Leaning Tower of Decadence: Colosseum Sinking, Engineers Report

What is it with leaning buildings? You'd think they'd get it right by now. But now comes word that the Colosseum, one of the most famous and recognizable relics of the successes and excesses of the Roman Empire, is on a slant, more than a foot lower on the south side than on the north side. I guess, though, the first serious settling in a couple of millennia is a wonder to behold.


The Romans built things to last: temples, baths, roads, aqueducts. They didn't do so well with less tangible things like the Republic or the Empire, but they sure knew how to use stone to good effect.


You could argue that not too many Roman roads are around anymore, and that is true, in large part because we've found better uses for that land, like building modern roads or settlements. Earthquakes have claimed more than a fair share of temples and aqueducts through the years. Some of the more famous temples are still standing, as are some amazing aqueducts. Other buildings are still wish us, most notably the Colosseum. But it's sinking, the result no doubt of thousands of years of erosion.


You'll remember that the Leaning Tower of Pisa was leaning a little too much in recent decades and had to be closed for a significant period of time while engineers made sure that the Leaning part of the Tower wasn't enough to make it topple on some poor tourists just in for the day. The same thing could well happen to the Colosseum, although closing it for a prolong period of time could well put a dent in Rome's tourism revenue. Still, better safe than sorry, better repairing the big ring instead of letting it topple over on some poor motorists just in for the afternoon.


Speaking of motorists, scientists are studying traffic patterns, to see how much the constant vehicular traffic affects the crack in the Colosseum base that has opened up a fraction in recent years. 


Things aren't urgent. Scientists are happy to wait for a year's worth of scientific studies before recommending any sort of strengthening or straightening. Still, if seeing the Colosseum in person is on your bucket list, then maybe book in a trip in the next year or two, just in case.

'Atlantis' Disappeared Round British Isles

Not to be outdone in the Atlantis sweepstakes, a British museum is displaying artifacts from a long-ago submerged society called Doggerland.

Among the artifacts recovered after a series of deepsea dives at the bottom of the North Sea are hunting tools such as harpoons and fish prongs, as well as fossils of mammoths.

The theory is this Doggerland was a massive bit of land connected to the Continent that stretched Denmark, Scotland, and the Channel Islands. Trade with the European mainland (as we now know it) would have been extensive in those days — those days being the end of the last Ice Age. After that time, between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago, the rising sea levels slowly put Doggerland underwater, in the process creating the English Channel (as we now know it) and making the British Isles into what they are today.

The good scientists in the U.K. have consulted geophysical surveys and used their handy computers to create three-dimensional versions of what they think Doggerland looked like. The 3D mapping includes topographical differences like peaks and valleys dotted on the landscape, near evidence of lakes and rivers.

As for Atlantis, well no one really knows still where it was, when it was, or if it was. The evidence that we have is so sketchy that many historians have concluded that it is a morality tale only. For others, though, the search goes on.