Colosseum Lift That Carried Wild Animals Into Arena Rebuilt

An anonymous reader writes: Archaeologists have built a replica of the lift that was used to move lions and other wild animals into the Colosseum 1,500 years ago. It is estimated that a million animals may have been killed in the history of the arena. It took a year and a half for the archaeologists and engineers to build the 23ft-high timber lift, using only materials that would have been available to the ancient Romans. Gary Glassman, a director who made a documentary about the project said, "One of the reasons we are attracted to the Colosseum is because of the incredible violence that went on here. The question it poses is, how could such an advanced culture have staged such bloody spectacles? The Colosseum is a snapshot in stone, a physical embodiment of the culture of Rome."

Comments

Let me answer this question:

[iamwhoiamtoday]

"How could such an advanced culture have staged such bloody spectacles?"

Because however you doll up humanity..... people are very primal under the surface, and are capable of a great many violent things.

Re:Let me answer this question:

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Arguably, the question should be "how could a less advanced culture have staged such bloody spectacles?"

All kinds of engineering talent, organizational expertise, a logistics and trade network that spanned the Mediterranean world; were necessary to run something like the Colosseum. Those loads of wild animals(some pretty exotic) and ample supplies of variously trained gladiators don't just deliver themselves, you know; nor is building that much stadium seating with rocks and manual labor exactly trivial.(Never mind the 'let's flood the place and have a lethal naval battle' days, those are a huge pain.)

Any mangy barbarian can enjoy drunken brawling, hunting, and the occasional duel or dog fight; but bloody spectacle is something best left to the experts.

Re:Let me answer this question:

[jellomizer]

While advanced culture, there is the human worry that they are not tough enough to handle the world. Watching gladiators kill lions and elephants is the same as use watching Zombie movies. Half of the interest is what is going on in your head, you try to figure out what you would do in their place.
Then the outcome will normally please you.
The gladiator dies, validating that your different approach is better
The animal dies when the gladiator does what you would do, validating your idea.
The animal died with a different method, then you learned a new survival idea.

The moral issue of human and animal life, can so easily be shoved away with propaganda (still today) that for most of the population it doesn't even occur to them.

Re:Let me answer this question:

[Bongo]

And however you doll up humanity today, it is merely an illusion that anything has changed since then.

Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature makes a case that, however bad things look today, the past was much much more violent. Actually his book tries to ask why things have improved so much. Part of our modern feeling that today is terrible, is because we are more sensitive and more empathetic than we've ever been before, so we notice stuff more than we used to. Of course, caveats, not all the planet is living in the 21st Century today, but there is a trend. And we hope it continues. So yes, we are still pretty crappy as humans, but let's not start believing that we are irredeemable—we have made a lot of progress and that means we can make more progress in universal empathy and care and compassion.

How is it

[SuperKendall]

The question it poses is, how could such an advanced culture have staged such bloody spectacles?

So I take it you've not seen a movie made in the last 20 years?

Been living under a rock?

[fahrbot-bot]

That was on the PBS series NOVA on Feb 11, 2015 - I saw it then. Way to be current anon.

Re:Still in sad condition

[m.alessandrini]

What do you mean? Rebuilding it as it was originally? But then it would not be original anymore! There's a reason ancient monuments are kept as they are. Yes of course all monuments desperately need to be better preserved, especially here in Italy. But the Colosseum, for example, lacks much of its external walls because in the centuries after Romans its stone blocks were "stolen" to build other things, before a culture of preserving the past was fully developed. Anyway, nobody would think of rebuilding it, because even as it is, it is a testament of the past history.

Re:Still in sad condition

[phantomfive]

If you're not too picky, you can still check out the Verona Arena, which is still very large and remains in use for concerts today.