Testaccio: The Waste Dump of Ancient Rome

A bustling, slightly "urban gritty" section of the city scene; most people did not appear fresh off the plane from the US (like us), but seasoned residents of the city, young and old alike. There seemed to be more local people just living their lives in Rome.

Lots of store front businesses, restaurants, coffee bars, hair and nail salons, car repair shops and even custom dress makers shops. After being home for a month or more, I realize that most of the better restaurants we experienced were in Testaccio; more diverse than the usual pizza and pasta of Trastevere.

In the Ancient City, Testaccio was an "out-skirt" of the Central City, it was used as a garbage dump of a particular kind: crockery jars that were used to transport and store olive oil could not be re-used because the oily residue in the jar would go rancid and smell bad. Those jars were brought to Testaccio. Over the many centuries these built up into a huge hill of many acres of size---and it stunk!

The sizeable base of the hill is now ringed by one of the most interesting and evocative streets you'll every see.  A hodge-podge of old houses, apartments, store fronts, restaurants, bars, little work shops, more car repair shops, etc. etc. If there is one place I did not take enough photos.....

Looking up the hill, you can see the row upon row of broken and stacked crockery.  The Park is only open at lect times, like Sunday afternoons? or else we would have explored further. Just another place where you can imagine the many generations of workman--probably slaves--breaking and stacking the jars, the smell of the oil--does the residue of the oil still seep out after a big rain??

The emblem of this area.

And just some of the (probably thousands?) of 19th and early 20th Century apartment blocks built to house the workers of those times. So old that they were built without elevators, most probably still without. Laundry and bedding hanging out the windows to air or dry. No screens on the windows? How do they not have mosquitos? Rome was once subject to malaria... hunh. Something else to wonder about.

Not Far from the Non-Catholic Cemetery and Parco Testaccio: Our Destination. And my Favorite Statue.

"The Power Station Museum":  Musei Capitolini Centrale Montmartini.  At first, the unversed like me, might think we were going to visit something with "Mussolini" in it. It's true, the setting for this vast array of beautifully displayed artifacts is a 20th Century power generation plant, complete with machinery (cleaned, painted and impressive).

The funerary sculpture above depicts a baker and his wife from Roman antiquity, featured in discussion by Mary Beard in her television series about lives of the Romans.  "I was a baker. Get It."

Musei Centrale Montmartini, in the lofty, uncrowded, airy setting of the old power plant, off the beaten track in Testaccio was a place I'd like to return to (better prepared) for a dedicated "day long" visit.

This place definitely fit my goal of avoiding "tourist meccas": we arrived midday on a weekday in May. We virtually had the place to ourselves, accept for a few sedate, stylish-looking people who appeared to be Italian or European, maybe artists or academics. (Haha, we were likely the gawky tourists in the mix that day! Except our son: he's an academic.)

Leave out my reflection in the glass, the bronze at the left in identified as Julius Caesar's grandson, Gaius, son of Julia. It is rare when you see anything but an "Unknown Roman".

For Hubsy, there was a huge room dedicated to the display of the Pope's 19th Century rail cars.

Sadly, even though the room was large, there was no way to frame the entire assembly.

Hello Lovely Girl!

Meet "The Muse, Polimnia"

The statue was labelled as a Hellenic or Greek image.

My favorite statue from what I saw in Rome.

Look at her. Whose little teenage daughter, very young new wife, little sister, favorite niece, perfect model (or beguiling young slave, dancer, lover, etc) was she? Her cute little foot peeping out from her robes. Informal posture. Lazy chignon.

I want this for my flower garden. In the thousands of years she has existed, who else has wanted her in their flower gardens?  That kind of speculation is, for me, "What Rome Is All About"; everywhere you look you see something that makes you wonder.

I wonder if other statues like this, a set perhaps, once existed as decoration of some wealthy man's  estate.

 Of course, like so many other statues, it is damaged. I wish the images were not damaged and defaced.