…from the new kitchen.
After a few years absence, it was so nice to taste fresh home made bread 
26 Comments CherryPie on Feb 29th 2012
From the guidebook:
A Roman household would have used the courtyard for exercise and conversation. Flowers and culinary herbs may have been grown there. The surrounding portico provided shelter from the weather, both for the family and also for servants and slaves, who could have used it as covered workspace.
6 Comments CherryPie on Feb 27th 2012
A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real, so (therefore) he escapes the suffering.
Guatama Buddha (563 – 483 BC)
26 Comments CherryPie on Feb 26th 2012
The Villa Urbana was built using only tools and materials that were known to the Romans. The building of the town house had a 6 month deadline and was filmed for a Channel 4 television series called ‘Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day’. The villa is now on display to visitors of Wroxeter Roman City.
From the English Heritage guidebook:
In Roman times, labour was plentiful and cheap. This town house, however, was built by a core team of six modern builders with a range of skills, who were sometimes supplemented by local volunteers. Surveying was done using a groma, a simple instrument the Romans used to lay out straight lines and angles, timbers and stone were both shaped by hand: and human muscle-power took the place of cranes and wheelbarrows, as it would have done in Roman times. As well as avoiding modern power tools and technologies the builders had to turn their hands to many different tasks, including the mosaic and wall-paintings, which in the Roman period would have been the work of highly skilled specialists.
12 Comments CherryPie on Feb 25th 2012
