{"id":106637,"date":"2022-06-16T12:15:32","date_gmt":"2022-06-16T10:15:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/?page_id=106637"},"modified":"2022-09-18T17:21:52","modified_gmt":"2022-09-18T15:21:52","slug":"lapis-niger","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/roman-art-and-culture\/roman-architecture\/roman-buildings\/lapis-niger\/","title":{"rendered":"Lapis Niger"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_89 ez-toc-wrap-left counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Chapters<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/roman-art-and-culture\/roman-architecture\/roman-buildings\/lapis-niger\/#discovery-of-lapis-niger\" >Discovery of Lapis Niger<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/roman-art-and-culture\/roman-architecture\/roman-buildings\/lapis-niger\/#old-latin-inscription\" >Old Latin inscription<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p><em>Lapis Niger<\/em> is the oldest (probably from around 500 BCE) and for a long time the most important monument for the Romans, which is located in <b>the <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/roman-art-and-culture\/roman-architecture\/roman-buildings\/forum-romanum\/\">Forum Romanum<\/a><\/b>. It is located in front of the <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/roman-art-and-culture\/roman-architecture\/roman-buildings\/roman-curia\/\">Curia<\/a>, near the Arch of Septimius, surrounded by fragments of wall, near the <em><a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/roman-art-and-culture\/roman-architecture\/roman-buildings\/rostra\/\">Rostra<\/a><\/em> (Lectern).<\/p>\n<p>Lapis Niger is not a stone, but a place covered with slabs of black (hence the name &#8220;black stone&#8221;) marble where, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/roman-art-and-culture\/roman-legends\/\">legend<\/a>, <b><a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/roman-art-and-culture\/roman-legends\/legend-of-romulus-and-remus\/\">Romulus<\/a><\/b> was killed or taken to heaven. This monument is therefore also called the tomb of Romulus. Some ancient writers believed that it was the tomb of Hostius Hostilius (grandfather of one of the <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/roman-constitution\/roman-kingdom\/roman-kings\/\">kings<\/a>) or Faustulus (father of the legendary twins). Ancient sources also mention that there may be located <b>Vulcanal<\/b> &#8211; a sanctuary of <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/roman-religion\/gods-of-ancient-rome\/list-of-roman-gods\/vulcan\/\">Vulcan<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Black marble slabs were placed on the pavement probably in the second half of the 1st century BCE, during the rule of <b><a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/biographies\/gaius-julius-caesar\/\">Julius Caesar<\/a>.<\/b> It was then that the Forum and <em>Comitium<\/em> (place of the people&#8217;s assembly) were rebuilt, creating a rectangle measuring 4 by 3.5 meters, and surrounding it with a stone wall. In this way, a place important for the Romans was set aside; which, however, was not entirely clear to themselves. Lapis Niger was considered a place of immense sanctity and was treated with respect.<\/p>\n<p>The earliest Roman records pertaining to this site indicate that the site was <em>suggestum<\/em> (here the first kings addressed the crowd and the <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/roman-constitution\/roman-republic\/roman-offices\/roman-senate\/\">Senate<\/a>).<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"discovery-of-lapis-niger\"><\/span>Discovery of Lapis Niger<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n    <div class=\"ramka_ze_zdjeciem float-right \"\n         style=\"\">\n\n        <div class=\"zdjecie\">\n            <img\n                class=\"ramka-ze-zdjeciem\"\n                src=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Lapis-niger.jpg\"\n                                alt=\"Old Latin inscription from Lapis Niger\"\n                width=\"289\"\n                height=\"403\"\n               \n               \n            \/>\n\n            <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Lapis-niger.jpg\"\n               rel=\"fancybox\"\n               title=\"Old Latin inscription with Lapis Niger.\">\n                <div class=\"iover\">\n                    <div class=\"zicon\">\n                        <i class=\"fa fa-search-plus\"><\/i>\n                    <\/div>\n                <\/div>\n            <\/a>\n        <\/div>\n\n                    <div class=\"opis\">\n                                Old Latin inscription with <em>Lapis Niger<\/em>.            <\/div>\n        \n                    <div class=\"chmurka\">\n                Creative Commons Attribution license - On the same terms 3.0.            <\/div>\n        \n    <\/div>\n    \n<p>The secret of Lapis Niger was discovered at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries during excavations conducted by the archaeologist Giacomo Boni. Research work under the black plates revealed much older structures, incl. an altar, a fragment of a column or a stone pillar with an old Latin inscription (written with <b>boustrophedon<\/b> &#8211; the way of writing in successive lines of text alternately from right to left and from left to right). This inscription is probably the oldest text in this language.<\/p>\n<p>As it turns out, the ancient Romans deliberately buried this place, and researchers explain that there may have been a Vulcan sanctuary here in the past. This is evidenced by the discovered remains of votive gifts made by the inhabitants of the city.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"old-latin-inscription\"><\/span>Old Latin inscription<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The inscription is severely damaged and we cannot read it. There are various hypotheses as to its message. Some believe that it contains a curse that threatened to desecrate this place, to which even kings were subject. Dionysius of Halicarnassus believed it was an epitaph to Hostilius, which emphasized his bravery against the Sabines, or it was a celebration of Romulus&#8217; victory.<br \/>\nThe plaque was dated in the middle of the royal period (ca. 570-550 CE) and it is one of the earliest known Latin inscriptions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lapis Niger is the oldest (probably from around 500 BCE) and for a long time the most important monument for the Romans, which is located in the Forum Romanum. It is located in front of the Curia, near the Arch of Septimius, surrounded by fragments of wall, near the Rostra (Lectern). Lapis Niger is not [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":38611,"parent":45096,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-106637","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/106637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/106637\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/45096"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}