Let's see if You can spot it

clerck de bonk

clerck de bonk

Dagobah Resident
I didn't know where to put this and I do feel it deserves another board.
I did some schoolwork (history of urban planning) an stumbled on this picture of the Forum Romanum. Keep in mind that the romans where experts in land survey and very much into rituals and symbols. In fact the city was thought of as a "center of the world" from the very beginning, see link http://pages.stolaf.edu/antiochia2014/files/2015/06/Urban-Spaces-and-Central-Places-The-Roman-World.pdf
So IMO this is no coincidence. Here goes.
https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum_Romanum#/media/File:Map_of_downtown_Rome_during_the_Roman_Empire_large.png
 
Your link doesn't seem to work properly, at least for me. I gather this is what it should look like:

Map_of_downtown_Rome_during_the_Roman_Empire_large.png


Now tell me what we're supposed to spot on it, please. :huh:
 
Palinurus said:
Your link doesn't seem to work properly, at least for me. I gather this is what it should look like:

Map_of_downtown_Rome_during_the_Roman_Empire_large.png


Now tell me what we're supposed to spot on it, please. :huh:
Click to expand...

With the picture that small it should be obvious. The person who framed this particular map chose to tilt it so the impact is greater... So i'm pretty sure (s)he was in on it to.

Try to step away from the screen (that's how I spotted it).
 
Going by the way you're beating around the bush, I think I've now spotted what you're hinting at. :rolleyes:

Won't yet reveal it as to not spoil the party for others. :P

I'm not entirely convinced this is all completely on purpose, as the terrain's features are mostly a given which can be 'sculpted' at best. But who knows... ?

Thanks for sharing anyway.
 
Palinurus said:
Going by the way you're beating around the bush, I think I've now spotted what you're hinting at. :rolleyes:

Won't yet reveal it as to not spoil the party for others. :P

I'm not entirely convinced this is all completely on purpose, as the terrain's features are mostly a given which can be 'sculpted' at best. But who knows... ?

Thanks for sharing anyway.
Click to expand...
Let's not write it off yet :). The hill (Capitoline) has always had this form and the palatine hill is a disturbance in the "picture" (a given) but the rest, all that is built is done on purpose (over time, I'll give You that much). As I said, this is the Forum Romanum here. The Romans didn't take building and planning lightly. This was their center. A very special place to them. Did You read the text I added in the first post?

Here's a map of the hills https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitoline_Hill#/media/File:Seven_Hills_of_Rome.svg

When I said that they knew surveying I implied that they knew how it looked from above.
 
clerck de bonk said:
Let's not write it off yet :). The hill (Capitoline) has always had this form and the palatine hill is a disturbance in the "picture" (a given) but the rest, all that is built is done on purpose (over time, I'll give You that much). As I said, this is the Forum Romanum here. The Romans didn't take building and planning lightly. This was their center. A very special place to them. Did You read the text I added in the first post?

Here's a map of the hills https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitoline_Hill#/media/File:Seven_Hills_of_Rome.svg

When I said that they knew surveying I implied that they knew how it looked from above.
Click to expand...

I had glanced through your PDF-file at first and have now taken another more thorough look into it since you're giving it so much weight, but I'm still very skeptical.

What we're looking at is an aerial overview of a city part that has been developed and redeveloped for over six centuries.

It wouldn't take much more than an initial lay-out of a central axis orientation from the midst between the two hills in a roughly west-east line and subsequently sticking to that central axis during all ages that followed, to get the result mapped out.

City planning is one thing (and I admit the ancient Romans were very good at it) but city development is another process all together, which is more of an organic nature I think. Once you start building and developing your options dwindle very rapidly because of what's already there -- unless one could repeatedly start over from scratch and that's not going to happen very often, if at all.

So the end result may suggest a certain shape or form but it's uncertain (in my view) whether they had that shape specifically in mind when they first started out all the way back. It's a form of projecting backwards to suppose so. In German it's called "hineininterpretieren" when you do such and I'm very wary of anything that even remotely looks like it. But that's just me of course.
 
Keep in mind that the various structures were built at widely different time periods. So, the "pattern recognition" business is just coincidental... or engineered by 4D - the only ones who might have such a bird's eye view that long ago.
 
clerck de bonk, since this isn't a 'brick wall illusion' or some such, why don't you just tell us what you think you see.
 
Laura said:
Keep in mind that the various structures were built at widely different time periods. So, the "pattern recognition" business is just coincidental... or engineered by 4D - the only ones who might have such a bird's eye view that long ago.
Click to expand...
Yes I kept all that in mind, still doesn't change the result. As I said earlier, with surveying You have a bird's eye view. That's kinda like the point of surveying ;)
But let's call it a night for now.
 
Felipe4 said:
:cool2: Hmm interesting...

I'm assuming the Lucus Asyli is "grass"
Click to expand...
:lol: Good catch! There are also plenty of other names that IMO backs up my theory. The temple of Venus (Veneris) and Rome, the Vestas had their abode here (very important), the placement of Lapis Niger isn't shown in the picture.
 
If you want to know how developed their city planning really was I advise you to take a look at the Forma Urbis site.
This site is "dedicated to exploring the Forma Urbis Romae, or Severan Marble Plan of Rome. This enormous map, measuring ca. 18.10 x 13 meters (ca. 60 x 43 feet), was carved between 203-211 CE and covered an entire wall inside the Templum Pacis in Rome. It depicted the groundplan of every architectural feature in the ancient city, from large public monuments to small shops, rooms, and even staircases."
http://formaurbis.stanford.edu/index.html
 
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