Saturday, December 3, 2011

Docents

On our trip to England we went along to Fishbourne Palace.  This place was discovered in 1960 by a developer, preparing the ground for a large housing estate.  He uncovered Roman remains that date back to the year 100 A.D or if you prefer it C.E. (common era.)
I visited the museum in the 70's and wandered around not really understanding what I was looking at, but this time we talked to one of the docents there.  He showed us some of the details of the floors which I had completely missed on my first visit there all those years ago.
This floor for instance is made to have several optical illusions that play with perspectives.  You have to look at it for quite a while to see the designs.

This floor was designed for a rich man.  It's susbsidence is due to an iron age rubbish tip underneath.  They lifted the floor and found another underneath, then replaced the one you see here.  The different stones were brought from the Mediterranean except for the gray ones that were quarried locally.

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