d497121d Exhibition curator Thomas Rizzo with a gladiator helmet.
Camera Icond497121d Exhibition curator Thomas Rizzo with a gladiator helmet. Credit: Supplied/Andrew Ritchie

Inventions of Ancient Rome to go on display at museum

Aaron CorlettFremantle Gazette

A NEW exhibition at the Maritime Museum in Fremantle will give an appreciation about how ancient Romans have impacted modern life.

Ancient Rome: Epic innovators and engineers opens on Saturday and features meticulously reconstructed technology and machinery.

The exhibition has been created by Artisans of Florence, who boast more than 100 years of hand-crafting historical exhibits.

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“We’ve reconstructed the machine and inventions of ancient Rome for the first time in 2000 years,” Melbourne-based curator Thomas Rizzo said.

“People can come here and see them but they are also interactive, you can see how they work and it’s a different way to experience history.”

Mr Rizzo said he hoped people took away how much of our modern lifestyle was shaped by the Roman Empire.

“The really easy examples are running water, central heating in houses, they had a great sewerage network, all of their cities were plumbed in, which meant they could have huge density of population without disease,” he said.

“There were free public bath houses so that had a high level of hygiene and the road networks were incredible, 80,000km of road networks which are still being driven on today.”

Mr Rizzo said among his favourite items on display was the small scale version of the calcatorian crane, which was used to build large structures like the Colosseum.

“People actually walked around in a giant hamster wheel to lift up these heavy stones,” he said.

d497121a Thomas Rizzo with the small-scale version of the calcatorian crane. Andrew Ritchie
Camera Icond497121a Thomas Rizzo with the small-scale version of the calcatorian crane. Andrew Ritchie Credit: Supplied/Andrew Ritchie

Mr Rizzo will present floor talks Saturday and Sunday at 11am and 2pm.

The exhibition runs until April 26, 2020 and tickets can be bought online.