Why Elite Romans Decorated Their Floors With Garbage
This mosaic is trash.
Why Elite Romans Decorated Their Floors With Garbage
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A close up of the Profane Museum's "unswept room" mosaic in the Vatican. DeAgostini/Getty Images
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In the Vatican’s Profane Museum, there’s one artifact that looks out of place among the ornate sarcophagi and marble statues: a mosaic floor that seems to be covered in the picked-over refuse of a meal.
When you first look down at the mosaic, it looks like the kitchen trash tipped over: Nutshells, olive pits, fruit rinds, and grape stems are strewn about. But if you look closer, the food scraps dissolve into chunks of stone and chips of glass. It’s a