User:Annapviki/sandbox/Palatinehuts

The Palatine huts are the foundations of three huts from the 8th century BC, excavated in the tufaceous rock of the Palatine Hill in Rome and found in 1948 by the prehistory scholar Salvatore Mari Puglisi, in the area overlooking the Temple of the Magna Mater. It is an important discovery testifying for the first settlements of Rome, relating to the period between the first and second Iron Age ( the period between the 10th century BC and the mid-7th century BC).

Structure of the huts
The huts were built by regularizing the rocky ground, smoothing platforms in the tuff, which was made flat and surrounded by a channel for the elimination of rainwater. Holes were then dug in the bottom to house the wooden poles (usually six) that formed the structure of the house: this is in fact known from contemporary cinerary urns which repeat the shape and are precisely called "hut" typical of Lazio civilization. The plan was oval, with one or two poles in the center to support the roof. They were also equipped with hollows along the perimeter to allow water to drain away and, sometimes, a small porch in front of the entrance made up of two poles and a sloping roof, as the holes for the poles in front of the door suggest.

The walls must have been made of mud, straw and reeds, with a roof framed on inclined beams supported by the central pole. In the center of the hut there was a hearth, as confirmed by the carbonaceous remains found, whose smoke flowed, according to the study of the cinerary urns, from a small window on the roof. Other windows could be located on the sides. The huts were used at least until the mid-7th century BC, however, until the second half of the 6th century BC, we do not have other finds of Roman dwellings.

Nearby, near the House of Livia, a tomb from the 10th century BC was found, and some cisterns cut into the tuff and covered with a false dome, dating back to the 6th century BC. Some scholars believe that these remains are connected to the village of which the discovered huts were part, the "square Rome".

Subsequent layers
On the huts there was the sanctuary of the Casa Romuli, rebuilt and restored several times, which confirms how the ancient legends have been verified by excavations. Plutarch says that the sacred dogwood grew near it, born after Romulus had thrown an auction from the Aventine Hill to test his prowess. The tip was stuck deep in the ground, right near the "future" huts and none of those who tried to extract it succeeded. The earth was so fertile where it had stuck that it produced shoots and then a large plant. This tree became sacred to the Romans and guarded by his successors as if it were one of the most sacred relics,to the point that it was protected with a wall.

At a subsequent layer there are walls in opus quadratum of tuff, which are not aligned parallel, but rather converging towards a hypothetical centre: perhaps it was the theater built by Gaius Cassius Longinus in 154 BC between the Palatine and the Lupercal, which was immediately destroyed by the consul Publius Cornelius Scipione Nasica for fear of dangerous gatherings of the people. The choice of place was probably a consequence of the proximity to the temple of Cybele, in front of which theatrical performances took place during the Ludi Megalenses.

Later the House of Augustus was built on this site. The nearby terraced wall that supports the slopes of the hill, made of opus quadratum of Fidene tuff and Grotta Oscura, can be dated to the beginning of the 4th century BC.