to the president, would help prove New York’s success as a center of farming and industry. Though his efforts were perhaps misguided, he certainly did garner a lot of attention.

According to legend, the finished product was a wheel of cheddar four feet in diameter, two feet thick, and nearly 1400 pounds. It was wrapped in a giant belt that, according to a story in the New Hampshire Sentinel, presented a “fine bust of the President, surrounded by a chain of twenty-four States united and linked together.”

After touring the northeast, the cheese was loaded onto a schooner and set sail for Washington D.C. It was accompanied by five other giant cheeses (though only about half the size) intended for Vice President Martin Van Buren, William Marcy, Daniel Webster, the U.S. Congress, and the legislature of the State of New York.

Upon its arrival at Pennsylvania Avenue, the president simply did not know what to do with it. He gave away as much as he could, and undoubtedly ate his own fair share, but by all accounts, it was left to age sitting on a floor in the middle of the White House.

A giant cheese party

What do you do when you have more cheese than you can possibly eat on your own? You throw a party. And that’s exactly what Andrew Jackson did. Nearing the end of his second term, the president decided that he didn’t really want to pack up a giant cheese and take it with him. Instead, he would make the two-year-old pile of cheese the center point of his last public reception.

*Jackson’s cheese in the East Room of the White house*

10,000 visitors showed up and devoured the stinky wheel in under two hours. According to Benjamin Perley Poore in his 1886 book Perley’s Reminiscences of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis, “For hours did a crowd of men, women and boys hack at the cheese, many taking large hunks of it away with them. When they commenced, the cheese weighed one thousand four hundred pounds, and only a small piece was saved for the President’s use. The air was redolent with cheese, the carpet was slippery with cheese, and nothing else was talked about at Washington that day.”

Unfortunately, even though the cheese was gone, its odor was not. Jackson’s successor, Martin Van Buren, reportedly had to air out the carpet, remove the curtains, and paint and white-wash the walls in the room where the cheese had resided.

Source: https://lulz.com/andrew-jackson-1400-pound-block-of-cheese/

Genghis Khan’s Bizarre Burial: Hidden Graves

There’s an ancient legend that Mongolian Ruler Genghis Khan desired that no one ever know the location of his grave, so he sent an army of men to murder anyone who came in contact with the funeral procession.

The Mausoleum of Genghis Khan is an ornate blue and white octagonal hall. It’s a top-rated tourist attraction outside of Ordos City in Inner Mongolia, which is an autonomous region landlocked inside of China. As many as 8,000 tourists visit each day to pay tribute to Genghis Khan. The main hall of the mausoleum contains a cenotaph – that’s a fancy word for a burial monument that contains no body. That’s because for 794 years, no one has ever figured out where Genghis Khan was buried.

The Mongolian ruler Genghis Khan was born sometime around 1162 near the Burkhan Khaldun mountain in Mongolia. He was the founder and the first Khan – which is a title meaning emperor of the Mongol Empire. His legacy is being an absolutely brutal conquerer.

His armies conquered hundreds of cities and murdered millions of people. In doing so, he created the largest contiguous land Empire in the history of the world – a mass of land equal to around the size of the continent of Africa. Genghis Khan’s Mongol Empire stretched as far West as modern day Poland and as far South as what is now Egypt. While he is remembered for ruthlessness and violence, he was once remembered for spreading culture, science and technology to many parts of the world. His empire was ethnically and racially diverse. He is considered the most successful military conquerer of all time.

The last conquest of Genghis Khan was Yinchuan, the capital of the Western Xia province of China. The Mongols conquered the city and slaughtered it’s entire population in 1227. It’s believed that it was during that battle that Genghis Khan died. No one is certain how he died. Theories range from being killed in battle to falling off his horse to dying from wounds he sustained while hunting – which is a theory that was spread by explorer Marco Polo. A legend that was circulated later was that he was killed by a Western Xia Princess that he had abducted.

The army that the Khan had amassed when he died was more than 129,000 men. So why is it that one of the most famous humans to have walked the Earth has an unknown burial site? The simple answer is he wanted it that way.

Quite a few famous people from history have lost, unmarked or unknown graves. Take Mozart. When Mozart was buried, he was buried in a common grave. He wasn’t ultra wealthy and he wasn’t aristocracy, and as such, his grave was subject to excavation after a period of ten years after his death. This was the practice in Vienna at the time as there wasn’t enough room in the cemeteries. After a period of 10 years, the remains were gathered and added together with other interments to consolidate space. Because of this, over the years, the actual remains of Mozart were lost.

Alexander the Great’s current tomb is unknown. After he was entombed, his grave was repeatedly raided and looted. It was moved, but since then sea levels have changed, earthquakes have changed the land, and entire cities have been built over what was once ancient Alexandria.

Alexander the Great Sarcophagus

Atilla the Hun, Cleopatra – many rulers from history have graves that are now lost. But looking at the burials of people closer to our time might help us to understand why some would want their gravesites to be hidden.

The grave of John Belushi became a place for people to party. The family didn’t like this, nor did the cemetery, so he was moved to a quiet hillside cemetery. The family says that his grave marker there doesn’t actually mark the site of his grave, which has been kept a secret. [Who knows if he is actually buried at either of these sites!]

Nobody knows the location of the gravesite of Steve Jobs. He was a very private person and his family made sure that the location of his gravesite at Alta Mesa Cemetery in Palo Alto has been kept a secret. People wishing to pay respects can sign the guest book at the front lobby of the cemetery.

Going back in time to the 13th century, Genghis Khan had been explicit in the years previous to his death about how he wanted to be buried. He left very detailed instructions about what was to be done to ensure his wish was granted – that no one would ever know where he was buried. This was a tradition in his tribe.

Much of this is legend and very difficult to prove. The sources that are commonly pointed to are that of Marco Polo who journeyed across Asia at the time of the Mongolian Empire, and the Altan Tobchi, which is a 17th century chronicle of Mongolian customs.

The funeral procession was carried out by an army of 800 soldiers. Those soldiers murdered anyone who they encountered on the procession, as well as everyone who attended Genghis Khan’s funeral. They reached the likely site of his burial near the Burkhan Khaldun mountain and Onon River, buried him, and were then killed by a separate group of soldiers who came in at that point. A thousand horses were led to trample the ground of the entire region to obscure any trace of the burial. Additional legends even go so far as to suggest the Mongols redirected the flow of the Onon River to cover the region where Khan was buried.

This is how important it was to Genghis Khan for his burial place to remain a secret. I mean, after you’ve killed as many as 40 million people establish your empire, what are a few thousand more? There have been countless expeditions through the years to locate the body of Genghis Khan. None have been successful. Partly, this is due to the fact that Mongolians don’t want him to be found – they tend to respect the tradition and wishes of the ruler. Some superstitions claim that if the burial is ever discovered, the world will end.

This is probably linked to the fact that in 1941, the tomb of 14th Century Mongolian ruler Tamarlane was opened by Soviet Archaeologists and soon after, Nazis invaded The Soviet Union.

It’s been made even more difficult for researchers to find the site because the region around Burkhan Khaldun mountain has been made into a UNESCO World Heritage Site and as such is off limits for any sort of excavation or research.

Mongolia Badaam Festival

For Mongolians, they’re happy he’s never going to be found. In Mongolia, Genghis Khan is their most celebrated figure. He’s immortalized with statues and monuments throughout the nation and his face appears on their money. The rest of the world may see him as a vicious murderer and conquerer, but for Mongolians, he’s the ruler that united the East and West. He established what would become the Silk Road to enable trade and commerce for future generations. And for that, they want to continue to respect his final wishes.

The Cecil (Suicide) Hotel (Part 2)

Considering all of the deaths and suicides that have taken place at the Cecil Hotel, might there be a horrific history from the 1700’s giving rise to phantoms and ghosts or auras, if you will? People seem to be attracted to certain “spots” around the world, saying things such as “I don’t like the energy coming off of that place” or “there is something dark that draws me here.” Most people use that metaphorically but might there actually be something to it? Hmmm….there is blood in that soil!

The Tongva are an indigenous people of California from the Los Angeles Basin and the Southern Channel Islands, an area covering approximately 4,000 square miles. In the pre-colonial era, the people lived in as many as 100 villages and primarily identified by their village name. The name Tongva is the most widely circulated name and gained popularity in the late 20th century. Others choose to identify as Kizh and disagree over use of the term Tongva.

On October 7, 1542, an exploratory expedition led by Spanish explorer Juan Cabrillo reached Santa Catalina in the Channel Islands, where his ships were greeted by Tongva in a canoe. The following day, Cabrillo and his men, the first Europeans known to have interacted with the Gabrieleño people, entered a large bay on the mainland, which they named “Baya de los Fumos” (“Bay of Smokes”) on account of the many smoke fires they saw there. This is commonly believed to be San Pedro Bay, near present-day San Pedro.

The Gaspar de Portola expedition in 1769 was the first contact by land to reach Tongva territory, marking the beginning of Spanish colonization. Franciscan padre Junipero Serra accompanied Portola. Within two years of the expedition, Serra had founded four missions, including Mission San Gabriel, founded in 1771 and rebuilt in 1774, and Mission San Fernando, founded in 1797. The people enslaved at San Gabriel were referred to as Gabrieleños, while those enslaved at San Fernando were referred to as Fernandeños.

Painting of Mission San Gabriel by Ferdinand Deppe (1832) showing a Gavrieleno kiiy thatched with tule, a giant species of sedge grass.

There is much evidence of Tongva resistance to the mission system. Many individuals returned to their village at time of death. Many converts retained their traditional practices in both domestic and spiritual contexts, despite the attempts by the padres and missionaries to control them. Traditional foods were incorporated into the mission diet and lithic and shell bead production and use persisted. More overt strategies of resistance such as refusal to enter the system, work slowdowns, abortion and infanticide of children resulting from rape, and fugitivism were also prevalent. Five major uprisings were recorded at Mission San Gabriel alone.

It is estimated that nearly 6,000 Tongva lie buried on the grounds of Mission San Gabriel from the mission period.

Two late-eighteenth century rebellions against the mission system were led by Nicolás José, who was an early convert who had two social identities: “publicly participating in Catholic sacraments at the mission but privately committed to traditional dances, celebrations, and rituals.” He participated in a failed attempt to kill the mission’s priests in 1779 and organized eight foothill villages in a revolt in October 1785 with Toypurina, who further organized the villages, which “demonstrated a previously undocumented level of regional political unification both within and well beyond the mission.” However, divided loyalties among the natives contributed to the failure of the 1785 attempt as well as mission soldiers being alerted of the attempt by converts or neophytes.

Toypurina, José and two other leaders of the rebellion, Chief Tomasajaquichi of Juvit village and a man named Alijivit, from nearby village of Jajamovit, were put on trial for the 1785 rebellion. At his trial, José stated that he participated because the ban at the mission on dances and ceremony instituted by the missionaries, and enforced by the governor of California in 1782, was intolerable as they prevented their mourning ceremonies.

Felipe de Neve y Padilla (1724–1784) was a Spanish soldier who served as the 4th Governor of the Californias, from 1777 to 1782. Neve is considered one of the founders of Los Angeles and was instrumental in the foundation of San Jose and Santa Barbara.

Statue of Felipe de Neve, Spanish colonial Governor of Las Californias, in the Los Angeles Plaza. The inscription reads: “Felipe de Neve (1728-84). Governor of California 1775-82. In 1781, on orders from King Carlos III of Spain, Felipe de Neve selected a site near the River Porciuncula and laid out the town of El Pueblo de La Reina de Los Angeles, one of two pueblos he founded in Alta California.

In June 1788, nearly three years later, their sentences arrived from Mexico City, Nicolás José was banned from San Gabriel and sentenced to six years of hard labor in irons at the most distant penitentiary in the region. Toypurina was banished from Mission San Gabriel and sent to the most distant Spanish mission.

Resistance to Spanish rule demonstrated how the Spanish Crown’s claims to California were both insecure and contested. By the 1800s, San Gabriel was the richest in the entire colonial mission system, supplying cattle, sheep, goats, hogs, horses, mules, and other supplies for settlers and settlements throughout Alta California. The mission functioned as a slave plantation.

Some might wonder…..could there be a Tongva burial ground on the site of the Cecil Hotel? Could it be the ghosts of the earliest settlers of that land returning? A sense of despair that somehow seeps in while people are sleeping? Who can say? Do YOU believe in ghosts?

The Cecil (Suicide) Hotel

Nestled within the busy streets of downtown Los Angeles lies one of the most infamous buildings in horror lore: the Cecil Hotel. Since opening its doors in 1927, the Cecil Hotel has been plagued with unfortunate and mysterious circumstances that have given it a perhaps unparalleled reputation for the macabre. At least 16 different murders, suicides, and unexplained paranormal events have taken place at the hotel — and it’s even served as the temporary home of some of America’s most notorious serial killers.

*The original sign on the side of Los Angeles’ Cecil Hotel*

The Grand Opening Of The Cecil Hotel

The Cecil Hotel was built in 1924 by hotelier William Banks Hanner. It was supposed to be a destination hotel for international businessmen and social elites. Hanner spent $1 million on the 700-room Beaux Arts-style hotel, complete with a marble lobby, stained-glass windows, palm trees, and an opulent staircase.

*The marble lobby of the Cecil Hotel, which opened in 1927*

But Hanner would come to regret his investment. Just two years after the Cecil Hotel opened, the world was thrown into the Great Depression — and Los Angeles was not immune to the economic collapse. Soon enough, the area surrounding the Cecil Hotel would be dubbed “Skid Row” and become home to thousands of homeless people.

The once beautiful hotel soon gained a reputation as a meeting place for junkies, runaways, and criminals. Worse yet, the Cecil Hotel ultimately earned a reputation for violence and death.

Suicide And Homicide At “The Most Haunted Hotel In Los Angeles”

In the 1930s alone, the Cecil Hotel was home to at least six reported suicides. A few residents ingested poison, while others shot themselves, slit their own throats, or jumped out their bedroom windows.

In 1934, for example, Army Sergeant Louis D. Borden slashed his throat with a razor. Less than four years later, Roy Thompson of the Marine Corps jumped from atop the Cecil Hotel and was found on the skylight of a neighboring building. The next few decades only saw more violent deaths.

In September 1944, 19-year-old Dorothy Jean Purcell awoke in the middle of the night with stomach pains while she was staying at the Cecil with Ben Levine, 38. She went to the bathroom so as not to disturb a sleeping Levine, and — to her complete shock — gave birth to a baby boy. She had no idea she had been pregnant.

*A newspaper clip about Dorothy Jean Purcell, who threw her newborn baby out of her hotel bathroom window*

Mistakenly thinking her newborn was dead, Purcell threw her live baby out the window and onto the roof of the building next door. At her trial, she was found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity and she was admitted to a hospital for psychiatric treatment.

In 1962, 65-year-old George Giannini was walking by the Cecil with his hands in his pockets when he was struck to death by a falling woman. Pauline Otton, 27, jumped from her ninth-floor window after an argument with her estranged husband, Dewey. Her fall killed both her and Giannini instantly.

Police initially thought the two had committed suicide together but reconsidered when they found Giannini was still wearing shoes. If he had jumped, his shoes would have fallen off mid-flight. In light of the suicides, mishaps, and murders, Angelinos promptly dubbed the Cecil “the most haunted hotel in Los Angeles.”

A Serial Killer’s Paradise

While tragic calamities and suicide have contributed heavily to the hotel’s body count, the Cecil Hotel has also served as a temporary home for some of the grisliest murderers in American history. In the mid-1980s, Richard Ramirez — murderer of 13 people and better known as the “Night Stalker” — lived in a room on the top floor of the hotel during much of his horrific killing spree.

After killing someone, he would throw his bloody clothes into the Cecil Hotel’s dumpster and saunter into the hotel lobby either completely naked or only in underwear — “none of which would have raised an eyebrow,” writes journalist Josh Dean, “since the Cecil in the 1980s… ‘was total, unmitigated chaos.’” At the time, Ramirez was able to stay there for a mere $14 per night. And with corpses of junkies reportedly often found in the alleys near the hotel and sometimes even in the hallways, Ramirez’s blood-soaked lifestyle surely raised nary an eyebrow at the Cecil.

*Richard Ramirez was ultimately convicted of 13 counts of murder, five attempted murders, and 11 sexual assaults*

While some episodes of violence in and around the Cecil Hotel are attributable to known serial killers, some murders have remained unsolved. Such stories of violence are not simply a thing of the past. One of the most mysterious deaths ever to take place at the Cecil Hotel happened as recently as 2013.

In 2013, Canadian college student Elisa Lam was found dead inside the water tank on the roof of the hotel three weeks after she had gone missing. Her naked corpse was found after hotel guests had complained of bad water pressure and a “funny taste” to the water. Though authorities ruled her death as an accidental drowning, critics believed otherwise.

Before her death, surveillance cameras caught Lam acting strangely in an elevator, at times appearing to yell at someone out of view, as well as apparently attempting to hide from someone while pressing multiple elevator buttons and waving her arms erratically.

After the video surfaced publicly, many people began to believe that the rumors of the hotel being haunted might be true.

Horror aficionados began drawing parallels between the Black Dahlia murder and Lam’s disappearance, pointing out that both women were in their twenties, traveling alone from L.A. to San Diego, last seen at the Cecil Hotel, and were missing for several days before their bodies were found.

Thin though these connections may sound, the hotel has nevertheless developed a reputation for horror that defines its legacy to this day.

*After a brief stint as the Stay On Main Hotel and Hostel, the hotel closed. It underwent a $100 million renovation and was turned into $900 to $1,200-a-month “micro apartments.”*

https://allthatsinteresting.com/cecil-hotel-los-angeles

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On December 14, 2021, Cecil Hotel Apartments opened. The 600 units range between 160 and 175 square feet and the common areas include bathrooms and kitchens, which is similar to the hotel’s earlier days. It also offers guarded entry and case management services on-site.

The rooms are exclusively available to rent by low-income Los Angelenos who earn between 30% and 60% of the area’s median income of $24,850 annually. With rent ranging between $900 and $1,200 a month, tenants can use Section 8 housing vouchers to help pay. Three months after it reopened, the building was boarded up against unwanted visitors and discreetly serves its visitors.

Might there be another reason for all the deaths, spawned much further back in history? Stay tuned for part 2 of The Cecil Hotel…..

The Legendary Tayos Caves of Ecuador

The Tayos caves of Ecuador are a legendary vast natural underground network of caves spanning many kilometres, very little of which has been officially explored. The Tayos caves (Cueva de los Tayos) reached worldwide attention in 1973 when Erich von Däniken released his bestselling and controversial book ‘The Gold of the Gods’, in which he claimed that piles of gold, unusual sculptures, and a library of metal tablets had been found in a series of artificial tunnels within the caves. Tayos was also mentioned as the location of Father Crespi’s collection of mysterious golden artifacts, given to him by the indigenous people of Ecuador. Ancient Origins recently carried out the first of a series of expeditions to the caves to explore just what lies within this enigmatic subterranean world. Here are some of the never-before-seen photographs of the caves.

Walking thru a small alley in Tayos Caves

Rapelling down a Tayos Cave

Legendary Metal Library in Tayos Caves

The elusive Metal Library in the Tayos Caves

Library of Metal Books

Father Crespi plays a big part in this story because the local tribes’ people liked him and gave him artifacts as gifts. They gave him so many artifacts throughout his 60 years of being a missionary in Ecuador, that he displayed them and opened a local museum for all to see.

Neil Armstrong the astronaut and treasure hunting? That’s correct. Neil heard about Father’s Crespi‘s collection and he traveled down to see them. It wasn’t long until people came to the realization that points to one fact; these artifacts must have come from a nearby area, and the local tribes know of their whereabouts.

People started to research and even though the village people were closed-mouthed of the location of more artifacts and where they came from, people learned of a great mystery. The local tribespeople knew of an ancient site that they deemed spiritual and secret. People started to learn that these modern day village people knew of a great underground city that they have been protecting for hundreds, maybe thousands of years.

After further inquiring, people learned that the local people were not as friendly about this story and inquiries as they thought. These village people gave the gifts to Father Crepsi out of love and respect but these local tribes didn’t want outsiders to learn about the ancient site.

Neil Armstrong and his large group of professionals and military men did learn that there was a massive cave system not far away.

Could this be the site where Father Crepsi’s artifacts came from? After a large man-scaled hunt, Neil Armstrong’s group did in fact find a cave system. In this cave system, they did find man-made structures, carved tunnels, rooms, and more. It was an exciting find. Newspapers and magazines wrote about the discoveries and the world thought that the collection of artifacts from this lost civilization would be found. The hunt wasn’t unsuccessful but Neil and his group didn’t find the lost treasure that they were hoping to find.

Ancient Roman Villa Discovered Near Pompeii

(Header image: Mosaic uncovered at the Domus Aventino apartment block development. Source: Domus Aventino)

Rome is a place where many archaeological treasures and remains continue to be found. The latest discovery is a luxury villa with many remarkable artifacts and spectacular mosaics. This luxury Roman villa is providing us with new insights into how the elite in Rome lived up to 2000 years ago.

The villa — dubbed ‘Domus Aventino’ — is located at the foot of the Aventine Hill. A region of the city occupied by the regular citizenry (or ‘plebeians’) during the Roman republic, the area became home to the wealthy patricians in the time of the empire, when the villa would have been built. It was located close to the Circus Maximus, as well as a port on the River Tiber

From the discoveries made at this site, we can certainly say that the Roman elite lived in opulence. The domus was found at the foot of the famous Aventine Hill in central Rome in 2015. Originally, this hill was inhabited by poor people, but by the reign of Agustus was where the Roman elite, including senators, made their home, and it’s “not far from the Circus Maximus,” reports Wanted in Rome.

*The Aventine Hill, where the Roman luxury villa was discovered in 2015, as seen from the Palatine Hill in central Rome. (Walter T Crane /Public Domain)*

Ancient Luxury Roman Villa Found In The Heart of Modern Rome

The Roman luxury villa was uncovered, completely by chance, during the earthquake proofing of a 1950s building in central Rome. Archaeologists found a large villa that had been occupied for several generations at the foot of a modern condominium. Their work continued even while a new 180-apartment development rose-up around the archaeological site.

Forbes reports that “The dig revealed six different strata of historical remains, ranging from 8th century BC to 3rd century AD.” This time period stretches from the birth of Rome to the peak of Imperial Roman Power. Among the most important finds were the remains of an 8th century BC stone tower. The Daily Mail reports that “Excavations also revealed a defensive wall from the time of the Roman republic (509–27 BC).” These findings are helping researchers to better understand the topography of Rome in ancient times.

*Remains of the upper-class Roman luxury villa unearthed by archaeologists in central Rome. (Domus Aventino)*

Ancient Roman Villa: A Lavish Home Full Of Treasures

The ancient Roman villa, which would have been known as a domus, was once a sumptuous residence that included many artifacts and wonderful mosaics in its series of rooms. Based on this evidence, “archaeologists believe that the domus belonged to a ‘person of power’,” reports Wanted in Rome. The owners may have been members of the senatorial order because the villa was so luxurious. Daniela Porro, an archaeologist and official who works for the Italian capital, told Forbes that the family who lived here were “probably linked to the imperial family.”

Rome: An Archaeological Jewel At Every Level

Since its discovery in 2015, the archaeologists have unearthed a treasure trove of artifacts in this Roman luxury villa. Among the finds were a hammer, lamps, needles, hairpins, and lacquered bowls decorated with figures from Greek mythology. Also found was a vessel that contained garum fish sauce, which was a delicacy extremely popular with the Roman elite. These finds show that the Roman elite had a very high standard of living.

Though the remains of some great frescoes were also found in the villa, its mosaics are considered to be especially spectacular. The mosaic sections were laid down over a period of two hundred years, beginning in first century AD. The Daily Telegraph quoted Mr. Porro as saying that “Rome never ceases to surprise us. It’s an archaeological jewel.”

*The frescoes and mosaics discovered in the ancient Roman villa are considered to be among the finest ever found. (Domus Aventino)*

Spectacular Mosaics In The Luxury Villa Tell Us A Lot

The mosaics unearthed in the Roman luxury villa were made in the style known as “black and white” because they are almost entirely made from black and white stone cubes. They consist of thousands of tiny cube-shaped stones that are known as tesserae. Black and white mosaics were popular from the 1st century AD onward and have been found all over Italy and beyond. One of the villa’s black and white mosaics has a small section depicting a colorful green parrot. Another one shows a grapevine growing out of a pot.

One of the surface artworks found in the villa was very unusual. It consisted of a series of figure of eight patterns. Robert Narducci, who took part in the villa excavation process is quoted by the Daily Mail as stating that “We’ve not seen it before,” in reference to the figure of eight pattern. At least one of the black and white mosaics contains a Latin inscription. These mosaics would not have been laid down solely for decorative purposes: they were intended to express the splendor and power of the owner of the villa and his family to the wider community.

The Ancient Roman Luxury Villa Is Now An Underground Museum

The elite Roman luxury villa and its artworks have recently been turned into a subterranean museum. To reach the museum, visitors have to enter the newly built apartment complex and go down a staircase. Anselmo De Titta, a senior director with the company that owns the new apartment building told the Daily Mail that “It’s quite a challenge to allow access to the site while protecting the privacy of the condominium’s residents.”

Entrance to Villa

Video projections have been added to the museum’s attractions to enhance the experience. “The walls of the space now enclosing the villa are illuminated with video projections of a Roman senator and his wife walking amid marble busts and ornate furnishings,” according to the Daily Mail. Initially, the villa and its mosaics will be opened two days a month, but if they prove popular, the opening hours will be extended.

https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/luxury-roman-villa-0014369