We started at the mini bald spot. 3-4 groups gathered on the mini-bald spot to create a road, and the others collected on the midi-bald spot. Each aimed to measure a centuriate from there. It took a while for our group to begin, mainly because there was a great debate about the perfect place to…
Hoplite Description the people in the first two rows had interlocking shields and spears while the subsequent rows only had spears. There was no distance between people in the rows but each row was around 2 paces away from each other Materials Learning Curve We spent around an hour on our first formation, the hoplite.…
By: Amalia Pappa, Luisa Cichowski, and Soren Eversoll Featured image: sketch by Em Jahn Introduction In our Experimental Archeology lab last week, we learned how to use an ancient Roman measuring tool called a Groma to perform a variety of surveying tasks. The archeological record shows that ancient Romans were very adept at creating straight…
This week we built and attempted to use basic Roman surveying equipment. The groma, pictured above, has four arms arranged in a cross with weights hanging down from their ends, and from the center. By lining up three cords with a distant point (as Soren and Ruby are doing here), you can guarantee points in…
Group Members: Isabel, Rahim, Bee, Eila The Experiment: We used ancient measurement techniques to complete several different tasks involving drawing out straight lines and right angles onto a field. Most of the data collected was qualitative, since the experiment largely revolved around our experiences using the Groma. A Groma is an ancient tool which allowed…
Road building: In about an hour we were able to build a road from the north-most tree on the field outside Anderson Hall to the grass outside Gould Library. Our road had three right angles and crossed over two sidewalks. We were able to use the groma to easily pass over these areas of cement. …