Monte Testaccio (Monte dei Cocci)

An artificial hill of stacked amphora sherds between the Aurelian Walls and the left bank of the Tiber, made by the dumping of emptied oil amphorae from the river port. The Sovrintendenza Capitolina, which manages it and records its own field Rione: XX - Testaccio, gives the height as 54 metres and the circumference as about a kilometre. Visits are by booking only, for groups bringing their own guide, up to thirty people a turn, on 060608 between 09.00 and 19.00; individual visits are also possible by booking on a published calendar. The tariff is 4.00 euro full and 3.00 euro reduced, free for residents of Rome and the metropolitan area on production of proof of residence and free for MIC card holders, and it does not include a guide. The Sovrintendenza advises low comfortable shoes, states that the site is not accessible to wheelchair users and that there are no toilets, and forbids approaching the edges, going onto the slopes and picking up sherds.

History

The Sovrintendenza Capitolina dates the tipping to between the Augustan period and the middle of the 3rd century AD. The material is testae, mostly amphora fragments: oil from Baetica left a residue that spoiled quickly, so the jars could not be reused and were broken and stacked in order. Lime was spread through the tip to control the smell of decomposition and has worked incidentally as a binder holding the hill together. A ramp and two cart tracks made the height possible. Many handles carry stamps and tituli picti recording the exporter, the contents, the checks made in transit and the consular date. From the medieval period the hill hosted the ludus Testacie, and in the nineteenth century the ottobrate; the rione article records a palio run here in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, from which the hill's other name, Mons de Palio.

History

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