Not strictly zooarchaeological, but it would be useful to take a stand
about it anyway, please circulate to other lists/colleagues
Cheers,
Umberto
CAMPAIGN TO SAVE ALBURNUS MAJOR
A group of internationally respected scholars, including Fellows John
Nandris and Sherban Cantacuzino, CBE, former director of the Royal
Fine Arts Commission, have lent their support to a campaign to save
Alburnus Major, one of the most important Roman towns in Europe.
Located in Rosia Montana, in western Transylvania, it supplied most of
the gold and silver on which Rome depended for its survival. The
Emperor Trajan alone took more than £1.2 billions-worth of gold from
Rosia Montana and it was on the proceeds of Rosia's gold that the
amphitheatre in Verona was built. It is the oldest documented town in
Romania and the Moti, the people who live there and in the surrounding
villages, can trace their history back over 4,000 years.
Rosia Montana is now under threat from plans to create Europe's
largest open-cast gold mine and to dump 196m tonnes of cyanide-laced
waste, destroying the area’s archaeology an! d displacing some 2,000
people. The World Bank president, James Wolfensohn, has already
intervened to stop a £64m planned loan for the project, which is
condemned by economic and archaeological experts within and without
Romania. Campaigners say that the surviving Roman temples, workshops,
necropoli, underground galleries and administrative buildings, which
are more sophisticated, better preserved and more extensive than at
any other known European site, make Rosia Montana a potential
world-class visitor attraction, and that this would benefit local
communities far more than the mine.
Further information on the Rosia Montana campaign can be found at
www.rosiamontana.org , which also has a petition that you can sign,
aimed at persuading the Romanian government to stop the mine from
going ahead.
Umberto Albarella
Dept of Archaeology
University of Durham
Durham DH1 3LE, UK
tel. +44-191-3741139
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