"When everything else has gone from my brain ... what will be left, I believe, is topology: the dreaming memory of land as it lay this way and that." Annie Dillard
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Tuesday, June 21, 2022
Roman Recycling
It's hard to miss Evora's Roman Temple, sitting as it does in the middle of the town square. What's amazing is how well-preserved it is, more intact than many of the Roman ruins in Rome, thanks to being covered for centuries, first as a fortress and then as a slaughterhouse.Scattered throughout the city are other ancient surprises, like the Roman baths tucked away in a corner of the Town Hall, which flash into view courtesy of motion-detected lighting. (They were discovered during a remodel in 1987.) Or these paving stones, irregularly shaped and polished to a high gloss from almost two millennia of use.