Museum of Walls, Rome Italy

Museum of Walls, Rome Italy.

The Museo delle Mura ("museum of the walls") is an archaeological museum housed in the first and second floors of the Porta San Sebastiano at the beginning of the Appian Way.  This free museum offers visitors the opportunity  to walk along the inside of one of the best-preserved stretches of the Aurelian Wall.  It provides a detailed history of wall construction in Rome and the surrounding areas, with information going back to one constructed in Ardea to the southeast of Rome in the 8th century. It describes the construction methods of the first Roman wall, built by Servius Tullius the legendary sixth king of Rome, the second wall constructed in the 4th century BCE after invasion of Rome by the Gauls, and the Aurelian Walls, constructed in the 3rd century CE, as well as subsequent work to raise the height of those walls and improve defenses using text, diagrams and models.


Image:  The Porta San Sebastiano and a section of the Aurelian Wall courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Lalupa.

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