A poem by Virgil engraved on an 1800-year-old Roman amphora found in Spain (photo)
In the Spanish province of Cordoba, a local resident accidentally stumbled upon a piece of an ancient Roman amphora with a fragment of Virgil's poem "Georgics" engraved on it.
The find measures eight by six centimeters. The surface of this object contains a fragment of text written in Latin.
The researchers from Spain and France who studied the artifact guessed that the second part of the text is probably an excerpt from the "Georgics", a poem written by Virgil in the first century BC. The research was published in the Journal of Roman Archaeology.
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According to the researchers, the artifact is a fragment of the lower part of an amphora belonging to the Dressel 20 type, which was probably used to transport olive oil.
They believe that in the Age of Antiquity, the author of the text wrote it from memory on an unbaked pottery using a stylus. Scientists fail to interpret the top two lines, separated from the rest of the text as they contain only a few letters, so it is not even clear whether there is a connection between them and the other five lines.
The second part of the text is written in vernacular Latin and, according to scholars, it is the first known fragment of the Georgics found on an olive oil amphora.
Background: Publius Virgil Maron, better known as Virgil, was a prominent Roman poet who lived from 70 BC to 19 BC. Virgil was born in the city of Andes,which is now the part of modern Italy.
He is known for his epic poem "The Aeneid", which has become one of the most important works of world literature. "The Aeneid2 tells the story of Aeneas, a Trojan hero who went on a journey that gave rise to the Roman people.
After his death, Virgil was recognized as a great poet and one of the most prominent literary figures of the Roman Empire. His works, which include the "Bucolics" and "Georgics", have been a source of inspiration for generations of writers and poets.
Virgil died at the age of 50, leaving behind an unforgettable legacy in world literature. His works remain age-old masterpieces.
As a reminder, a skeleton of an infant carefully placed in an amphora and the skeletons of three people believed to be the child's family were found in Turkey.
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