ENGLISH
Mount of
potsherds (Testaccio)
The Monte dei Cocci or Testaccio
Mount, is a unique site in the world, a real speciality rubbish
dump of Roman age.
In fact it is constituted by many
layers, stacked with an ordered system, of potsherds (in Latin
testae , from which the name of the mount) of olearie amphoras
disembarked from close fluvial port on the Tevere and destined to
the sale inRome.
The rubbish dump was used for about
three hundred years, from the age of Augusto to the half of III the
century.
In the successive centuries the mount became
place for “out of the walls” trips and festivities
as G.G. Belli remembers in one of its beautiful
sonetti (poems in roman
dialect):
Una Lingua
Nova.
In fact he describes Testaccio
as a “Place where the
plebe runs in springtime, and more in October, and eats and
drinks a lot, because in the mount formed in ancient times by
potsherds (teste) and therefore called Testaccio, coves are
dug within which wines are maintained extremely cold. The
opposite lawn moreover, and the close pyramid of the famous
eater C. Cestio, are places very appropriate to have parties
and noisy entertainment. Indeed in the past times the City of
Rome used to have in that area public and sometimes cruel and
bloody shows.
A little bit further you can find the reformed
cemetery”
(I apologize for my bad translation
J
).
From the XV century, the Testaccio
Mount became the arrival point for the Via Crucis on Saint Friday,
transforming itself in a real Golgota.
Later it will be a privileged place
to spend the Ottobrate, the typical October roman
festivities, when the adorned carts of the Mozzatore
(women who worked to harvest grape) used to parade towards the
taverns and the wine cellars of the Testaccio.
Among songs, poetry, dances,
contests, games and chats, people rested from their work and above
all everybody drank the tasty wine of the Roman Castles, conserved
in the fresh wine cellars dug into the slopes of the
mount.
Cache is a
thin, magnetic,10 cm long, tube. Please, bring your writing
tool.