Archaeologists and those interested in Rome’s earliest development will be excited by the recent announcement of Angelo Bottoni, superindent of archaeology in Rome, who says that the Lapis Niger in the Roman Forum will be opened to the public in 2009.
An archaic shrine–at which the oldest known Latin inscription was discovered–the Lapis Niger is a mysterious underground monument made up of an altar next to a truncated stele on which the Latin inscription is carved vertically in boustrophidon style (from left to right, then right to left, and alternating back and forth, “as an ox would plow a field.)
The underground stele and altar are capped by a black marble paving and “fenced off” with white marble slabs as if to keep the sacred spot from being walked upon by pedistrians. In fact, the inscription on the stele curses anyone who tramples or defiles the spot:
Whosoever defiles this spot, let him be forfeit to the spirits of the underworld; whosoever contaminates it with refuse, after due process of law, it shall be proper for the King to deprive him of his property. And whatsoever persons the King shall discover passing on this road, let him bid the Herald seize the reins of their draught animals, to force them to turn aside forthwith and to take the approved detour. And whosoever shall fail to take the approved detour and shall persist in traveling this road, let him after due process of law be sold at auction to the highest bidder.
What was the significance of the Lapis Niger shrine? The Roman historians Tacitus and Livy suggest that the area of the Lapis Niger was associated with the cult of Romulus, the legendary founder and first King of Rome. In the late Republic, tradition held that the ‘black stone’ was the very marker for the tomb of Romulus. Competing tradition held that it was rather the tomb of Hostilius, grandfather of Rome’s third king, Tullius Hostilius.
Rediscovered in the late 19th-century in excavations undertaken by Italian archaeologist Giacomo Boni, the Lapis Niger has been off limits to visitors in the past decades, as it is beneath a concrete covering that Bottini says is decaying. Thus the soprintendenza plans to remove the old cover over the shrine and erect a hut-like structure that will allow visitors to the Forum to view the excavations.
Work is scheduled to begin in December and is part of a larger plan to improve Rome’s archaeological area as a way of celebrating the 2000th anniversary of the birth of the Roman Emperor Vespasian in 2009.
