Pups we are

   Pat asked her cousin, Carmelina (Ciccio's daughter) how old the village of Mandanici was. She shrugged, and told us that Il Duomo, the church we are staying beside, was built in 1690. When we asked if it was the oldest church in Mandanici, she just shook her head. We can't find a date for the oldest church, but suffice it to say that people have been living in an organized village here on the mountainside for at least 315 years, and probably longer.

          >>>>>>>>>>Fast Forward to tomorrow's entry>>>>>>>>>>

   One of the locals here, a friend of the family, is an architectural and civil engineer. His current project is the excavation of about 500ft. of the main street of the town. The plan is to put new, pre-formed concrete piers in place in order to form an underground conduit which will facilitate future upgrades to the electrical and communications infrastructure of the town, and then resurface to road. They expect the project to take 3-6 months. One of the problems they face almost everywhere in Italy is that when they start to dig, they are never sure of what they are going to find. Antiquities abound.
   One of his previous projects involved the rebuilding/restoration of several of the local churches. According to Tino, although the Duomo beside our apartment was built in 1690, it was built on the foundation of an older church. That foundation has been dated to the eleventh century. As well, they found an old clay jar buried in the piazza in front of the church that was full of coins from the same approximate time frame.
   So, we must revise our estimate of the age of Mandanici. There has been an organized village on this site for at least one thousand years.

          <<<<<<<<<<Rewind to the previous entry<<<<<<<<<<"We can't find a date for..." [oops, too far]>>>>>>>>>>"315 years, and probably significantly longer."

   The sense of history in this country is overwhelming. In Canada, our history lessons start with the year 1534, when Jacques Cartier first sailed up the St. Lawrence river and landed at what is now Quebec City. Americans like to push their history back to 1492, although Colombus didn't actually make landfall at any place that is currently part of the United States that year.
   In Italy, anything that dates after the beginning of the 16th century is considered "modern." The Romans were attending sporting events in a 50,000 seat stadium with a crowd control system that allowed them to completely empty the building in less than fifteen minutes almost two thousand years ago. Over a thousand years before Marco Polo opened new trade routes to the east, Romans were importing rare oriental marbles to decorate their houses. Almost two thousand years before the Bush administration enacted The Patriot Act, the largest empire the world has ever known was ruled for the people, by the people. To walk around in buildings that are so old their corners have all been worn smooth by the rain, one can't help but be awed by the accomplishments of civilizations that predate us by 2700 years.