A Life, Lived: Photo Hunt

July 11, 2009

Photo Hunt - Garbage

This week's Photo Hunt theme is "garbage". I was tempted to take a walk when I was at work last week and take a picture of piles of stinking garbage (the garbage workers in Toronto are currently on strike) but In the end I went with this one:

Now before you before you jump to the conclusion that I have lost it . . .

This is the Roman ampitheatre that was built in 1 BC outside the walls of Volterra. It is located 100s of feet below the town walls. When the Roman Empire fell and this theatre was no longer being used the people found thatthis was a convenient spot for them to dump their trash. It was convenient to just tip it over the walls.

Over time the garbage built up and completely covered the structure underneath - where it lay for 1500 years. Finally in the 1950s the ancient garbage was excavated and the ruins were unearthed. So there you have it - ancient ruins protected by garbage!

Lots of the slow travel community members also photo hunt when they aren't traveling. You can find their posts by clicking the links below.

Posted at 05:59 AM in Italy, photohunt, Travel | Permalink

Comments

You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

Interesting, VERY interesting!!

This week's theme will be quite interesting to see what everyone came up with for their photos. Yours, my friend, is excellent actually!!! Mine is posted, come on over to my blog, if you can...

Have a great Saturday.

Posted by: HOOTIN' ANNI | July 11, 2009 at 06:23 AM

Very interesting post! I guess the ruins look better than the garbage - even thought wading through garbage collected over centuries was probably quite interesting, too...

Posted by: bim | July 11, 2009 at 06:37 AM

Well there you go. Garbage for once had a positive effect!

Posted by: jams O'Donnell | July 11, 2009 at 07:02 AM

Great photo and an excellent take on the theme. I too bet it was interesting plowing thru all that old garbage!

Hope you have a great weekend.

Posted by: Annie | July 11, 2009 at 08:07 AM

Perfect choice!
How trashy :-)

Posted by: sandi @ the whistlestop cafe | July 11, 2009 at 09:01 AM

Hi Jerry, very unique and interesting take on this week's theme. That must have been a whole lot of garbage to cover that entire Roman Theatre.

Great photo. Have a great weekend!

Posted by: Kathy (Trekcapri) | July 11, 2009 at 09:14 AM

Good show - now we can see a good side of the garbage dumps ;-)

Posted by: SnoopyTheGoon | July 11, 2009 at 10:50 AM

Well, I bet the soil they excavated from around it was really good soil... sort of a giant compost heap.
My construction trash or garbage is up.

Posted by: srp | July 11, 2009 at 12:53 PM

Excellent shot, Jerry. And great take on the theme. I did not know that, very interesting indeed.

Happy weekend.

Posted by: Candi | July 11, 2009 at 01:15 PM

Interesting take on the theme.

Posted by: Cindy Ruth | July 11, 2009 at 05:51 PM

What an interesting story, Jerry. I bet the trash from ancient times also had stories to tell. You always come up with informative takes on these themes. Wonderful!

Posted by: Eden | July 12, 2009 at 12:27 AM

What interesting facts you "uncovered" in your search for a garbage photo!

Great choice!

Posted by: nancyhol | July 12, 2009 at 12:28 AM

So many ancient sites disappeared under the debris of succeeding civilizations. Some are still hidden, waiting to be discovered!

Actually, I was listening to something on the CBC about an amazingly paleontological site was discovered in a garbage dump, I think in Russia(?). Scientists are racing against time to unearth what they can of the site before the city can begin dumping again.

So sad that "progress" cannot wait for the past to be revealed.

Posted by: Anneke | July 12, 2009 at 04:40 AM