17
 
The explorers Club
  AWRome
 

19 July - The explorers club celebrates its 1 year birthday. This time they explore the world AWRome, this world has been built and owned by Jetta Lewis, who passed away in august 2013. The world still exists, just like his other popular worlds AWSchool and America. The world AWRome is a reconstruction of the ancient Rome . AWRome is a p100-sized world , but only the central area has been built. There has been involved a lot of modelling work, as there are few standard objects you can use to build up the Ancient Rome. It is also an unfinished world : you will still see a small object yard , and also a lot of pictures , used to make an exact copy of the buildings and temples. Anyhow,most of the common buildings are there and this world is a good representation of the Ancient Rome

The world consists of a lot of columns to make the temples .There are also a lot of statues, and statues require a lot of modelling work and they are high polygon too , causing a lot of lag and a low framerate. That"s why a lot of statues here are sprites models.

We enter at the central place , called the "Forum", where you will find a teleport sign to an interactive map. But when flying around, you will notice that the world is not that big, and there are quite a lot of nice builds to explore , also outside the central area it's worthwhile visiting. Some buildings have at the entrance a sign with the description of the name of the building or temple, which makes it easier to explore...

2N 4E - At the north side of the forum, you will find a nice building, called the "Basilica Aemelia". Inside you will discover the typical wall decorations, usually small ornamentals upon a black or red background, which will emphesise the presentation of the statues which are put in front of it. Romans also used a lot of fresco paintings. The materials for the colums and floors were mostly marble or other precious stone materials. The floors had mostly patterns of differents shades and colours of marble. Also water basins in the middle of the floor space were often applied.

2N 10E - Just a bit more south , you will find this small temple with a mosaic floor. Mosaics fresco's and bas-reliefs were the most common ways for decoration of walls and floors.

13N 24E - Bath house : public baths or thermal houses were a very common type of building in the Roman Empire. This interior shows the influence and admiration of the Ancient Greec culture, of which they copied a lot of styles, here you can see they use Ionic columns.

18N 12W - The column of Trajanus - this column can still be visited in Rome today, and the column represents the victory of the roman emperor Trajanus against the Dacians. On the column you can see details of the battle. Dacia is today the region of Romania. In Romania , the inhabitants nowadays speak a roman language which is similar to italian.

5S 12E - Temple of the Virgins - this circular temple can still be viewed in Rome (well preserved) today

2N 18E - Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine - exterior and interior view

4S 6W -The houses of the ordinary people (plebs) weren't made of marble nor there were colums, but houses were built with bricks and wood , and they often did have several floors, with balcony views. The shops had a wider entrance, where merchants could sell their cooked meals and other products along the street.

19N 6W - As we told already, the romans did copy the temples of the Ancient Greek , here we see a temple corinthian colums, using proportions of perfect geometry, at the front you had several rows of colums, at the top you could see sculptures in bas-relief. The second part was the temple surrounded by walls.

20N 8E - Temple of Mars Ultor - Usually the temples were dedicated to a god of godess or they were built for a roman emperor.

2N 32E - Here you have the entrance to the Colosseum. The colosseum was used for spectacles and games for thousands of visitors , and wasn't used for battles between gladiators only. There were battles of human against human , human against animals , and animals against animals. All kinds of exotic animals were imported for the spectacles : lions, elephants, tigers ,crocodiles, etc.In the center of the Colosseum where you see the elephants , you can take the elevator, and below you will arrive at the cages for the animals , and condamned prisoners.

Throughout the romand empire there were several towns with such arenas or amphitheaters. (Pula, Nimes, Arles, Verona, Syracuse,...) . Amphitheaters had a circular or oval shape, whereas theaters were of Greec origin, and had a half circular shape . (Orange, Pompei, Taormina, Syracuse... )

5S 46E - Close to the Colosseum you will find the Temple of the Devine Claudius. This building was dedicated to Claudius, who was a famous roman emperor. Above the temple you can see the pictures of ruins , but also of a maquette of the Ancient Rome, which were used to rebuild this temple. As you can see on the maquette pictures, this temple was located next to the Colosseum.

45S 23E - The hippodrome or Circo Massimo is used for specacles with horses. In the world AWRome this build is located outside the town center , and is located together with the object yard of other building ideas creations, but which haven't been put yet on the right location. As we have told , AWRome is an "unfinished" world, a lot of other building would have been added if the world owner should still be alive.

38S 31W - The port of Ostia - Rome itself wasn't located near the sea , there was a port town called Ostia where all the goods where shipped over the Meditteranean Sea. You can see also amphoras , which were used for shipping wine.

44N 37W - Mausoleum - Here you have the entranc of a tomb where several roman empires are buried

16N 42E - Aquaduct - This is also a typical build of the Romans, used to transport the water to higher located regions . Some famous and well preserved roman aquaducts are the Pont du Gard in France, and the aquaduct of Segovia in Spain.

50N 17E - Roman walls - Romans also used huge walls and fortresses to defend their large empire. Some well-known roman walls are the "wall of Hadrianus" between England and Scotland and the "Limes" in Germany.

15N 40W - ornamental building

38S 18W - In AWRome, there are also some nice examples of roman villas...Here you will find a nice example of a central garden inside the villa.

5S 14E - In most of the villas, you will find gardens with water bassins , statues, columns, and fountains. But also inside at the entrance hall you will find water bassins.

25S 39W - This rural villa is the nicest example , where you can see the typical decorated walls in roman style : red & black painted walls and small areas with geometric paintings or with animals, flowers ,people or godesses. At the entrance you have again a water basin . From the entrance hall you arrive in a small geometric garden surrounded by walls decorated with frescos.

97S 6W - Example of a large roman villa

5N 1W - Curia Hostilia - We go back to the "forum " where we go inside the Curia Hostilia , which is one of the first senat houses of the Roman Republic : the Ancient Rome as we know it , hasn't always been an empire, but there have also been periods whenit was a kingdom and when it was a republic.

3N 0W - Triumphal Arch - We finish our visit on the forum where we see this triumphal arch. But it's not the only triumphal arch in AWRome : Every emperor who has won a battle has build such an arch to celebrate and commemorate their victory.

We have seen an "almost complete" AWRome world, only few buildings are missing , like for instance a roman theatre, the Via Appia, and the well-known Pantheon.

People @ this event : Keshi , Smaug, Panne, Old Kunnel, Vera , Bach Zha ,CableCarGal, Cateviciuou, NY Giants and Chumana.