Research into ruins

Notes from reading: 'In Ruins' (Christopher Woodward)

• Buildings in Rome from 410-450AD were plundered but not destroyed by the Goths, so where did they go? They were recycled - in the thousand years that followed ancient Rome was remade as Christian Rome. Thieves stole the gold and bronze statues to melt down, and the Colosseum was leased as a quarry by the popes. Lime burning was the most destructive - the best aggregate for mortar is powdered lime and the easiest way to get this is to burn marble... Until the 18th Century, the only houses in the Forum were cottages of the lime-burners and hovels of beggars/thieves.
• English Botanist, Richard Deakin (1855) catalogued at least 40 species of plants growing in the Colosseum - some were so rare that the only explanation was that nearly 2000 years ago seeds had been scattered in the sand from bodies of animals brought in from other countries (Persia, Egypt) for the gladiators.
• In ruins, movement is halted, and time suspended.
• '...dust in the air suspended..' - from a poem of TS Elliot, having served as an air-raid warden in WWII