Rome launches SOS for historic sites

Iconic sites risk falling into ruin

ROME, May 25, (Agencies): Rome on Tuesday issued a 500-million-euro SOS to companies, wealthy philanthropists and its own citizens to help restore many of the Italian capital’s iconic historic sites and avoid the risk of some falling into ruin.

The centre of ancient Rome, the Forum, the Circus Maximus and the walls, aqueducts and sewage system of what was once the most powerful city on Earth have all been earmarked as needing help ranging from a relatively minor spruce-up to full-blown structural works.

Saddled with debts of some 12 billion euros ($13 billion), Rome cannot afford to do it on its own.

But City Cultural Superintendent Claudio Parisi Presicce told a press conference that he believed the city could call in some of the reserves of goodwill given Rome’s central role in the construction of Western civilisation. “We need new strategic ideas. We have to create a link between the people living above the modern city and the ancient city that lies beneath them,” he said.

Still reeling from a scandal which revealed widespread corruption in the city administration, Rome officials may struggle to convince city residents to put their hands in their

increased methane emissions,” the authors found — by as much as 1.8-fold.

Agriculture is responsible for about a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Methane, which is about 20 times more efficient at trapping solar heat than the most prevalent greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, accounts for 40 percent of farming emissions.

It comes largely from belching cattle and rice cultivation.

The researchers speculated that antibiotics pockets for the proposed makeover, admitted Francesco Paolo Tronca, the government-appointed official who has been running the city since the end of last year.

“We need help to ensure Rome continues to be a reference point in terms of beauty for the whole world,” said Tronca, who was brought in after the former mayor Ignazio Marino quit over a minor expenses row unrelated to the broader corruption scandal.

The appeal by Tronca, whose role is coming to an end with the approach of fresh mayoral elections, follows a series of successful initiatives which have seen top luxury brands finance prestigious renovation projects in the city.

Renovation

Fashion house Fendi bankrolled the cleaning of the Trevi fountain, posh jeweller Bulgari is in the process of making the Spanish Steps pristine once more and shoemaker/fashion group Tod’s is behind a soon-to-befinished renovation of the Colosseum.

In the wake of those projects, the city has drawn up a new ‘to-do’ list which it has costed at nearly 500 million euros.

Projects include carrying out new excavations under the Forum and

may change microbial activity within the cow gut. This suggested it may also be increasing methane emissions from belching, already known to be much higher than from dung.

Further studies were needed to quantify the contribution of agricultural antibiotic use to global warming, the team suggested.

The routine use of antibiotics in farmed animals in countries like the United States is blamed for contributing to the spread of drug resistance in humans — turning restoring the gladiators’ school that once trained up the legendary fighters to do battle before emperors and ordinary citizens in the nearby Colosseum. An investor willing to put up 10 million euros will be offered the opportunity to claim the credit for restoring 80 fountains and a more modest 600,000 euros would allow the authorities to repair the aqueduct that supplies the Trevi fountain.

Projects

Among the most ambitious projects is a plan to create a walkway around what remains of the city’s Aurelian walls, built in the third century AD and in bad repair in parts. That comes with a nine million euro price tag.

Tronca also presented a list of maintenance tasks which offer lovers of the Eternal City to contribute to its renewal for as little as 300 euros -- the price of weeding required at the remains of an ancient market situated around Trajan’s column.

In related news, Friends, Romans, countrymen! Oh yes, and countrywomen. And people in far-flung nations. Everyone, basically. Rome is seeking all the sponsors it can find to fund the monumental job of restoring and maintaining its hundreds of fountains, statues, archaeological sites and

easily-treatable diseases into potential killers.

Bacteria which make humans and animals ill can develop resistance when medicines are administered unnecessarily, for too short a period or in too small a dose. (AFP)

Aboriginals had innovative axe:

The discovery of what is believed to be part of the world’s oldest axe is giving scientists an historic palazzos.

Perennially short of funds to properly care for the sprawling, two-millennia legacy of art and history, city officials on Tuesday offered their thanks to corporate sponsors of ambitious restoration projects.

Officials said the nation of Azerbaijan has helped to restore a room of the Capitoline Museums, while lighting that has made the boulevard flanking the Imperial Forums a popular romantic evening stroll was paid for by Unilever and Acea, a local utility company.

But Rome is hungry for more such generosity, corporate and otherwise. On Tuesday, officials launched the 100 proposals for patrons campaign listing projects they hope sponsors including rank-and-file citizens will step forward to adopt. They include fountains near the Pantheon, in Piazza Navona and in Villa Borghese park; Trajans Bath, Trajans Forum and archaeological study of an area near Caesars Forum. One proposed adoption is at City Halls front steps: the piazza atop a stepped ramp designed by Michelangelo.

Another proposal is Ludus Magnus, a site of what was the main training school for gladiators, just up the road from the Colosseum.Speech.

insight into the innovation and adaptation of Stone Age settlers in western Australia.

The thumbnail-sized fragment of basalt rock, polished smooth on one end, was discovered in the early 1990s at a rock shelter known as Carpenter’s Gap in the northwest Kimberley region.

In 2014, the artefact was deduced to have come from an axe blade attached to a handle between 45,000 and 49,000 years ago, 10,000 years earlier than anywhere else in the world.

Professor Sue O’Connor of the Australian National University, whose team excavated the piece, believes its significance lies in the understanding that early Aboriginal settlements were not as elementary as first thought.

Professor Peter Hiscock of the University of Sydney, who led the analysis from 2014, agrees.

“The thing that is very clear is that as people have migrated out of Africa and adapted to all the different landscapes they’ve constantly had to invent new ways of making a living, new ways of engaging with each other. And so it’s creativity that is the common thread that underpins the success of humanity and colonising the globe,” he said. Hiscock explained the ground edge of the tiny piece gave weight to the theory that the axe had a handle, as handles are typically found on ground edge specimens from this period.

Archaeologists believe that the fragment may have broken off the axe as it was being re-sharpened.

Hiscock dated the axe fragment using radio carbon analysis on a piece of charcoal buried at the same level in the earth at the archaeological site. The findings were published this month in the Australian Archaeology journal. (RTRS)