pisa, part 2

The museum of antique boats, Pisa

I prepped for this museum visit by watching two videos on Roman boats a and warfare, presented by scripta manent, a YouTube channel i really like.

The museum ends up also being a mini archeology museum, Bronze Age, early Etruscan, then they have excavated nothing from 450-50 BCE. Then Rome and boats in particular.

2 hours there wore me out! It's one of my 5-8$ museum finds I'm so happy i figured out how to find. First, i took a 2- block detour to get my river walk in, should I not get a second chance.

For anyone who speaks Latin, here's today's quiz. 

Some very large amphora. Early Etruscan. 2500 year old burial goods, amazingly intact

Wait, you want another Latin quiz? Here you go. It's instructions on how to keep Julius Caesar's tomb after he dies, which he wasn't yet. I know that cuz i cheated on my quiz and used Google Lens.

A Large anchor, roman ship.

A film on how they navigated by stars, with useful rhymes to remind sailors, also in Latin. The film was in Italian. Some signs are in English, but I read Italian, and only go look for the 2-3 words i am typically missing. 

Absolutely my favorite thing in the museum. This is a mock-up of the train station departure boards in every station in the country, but it's for ancient boats! Number of days to each port, in Roman numerals. So clever!

A timeline about who controlled Pisa when, with the excavated ships laid in. Excellent signage. Good curators.

Here's a shipwreck they found underwater, recreated.

a boat, a river ferry, i think 

another boat, and a shot where I tried to get some of the ax strokes. You can see them, and it's like you're communing with the boatbuilder across time. So cool.

You don't think about amphora designs often (okay, I'm a Time Team geek, so I do sometimes) but they had many displays on them, world region, time, design, what they carried...  Oops upside-down. Lol. The grain or fish sauce would leak out! This shows how they tied them in and cushioned with straw.

This cool map of marble that was transported throughout the region. The small round bit is Carrera  marble, which I saw the mines for Wednesday.

Graffito of roman fighting ship, probably by a sailor hanging out  after visiting a prostitute or restaurant or both. Very accurate! 

Enjoyed it mightily. A+  museum curators.