Trajan’s column “unrolled” in horizontal. Wow!

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A brilliant idea! Finally, you can get an up-close look at Trajan’s Column without having to climb up scaffolding as I once did when the monument was being cleaned up some 30 years ago. Now the city of Rome has transformed the marvelous relief that snakes up the column into a into a photographic reproduction mounted on both sides of a 80-meter long frame located in Piazza del Foro di Traiano, which runs along the back of Trajan’s Forum. Here you can see close up the marvelous carvings that long-dead artists and artisans carved to tell the story of the two Dacian Wars waged by the Emperor Trajan in 101-102 and again 105-106 mostly in the Roman province of Moesia on the Danube.  The column was erected in 113 AD by the Emperor, who reigned from 98 AD to 117 AD  in his forum and has stood there ever since.

The exhibit was inaugurated  last week in Rome by mayor Ignazio Marino and the city’s superintendent for antiquities Claudio Parisi Presicce and will last until the end of September. Another place you can get a good look – and a good lecture – about the column is at the end of the Domus Romanae sound and light show in nearby Palazzo Valentini. At the end of the show, you are treated to a digital 3D presentation that tells you a great deal about this marvelous monument. Then, like the cherry on the sundae, they walk you down a narrow corridor and let you look out a little door for a truly up-close view of the column’s base.

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