In telephony, GoTa or "Global Open Trunking Architecture" is a CDMA-based digital trunking system. The GoTA system was developed by ZTE, a Chinese manufacturer. It was approved as a CCSA standard  by the China Ministry of Industry  and Information Technology in 2008 and accepted as an international standard by the ITU in 2012. The GoTA system can be used for both private and public trunking network applications.

GoTa is capable of providing a variety of trunking services:
One-to-one private calls and one-to-many group calls
The ability to set the user's priority
The ability to perform forced insertion/forced release based on the user's priority
The ability to provide special services such as system paging, group paging, sub-group paging, and dedicated Push-To-Talk services as required
The ability to classify the groups into permanent and temporary groups, in which the group members can be managed by the user.

In addition to trunking service, GoTa can provide value-added services such as short messages, location-based services and other data services. The original GoTa standard was developed for the 800 MHz band. GoTa is adapted to work in the 450 MHz band as well.

Notes
PTT PoC or Push to talk over Cellular is a feature similar to walkie-talkie that is provided over a cellular phone network.

References

Telephony
Mobile telecommunications standards

GoTa


Mga Anak-Bukid (literally "Children of the Farmlands", the title can be translated simply as "The Farmlanders") is a 1911 Tagalog-language novel written by Filipino novelist Rosauro C. Almario. Published by the Limbagang Cultura Filipina in Manila, Philippines, the novel narrates how the Filipinos who became the so-called pensionados undermined the traditional values and mores in the Philippines, including the people who acted as supporters and upholders of those conventional customs and norms.

Description
Mga Anak-Bukid is about the life of an ordinary farming couple, namely Tonyo and Juli.  They were supposed to get married, but on the day before the wedding ceremony, Juli was raped by the pensionado (literally "pensioner", someone receiving a salary or pension) named George, a Filipino representing the government of the United States.  Through his job as a journalist, George criticized and attacked the traditional values and mores of the Filipinos in the Philippines.  Through his newspaper columns, George dismissed the long-established rituals and practices in the Philippines as laughable, old-fashioned, and as things that should remain only in the past.  In the meantime, Tonyo was still willing to marry Juli despite of the circumstances.  However, Juli was no longer enthusiastic in accepting Tonyo as her husband because her honor as a woman had been defiled.  Honor and virginity is important in traditional Filipino culture.  Tonyo avenged himself and Juli by tricking George.  Unaware of the trap set by Tony and Juli, George agreed to meet with Juli.  When George went to the appointed place, he was slain by Tonyo.  Then Tonyo and Juli ran away into the mountains, both in agreement that there was no righteousness and hope for them if they stay in the lowlands.  The book is made up of 78 pages.

See also
Satanas sa Lupa

References

1911 novels
Philippine novels
Tagalog-language novels
Political novels
Novels set in the Philippines

Mga Anak-Bukid


The 2011 Atlantic hurricane season was one of the most active Atlantic hurricane seasons since 1851. The season started on June 1, 2011 and it ended on November 30, 2011. This season has been "above-average". This means that there has been a lot of tropical cyclones that have developed in the Atlantic basin. The season started when Tropical Storm Arlene formed on June 29. It formed in the Gulf of Mexico. It then made landfall on Veracruz. The storm killed 25 people. The amount of damage was $223 million (2011 USD). After Arlene dissipated, a lot of tropical storms began developing. Most of them developed from a frontal boundary. Which makes this season the first time to have the first eight named storms to have not reached hurricane status.

The record ended when Hurricane Irene formed in late August. Irene also became the first major hurricane (being a category three or higher on the Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Scale). After Irene dissipated, Hurricane Katia became the second major hurricane of the season. With seventeen tropical storms, only four became hurricanes. The following hurricane was Hurricane Rina. Between September 7-9, there were three tropical cyclones active, which were Katia, Maria and Nate. This information made the Climate Prediction Center issue a La Niña Advisory.

Season summary

Storms

Tropical Storm Arlene

Tropical Storm Arlene formed off of a tropical wave. It moved across Central America. It brought a lot of rain and caused local flooding. Because of this, three people were killed. On June 27, the disturbance crossed the Yucatán Peninsula and into the Bay of Campeche. The storm began to develop over warm water. It was then given the name Arlene on June 29, around midnight. Arlene made landfall on Cabo Rojo with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph. It then died on July 1. About 22 people were killed while the storm passed through. Arlene cost over 2.6 billion pesos ($207.4 million) of damage.

Tropical Storm Bret

Tropical Storm Bret formed off of a cold front. This front was near Florida. On July 16, a low-pressure area formed north of the Bahamas. It then began strengthening. The storm became tropical depression number 2 when it was near the Great Abaco Island. Within three hours, the storm was given the name Bret. Bret strengthen while it moved north-east. The storm began to weaken because of wind shear. It then died on July 22 with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph.

Tropical Storm Cindy

Tropical Storm Cindy formed on July 20, when it developed into a tropical depression east of Bermuda. It then died two days later. It did not make landfall.

Tropical Storm Don

Tropical Storm Don formed on July 27. It then made landfall as it weakened at Galveston, Texas. The storm did not help the drought the state of was in, dropping no more than  of an inch, which was lower than was forecasted.

Tropical Storm Emily

Tropical Storm Emily formed on August 1. The storm made landfall as a remnant low in Haiti. It then strengthened while it passed through the Bahamas. When the storm left, it began to die.

Tropical Storm Franklin

Tropical Storm Franklin formed on August 12. It did not make landfall. Bermuda was able to get some rain bands from the storm when it moved close by. The storm began to dissipate after it had left Bermuda.

Tropical Storm Gert

Tropical Storm Gert formed on August 14. It did not make landfall. As Gert neared Bermuda, a small  eye-like feature became apparent on radar imagery. Coinciding with this, Gert reached its peak strength with winds of 60 mph (100 km/h).
Passing roughly 90 mi (150 km) east of Bermuda, Gert brought light rain and winds up to 25 mph (40 km/h) to the islands.
By August 16, convection associated with Gert had mostly dissipated and whether or not the system retained a closed surface low was ambiguous. As a result, Gert deteriorated into a post-tropical cyclone over the open Atlantic.

Tropical Storm Harvey

Tropical Storm Harvey formed on August 18. Harvey made landfall in Belize. It was upgraded to Tropical Storm Harvey on August 19. By late August 19 the storm was strengthening rapidly and it was announced that it could become a hurricane just before landfall. However, it only strengthened a little bit. The storm then broke the Atlantic record for having eight tropical storms that did not become a hurricane. Harvey was then downgraded into a depression though it briefly regained tropical storm status in the Bay of Campeche. The storm then dissipated on August 22.

Hurricane Irene

Hurricane Irene formed on August 20. It became a hurricane while it passed through Puerto Rico. Irene then became the first hurricane of the season. Irene became a category 2 hurricane before reaching the Bahamas. It then strengthen into a major hurricane. Irene then became the first major hurricane of the season as well. Irene made landfall on Cape Lookout, North Carolina as a category 1 hurricane with 85 mph winds with an unusually low pressure for a category 1 hurricane. It then moved northeast. After weakening to a tropical storm, Irene made a second U.S. landfall at Brigantine Island in New Jersey at 5:35 a.m. The storm then moved northern and impacted New York City and New England. A total of 56 people were confirmed dead across the Caribbean, 10 U.S. states and Canada in the aftermath and damage from Hurricane Irene totaled $19 billion (2011 USD), making it the fifth costliest hurricane in the Atlantic basin. Irene then dissipated on August 29.

Tropical Depression Ten

Tropical Depression Ten formed on August 25. It moved off the coast from Africa. It then began to move northeast. The storm dissipated the next day.

Tropical Storm Jose

Tropical Storm Jose formed on August 27. Jose did not make any landfall.
Yet very early on August 28 and during the next few hours, the tropical wave partially strengthened as conditions for development slightly improved. However, early on August 28 – during the morning hours – the tropical wave nearly dissipated due to the high wind shear once again, this time generated by Hurricane Irene, after the tropical wave passed east to the south of Bermuda. But soon afterwards on August 28, the tropical wave managed to develop into Tropical Storm Jose, just to the west of Bermuda; Jose then began to move north-northeast, slowly. It lasted only 27 hours, as it dissipated on August 29.

Hurricane Katia

The eleventh named storm of the season formed south of the Cape Verde Islands on August 29. The system became a tropical storm on August 30, at which time it was named Katia.
Hurricane Katia formed on August 29. It became the season's second hurricane early on September 1; however, its strength fluctuated until September 4 when it reached category 2 hurricane strength. On September 5 the system reached Category 3 (major hurricane status). Katia further strengthened into a Category 4 hurricane on September 5. It was downgraded to a category 1 storm by the end of the following day, and remained at that strength even as it became extra-tropical. The storm was of potential concern and was being monitored closely as it may have indirectly impacted the east coast of the United States and Canada. Warnings of severe weather were made for Northern Ireland and Scotland for the remnants of Katia. Its remnants struck the UK and the Republic of Ireland on September 11 and September 12, killing one. Its remnants caused blackouts as far east as Saint Petersburg.

Unnamed Tropical Storm

The Unnamed Tropical Storm formed on September 1 east of Boston, Massachusetts as a tropical depression. The storm continued to strengthen and became a tropical storm later that day. It lost all of its tropical characteristics on September 2.

Tropical Storm Lee
Tropical Storm Lee formed on September 1. It moved into the Gulf of Mexico. It made landfall in Lafayette, Louisiana as a minor tropical storm. It then moved northeastern before it dissipated on September 5.

Hurricane Maria
Hurricane Maria formed on September 6. It moved close to Puerto Rico bringing a lot of rain to the island. Maria became a category 1 hurricane before it made landfall in Newfoundland. Maria then dissipated on September 16.

Hurricane Nate
Hurricane Nate formed on September 7. Nate made landfall near the Mexican coastline. It dissipated on September 12.

Hurricane Ophelia
Hurricane Ophelia formed on September 20. Ophelia then became a remnant low five days later. On September 27, the storm began to build strength. It then became a category 1 hurricane on September 30. On the same day, it became a category 2 hurricane. The next day, the storm became a category 3 hurricane. On October 1, the storm became a category 4 hurricane. After wards, the storm weakened quickly and lost its tropical features on October 3.

Hurricane Philippe
Tropical Storm Philippe formed on September 24. It was a tropical storm for 12 days before becoming a category 1 hurricane on October 6. It weakened again to a tropical storm the next day and was no longer tropical on October 8.

Hurricane Rina
Hurricane Rina formed on October 23 in the Caribbean Sea as a tropical depression. It began to strengthen quickly and became Tropical Storm Rina just hours later. On October 24, Rina reached Category 1 hurricane status. It was still strengthening quickly by October 25, with Rina becoming a category 2 hurricane in the morning hours. It later weakened again to a Category 1 hurricane, then a tropical storm. It continued to weaken, it then became a tropical depression (39 mph or less) on October 28. It became post-tropical (lost its tropical features) later that day.

Tropical Storm Sean
A large area of cloud that moved off North Carolina became Tropical Storm Sean with winds of 50 mph on November 8. The storm continued to strengthen and peaked at 65 mph. It dissipated on November 12 because of being merged with a cold front.

Storm names

Retirement
In the spring of 2012, the WMO (World Meteorological Organization) has retired the name "Irene". The name "Irene" will never be used again in the Atlantic. "Irma" was chosen to replace that name.

References

Other websites

 HPC rainfall page for 2011 Tropical Cyclones
 National Hurricane Center Website
 National Hurricane Center's Atlantic Tropical Weather Outlook
 Tropical Cyclone Formation Probability Guidance Product

Atlantic hurricane seasons
Atlantic hurricane season

2011 Atlantic hurricane season


Farah Antun (Arabic: فرح انطون ), also spelled Farah Antoun (1874–1922), was among the first Lebanese Christians to openly argue for secularism and equality regardless of religious affiliation. He also, though uncommon for his background, argued against Arab nationalism. Antun became popular for his magazine, Al Jamiah, and his public debate with Muhammad Abduh over conflicting worldviews.

Bibliography

Early family life and educational background
Farah Antun was born in 1874 to a Lebanese, Eastern Orthodox Christian family. He had three sisters: Rose, Mariana, Ramza and a younger brother. His father, Elias Antun, was a lumber merchant in Tripoli, where only a fourth of the population was Christian, the rest being Muslim. His father traded mostly by sea, and so Antun's family lived in a Christian dominated area of Tripoli near the sea, named al-Mina. American Protestant and Catholic missionaries opened schools in Lebanon, but after attaining a primary certification in 1888, he enrolled in Kiftin in Tripoli, a boys' school attached to the Orthodox monastery. The school taught the languages of Arabic, Turkish, French, and English. Other subjects included history, geography, mathematics and Muslim legal sciences. He spent four years there, entering when he was 13 and leaving at the age of 16, when the school closed. He especially excelled in French and would often spend more time reading magazines, books and articles in French rather than doing schoolwork. He spent very little time learning English or focusing on the Arabic-Islamic heritage of the region. He did, however, report that Kiftin was very religiously tolerant, and catered to the religious activities of all students and staff, something unusual for the area at the time.

When the school closed, Antun's father brought him into the lumber trade as an apprentice. For the next two years, Antun traveled throughout Lebanon, but was restless, and eventually told his parents that he was leaving the merchant trade. Not long after, he took up a teaching position at al-Madrasah al-Ahliyah, another Orthodox school in Tripoli. However, he often had only a handful of students of his own sect and was underpaid. While teaching, many of his articles were published and he began to translate French materials. His desire grew to enter the field of Journalism and so he left his job as a teacher in Syria to pursue his new dream.

Life in Egypt and entrance into journalism
In 1897, Farah Antun and Rashid Rida left Syria to move to Egypt. Antun arrived in Alexandria to study journalism, upholding a secular identity, while Rida, a Muslim, became a disciple of Muhammad Abduh. However, historian Fawaz Gerges characterizes Antun as 'both a friend and an intellectual adversary" of both Abduh and Rida. Soon after Antun left for Egypt, his father died because of gangrene and it is also reported that his younger brother died by typhoid fever, though it is unclear when. Antun's mother and sisters came to live with him in Alexandria after Ilyas's death, where he was the sole provider for the family until Rose began to teach. Interested in journalism, he began to write articles for Al-Ahram under different names as well as translating materials in French to Arabic for Rida. Antun continued to work for Al-Ahram, and when it was moved to Cairo in 1899, he was given the position of editor of the branch in Alexandria; however, it was closed only a few months later. He started a magazine called Al-Jami'ah while in Alexandria and eventually moved to New York, only to move back to Cairo in 1909.

Antun never married and his mother outlived him when he died in 1922 at the age of 48 of heart trouble.

Publications

Phases of Al-Jami'ah
Al-Jami'ah was created by Antun in 1899 in Alexandria, after the Alexandria branch of Al-Ahram closed, and disappeared around 1910 in Cairo. The magazine began as a bi-monthly publication and was originally called Al-Jami'ah al-Uthmaniyah (Arabic: The Ottoman Community). In the second year it became a monthly publication, and from then on it was inconsistently published, as seen in the fact that only five issues were published in 1902, six in 1903, and two in 1904. Then, after a year of no publications, he moved to New York and again irregularly published issues of Al-Jami'ah from 1906 to 1909. While in New York he also published a daily called Al-Jami'ah al-Yawmiyah (The Daily Community) for six months and then a weekly called Al-Jami'ah al-Usbu'iyah (Arabic: The Weekly Community) from 1907 to 1909. He returned to Egypt in 1909 and published two more issues of Al-Jami'ah before it disappeared in the next year.

Behind the scenes of Al-Jami'ah
Farah Antun was the sole contributor to Al-Jami'ah except for occasional other writers and his nephew Mikha'il Karam who worked with Antun for two years in Egypt. Possible reasons for the irregularity of his publications was that Antun wrote, edited, printed and even mailed out his magazines all on his own, in addition to keeping track of the financial records with no assistant. New York was the exception to this, as Antun had the full-time help of his brother-in-law, Niqula Haddad.

Other publications
Farah and his sister Rose also published a women's magazine called al-Sayyidat wa al-Banat (Arabic The Ladies and Girls) between 1903 and 1906 in Alexandria.

Political views

Saladin
The great Muslim hero of the Crusades was a Kurd, Saladin (1138–93). Having defeated the crusaders in 1187, and become sovereign and founder of the Ayyubid dynasty in Egypt and Syria, Salah al-Din (Saladin) has been for a century the object of an intense glorification in the Arab world. Farah Antun's play Sultan Saladin and the Kingdom of Jerusalem (1914) illustrates how the historical figure of Saladin came to be presented as a prophet of Arab nationalism. Antun was a Syrian Christian who presents Saladin as the champion of a just jihad against the Crusaders and as a faithful upholder of the virtues of wisdom, determination, and frankness, calling on the peoples of all Arab countries to unite against Western imperialists. The refusal of Antun's Saladin to become embroiled in quarrels within Europe had obvious echoes in World War I and caused the play to be censored by the British authorities in Egypt.

Secularism and Western influence
A distinct view of Farah Antun is that one is great in spite of their education, not because of it. In examples of this, he brings up men such as Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd and al-Ghazali, who, if they had the resources of a 19th-century French education, would have achieved even more impressive accomplishments. And although he was not interested in the religious aspects of Islamic culture, he often quoted or referenced Muslim historians like Ibn Khaldun, as well as al-Ghazali, in "Al-Jami'ah". He also argues that Ibn Rushd was the first to discover the principle of "survival of the fittest," not Darwin. But he did not feel that Muslims needed to defend Islamic history to the West but at the same time had little to no interaction with Muslim thinkers of his time.

Antun largely rejected Arabic heritage, whether Muslim or Christian, as they seemed irrelevant to his interests and needs. He believed that the East was once the place to turn to for knowledge and research, but now the West was taking that over and so it became necessary to use it.

Antun's only foreign language was French and his experience in French was limited to 18th- and 19th-century literature. When reading French critique of Islam, he tended to agree with their criticisms. He was largely affected by French intellectuals and philosophers of the Enlightenment, such as Montesquieu and Voltaire. He was also interested in French Romantics as well as the rationalist traditions of men like Auguste Comte, Ernest Renan and Jules Simon. From each, Antun took specific things and often inserted them into Al-Jami'ah.
These ranged from the skeptical attitude of religious institutions of Renan to the ideas of the emancipation of women and educational reforms of Simon.

Through translations, Antun was also exposed to literature of English, German and Russian in addition to the writings of Dawn, Spencer, Nietzsche and Tolstoy.

Regional background
Because he was a Christian living during the late Ottoman Empire, his family was subjected to dhimmi restrictions, such as extra taxes, legal disadvantages, and sometimes limited job opportunities. Many Orthodox Christians in Syria desired to live among Muslims in a secular state, and with the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, this opened the door to Syrian intellectuals calling for exactly that.

Debate with Abduh
Antun's debate with Muhammad Abduh in 1902 to 1903 was the high point of his career, yet may have been considered only a small event in the life of the Mufti of Egypt, Muhammad Abduh. Abduh had also read Western social thinkers like Renan, Rousseau, Spencer and Tolstoy, just as Antun, but coming to different conclusions on what that meant for Arab thought. Abduh believed that Islam needed to be central to Middle Eastern society and its core principles and tenets never to be comprised, while also remaining fluid and selectively borrowing from the West. The debate between the two was sparked by an article by Antun on the biography and thoughts of the Muslim medieval philosopher and jurist Ibn Rushd (1126–1198), in which he argued that Islamic orthodoxy had hindered the spirit of free intellectual inquiry.  The debate then took off when Abduh published a rebuttal to Antun's article of Ibn Rushd titled al-Manar and Antun decided to respond in an effort to catapult his inconspicuous career into the public sphere, hopefully to also receive attention for "al-Jam'iah".
Antun focused solely on compiling responses to Abduh for three months, studying Islamic classics for the first time day and night. In his response, he quoted al-Ghazali, and other medieval Islamic scholars, that would support his own view of Islamic theology. As an Islamic scholar, Abduh rarely used a reference book and used mostly his memory to reply to Antun, mostly in his spare time and in between other important tasks, whereas Antun devoted all his time and efforts to the debate.
Antun, like Renan, argued that Islamic theology was based upon two assertions: complete freedom of the creator from all limitations and the rejection of any secondary causes that would limit the creator's freedoms. Because these beliefs basically implied that every event in the universe is a result of God's exercise of free will, Antun felt that they discouraged scientific and philosophical research of the universe. Antun also argued the part of Greek and some Muslim philosophers who regarded God as only an initial actor in the course of the universe and creator of natural laws, who then left mankind to run their own lives and explore as they so desired. He emphasized that all religions were based upon the same principles, only differing on minor issues and so disliked to debate over the polemics between them, and that science and religion were working towards the same goal, the betterment of mankind. As long as both science and religion stayed in their own realms, there would be no conflict between them. Antun called for religion, a personal matter, to be separate from science and reason.
Abduh refuted Antun's claim that Islamic theology supported the belief that the unrestricted will of God was directly responsible for every event in the universe. Similar to the Mu'tazili argumentations, Abduh argued that in Islam regularities of the universe, human reason or logic and secondary causes were not necessarily rejected. Science and philosophy were wholly a part of Islam, a religion of reason and faith. He equated the Western concept of natural laws of the universe with the '"sunnah" of God.' Additionally, Abduh believed that the Qur'an anticipated certain Darwinist concepts, such as survival of the fittest and the struggle for existence. Though this was somewhat controversial with the more conservative Muslims, it was largely ignored as Abduh moved on to defaming Christianity. Antun seemed to make a brief suggestion that the West was more tolerant of intellectual inquiry than the Muslim world, and Abduh, misunderstanding what Antun meant, refuted the foundations of Christianity and listed Western intellectuals who had been persecuted by Christian authorities. He proclaimed that Islam, however, had always protected other religions and had been more tolerant of others in general, and so was the best religion for the world.
Both Antun and Abduh argued for the use of reason and rational methods, and they both believed that science and religion did not conflict. In addition to that, they also believed in educating women in order to improve Middle Eastern societies through the home and through schools, and that social reform would be more productive for change than political activism. The details of both of these ideas, however, were very different for Antun and Abduh. Stephen Sheehi states that this debate marks a central theme in the writing of nahdah intellectuals. The difference in their overall goals was that Abduh desired to keep Islam as the centerpiece of modern society, while Antun preferred religion to be separate from society and, overall, science and intellectual thought. Despite this difference, Sheehi states, they both maintain the same epistemological reference points for Arab social renewal that poses a Western inflected notion of progress as the teleological endpoint of both of their arguments.

References

1874 births
1922 deaths
Critics of Arab nationalism
Lebanese magazine founders
Lebanese emigrants to Egypt
Saint Thomas Christians
Syrian secularists

Farah Antun


Altinum (in Altino, a frazione of Quarto d'Altino) was an ancient town of the Veneti  15 km southeast of modern Treviso, close to the mainland shore of the Lagoon of Venice. It was also close to the mouths of the rivers Dese, Zero and Sile. A flourishing port and trading centre during the Roman period, it was destroyed by Attila the Hun in 452. The town recovered, but was later abandoned when sea-borne sand began to cover it over. Its inhabitants moved to Torcello and other islands of the northern part of the lagoon.

Today Altinum is an archaeological area and has a national archaeological museum.

Pre-Roman Altinum
Altinum was a Venetic settlement. The earliest human presence in the area is dated to the 10th century BCE and is related to hunter gatherer groups. The earliest evidence of a settlement nucleus is dated from the mid-8th century to the mid-7th century BCE. In the 7th century BCE the settlement moved slightly to the northwest, in its historical location. A sacred area which is dated to the  late 6th century BCE and developed in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE had votive offering objects from Greek, Magna Graecian, Etruscan and Celtic areas. This suggests that Altinum was the main port of the Veneti in the proto-historical age.

Archaeology indicates that in the late 6th/early 5th century BC, the Veneti had precocious contact with Celtic areas through the communication routes along the rivers Adige and Piave in the major centres in the plain of the River Po (Este and Padua and  the Adriatic ports such as Atria, modern Adria, and Altinum). There was a trading relationship between high-ranking families. There was a degree of intermarriage. Some Celts settled in the region. Celtic gift and fashion objects appear in the burials of important families.

In the early 4th century BCE the Gauls invaded the plain of the Po as far as  Verona. This led to a gradual ethnic mixing and loss of cultural identity, especially in the border areas of the Veneti; Verona in the west and the  Lagoon of Venice and the Piave valley in the east. In some places there was at times a transition from the traditional practice of cremation to inhumation and the deposition of weapon in burials, which was an exception to Veneti funerary culture. An example of this was found in a cemetery in Altinum. Such evidence suggests that inter-ethnic relations went beyond just trade and that there were clusters of foreign settlers. Perhaps they were traders, workers and/or mercenaries.

Strabo gave indications of the social, economic and ritual importance of horses and horse breeding among the pre-Roman Veneti. He wrote that they bestowed attention on horse rearing  "which, though now entirely abandoned, was formerly in great esteem among them, resulting from the ancient rage for breeding mules, which Homer thus mentions: " From the [Ve]neti for forest mules renowned." It was here that Dionysius, the tyrant of Sicily, kept his stud of race-horses. And, in consequence, the [Veneti] horses were much esteemed in Greece, and their breed in great repute for a long period."  (Homer actually wrote "whence is the race of wild mules." Iliad II. 857) Strabo also noted that the Veneti paid honour to Diomedes by sacrificing a white horse.

In Altinum there was a large number of horses buried in a sacrificial pit at the town's sanctuary and in the cemetery area to the north of the town. In the latter there were some thirty horses, whereas in other Veneti towns there were only a few, except for a cemetery exclusively devoted to some thirty horses to the south of Este. There burials are dated to the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE. Evidence of sacrifice at the sanctuary continues into the Roman imperial period. Here the remains of some twenty horses were found alongside those of bovines, sheep, goats and pigs. The ritual offerings were the heads or parts of hindlegs or tails which were disarticulated, skinned and fleshed. Sketches of headless horses or body parts confirm this animal's key role in religious cults.

Roman Altinum
Archaeological finds indicate that Altinum's perimeter was marked by waterways beyond which there were cemetery areas. The abundance of watercourses gives the picture of a town deeply tied to water which was characteristic of towns in the Veneto. The transformation of Altinum from a Veneti to a Roman town started with the reorganisation of its marshy environment through the regulation of its waters and the expansion of its canal network. The main work was the digging of the Silocello canal to link the River Sile (which was to the north of the town) to the channel which today is called Santa Maria and which flowed to the south of the town from the River Dese to the lagoon. The most important architectural finds are a town gate on the canal which marked the northern edge of the town, another public building which faced the canal which marked the southern edge of the town and a temple close to the Santa Maria channel which was restructured in a monumental form from a 5th-century BCE wooden structure. (See the "Port and canals" section for Altinum's canals)

In 225 BCE the Veneti and Romans established an alliance treaty in the run up of the Battle of Telamon between Rome and an alliance between the Insubres and Boii Gallic tribes of northern Italy and Gaesatae mercenaries. The foundation of the colony of Aquileia, in Celtic territory, as a fortress to protect northern Italy form invasions from the northeast and east was an important moment in the process of Romanisation of the Veneti and Altinum, which is traceable to the first half of the 2nd century BCE. Altinum came to be half way port and stopover between Ravenna and the new and important colony. Its port grew in size. This was also due to  the Romans promoting sea trade in the upper Adriatic Sea

The process of Romanisation was in part driven by the presence of Roman, Latin and Italic merchants attracted to this port by lucrative trade. Inscriptions attest an early presence the Publicia, Barbia, Cossutia and Saufeia families in Aquileia and Virunum (modern Magdalensberg), a town in Noricum (in present-day Austria) where there was iron mining. These were families  of equestrian rank (the Roman entrepreneurial class). They went to Aquileia from central Italy and from there they spread to the northern markets, including Altinum.

Sometime between 153 and 131 BCE the Via Annia was built. It connected Atria (modern Adria) to Aquileia. It passed through Patavium (Padua) and then it run close to the coast and passed through Altinum. In 131 BC the Via Popilia, which connected Ariminum (modern Rimini), Ravenna and Atria, was built. Thus, Altinum came to be connected overland to these important towns, facilitating the movement of goods. Again, its port increased in importance. Its inhabitants were granted Latin rights, a limited form of Roman citizenship, in 89 BCE and in the last decades of the Roman Republic, in 49 BCE, they acquired full Roman citizenship and were assigned to the Scaptia Roman tribe The town became a municipium, probably in 42-40  BCE.

Velleius Paterculus wrote than in the run up to the final civil war of the Roman Republic (32-30 BCE) between Octavian (later known as emperor Augustus) and Mark Antony, Gaius Asinius Pollio kept Venetia under Mark Antony's control for a long time with his seven legions and accomplished brilliant things near Altinum and other towns in the region. He then joined Mark Antony. This was in 42-40 BCE. Pollio Asinius was either the last governor or the Venetia region of Roman Italy or a member of a commission charged with distributing land to war veterans. With his legions he was able was able to give the towns in Venetia administrative autonomy by giving them the status of municipia without much trouble. It is likely that by saying that Asinius Pollio accomplished brilliant things ("magnis speciosisque rebus"), Velleius Paterculus was referring to Asinius allocating land to veterans near Altinum  and Patavium and founding the colony of Iula Concordia (modern Oderzo) which Julius Caesar had probably planned but not accomplished.

Sometime between 31 and 12 BCE, Octavian established Ravenna's harbour as one of the home ports for his new navy. It became one of the main Roman military ports and this favoured Altinum as it increased the importance of the upper Adriatic Sea.

The town benefited from infrastructure commissioned by the emperor Claudius. In 46 CE he opened a branch of the Via Claudia Augusta from Altinum to Tridentum (today's Trento) in the Italian Alps. Drusus had started its construction in 15 AD. It connected Hostiglia (today's Ostiglia), on the River Po, to the "limes" at the Danube in southern Germany via Tridentum. Claudius also build a road along the coast which connected Altinum to Atria directly. He also extended the navigable route inside the Septem Maria lagoons, to Altinum with the construction of a further canal, the fossa Clodia, thus connecting it to Ravenna. Although this internal route only allowed navigation by smaller vessels, it guaranteed communication even through the worse weather. This enhanced Altinum's strategic and commercial importance as a hub for trade between the Mediterranean Sea, north-eastern Italy and beyond the Alps.

During the civil wars which followed the death of the emperor Nero (see Year of the four emperors, 69 AD), Marcus Antonius Primus, who supported Vespasian's bid to depose Vitellius, advanced into Italy with his troops. Tacitus wrote that he occupied Aquileia and then he was "received with joy" at Opitergium (Oderzo) and Altinum and that a military contingent was left in Altinum in case of an attack by the fleet in Ravenna.

In 169, during the Marcomannic Wars (166-180 AD) the co-emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus were returning to Rome from the front in Pannonia. Lucius Verus was said to have been hit by apoplexy near Altinum. He got off his carriage bleeding and was taken to Altinum, where he died after three days of not been able to speak. Some modern scholars believe that he may have been a victim of the Antonine Plague.

By the 4th century CE Altinum became the seat of a bishopric. The first bishop was Heliodorus of Altino (died c. 410), He accompanied St Jerome in his first trip to the East. When he returned he became the bishop of Altinum and attended the 381 CE anti-Arian Council of Aquileia in that capacity. Saint Jerome wrote letters to Heliodorus and his nephew Nepotianus, a priest. In a consolatory letter written to Heliodorus when Nepotianus died in 396, he mentioned that Altinum had many churches and martyr shrines and that the Nepotianus presbytery was adorned with flowers of all types, twigs and vine leaves. The cathedral (built in by 381) had two entrances  shaded by curtains. It had an altar, shiny floors, walls which were not covered by smoke and  an ancillary space related to the sacristy. St Jerome described Altinum as "a populous centre whose buildings were close to each other and many hearths which darkened the air with thick smog." Today Altinum is no longer a residential diocese. It is listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see.

The Apex of Altinum's flourishing period was from the 1st century BCE to 2nd century CE. Its size was comparable to that of Pompeii. A decrease in archaeological finds suggests that after this, Altinum, like the other towns in the Veneto region, begun to decline. However, it retained a prominent role.

The Codex Theodosianus (Theodosian Code), a compilation of Roman laws under the Christian emperors from 312 to the 430s commissioned was by Theodosius II and Valentinian III in 429 and published in 438, records sixteen laws that were issued by emperors in Altinum, especially between 364 and 399. It also provides evidence that emperors in the second half of the 4th century often stayed in this town and that the imperial chancellery regularly worked there between 364 and 406. An early 5th century revision of the Tabula Peutingeriana, an illustrated itinerarium of the Roman Empire, had a symbol depicting Altinum as a town with two towers, which represented it as an important and populous town.

Altinum and other towns and villages in the region were destroyed in 452 by Attila the Hun. According to the Chronicon Venetum et Gradense, the earliest Venetian chronicle, written by John the Deacon in the mid- 10th and early 11th century, refugees from Altinum fled to Torcello and other islands in the northern part of the Lagoon of Venice. Some of the inhabitants of these islands moved the island group of Rivo alto, in the central part of the lagoon, 450–500 years later and contributed to the development of a new city, Venice. Thus, according to the tradition, which is still deeply ingrained, the origins of Venice are related to the destruction of Altinum by Attila, its demise and the refugees who fled from this town. The invasion of northern Italy by the Lombards in 568, which spared the lagoons of the north-western coast of Italy, which were under Byzantine influence, has also been held responsible for this demise. The implicit assumption is that this gave a final blow to the remnants of the town. However, archaeological investigations have disproved this notion. Although Attila's actions may well have further contributed to the decline of the town, Altinum overcame this and continued to exist for several centuries.

The features of the coast of north-eastern Italy were changing. The Altinum area slowly became covered by sand brought by the sea which turned into mud, starting from the Roman imperial period. Generally, the inland Roman towns, from Grado to Ravenna, were becoming less and less suited as ports. There was a shift from single ports controlled by the imperial authorities to peripheral ports in satellite areas along new river routes most probably controlled by new investors and ship owners. Trade moved these places. In the case of Altinum it moved to Torcello, which was on a fluvial channel through the lagoon which led to the open sea. Archaeological excavations in the inland towns and the lagoons have not revealed any sudden population movements and sharp population increases in the satellite ports or in Torcello as could be expected with an influx of refugees. The finds show that there was a gradual colonisation of the lagoons, a slow shift over centuries which had already started in the Roman days.

Besides the slowly developing troubles of the inland ports, the trend was also favoured by economic changes and new economic opportunities, such as fish farming and salt production. Agriculture played a secondary but fundamental role in favouring new stable settlements through intensive cultivation of limited land areas, which were probably uncultivated. If so, they could be used by military elites who had the means for productive and, above all, infrastructural investment. In Torcello, embankments were built to protect the island. Mooring facilities and warehouses were built to service sea trade. Calaon argues that archaeology shows that the bishop of Torcello, a landowning aristocrat, built his church in Torcello "not so much because he feared barbarian raids, but because he had made a strategic choice. He chose to place his see in a peripheral but flourishing district, perhaps one of the most populous of the whole countryside."

After the fall of the western part of the Roman Empire (conventional date 476 BCE), the Ostrogoths invaded Italy and established the Gothic Kingdom (493–553). The Byzantine emperor Justinian I (527-565) decided to annex Italy to the Byzantine Empire. This led to the Gothic War (535–554) between the Byzantines and the Ostrogoths, which was won by the former. Byzantine rule in northern Italy was short-lived as the Lombards invaded northern Italy (568-73) except for the lagoons of north-eastern coast of Italy. Altinum eventually came under the duchy of Treviso of the Kingdom of the Lombards (568–774).

Narses, the Byzantine military commander in Italy in the final stage of the Gothic War, managed to capture Vitale, the bishop of Altinum, which many years earlier had taken refuge in Aguntum in Noricum, near modern Lienz If there had been a partial withdrawal by Altinum's top clergy, this would have been during Gothic Wars.

Paul the Deacon, the Lombard historian, wrote that the bishop of Altinum took part in the synod of Marano (590) during the  Schism of the Three Chapters (553-698).

A 590 letter the Byzantine commander in Altinum wrote to Childebert I, one of the kings of the Franks, attests that Altinum still had town walls.

The move of the bishop of Torcello is assigned to the 5th century or within the 7th century. However, it followed a long and tortuous course which ended for good in the early 11th century.

Mentions by ancient  writers
Marcus Valerius Martialis (Martial), the 1st century poet, wrote: "You banks of Altinum, that rival the rural beauties of Baiae,  … and you, Aquileia … You shall be the haven and the resting-places of my old age, if my retirement be at my own disposal." Baiae was a popular seaside resort in the Bay of Naples which was very fashionable among rich Romans.

Strabo, the 1st century BCE geographer, gave a description of northern Italy and the Veneto, "The whole of this country is full of rivers and marshes, especially the district of the Veneti, which likewise experiences the tides of the sea. This is almost the only part of our sea [The Mediterranean] which is influenced in the same manner as the ocean, and, like it, has ebb and flood tides. In consequence most of the plain is covered with lagoons. The inhabitants have dug canals and dikes, after the manner of Lower Egypt, so that part of the country is drained and cultivated, and the rest is navigable. Some of their cities stand in the midst of water like islands, others are only partially surrounded. Such as lie above the marshes in the interior are situated on [navigable rivers] …. continually swelled by the rains and snows."

Strabo also described Ravenna and Altinum, "Situated in the marshes is the great [city of] Ravenna, built entirely on piles, and traversed by canals, which you cross by bridges or ferry-boats. At the full tides it is washed by a considerable quantity of sea-water, as well as by the river, and thus the sewage is carried off, and the air purified … It is a remarkable peculiarity of this place, that, though situated in the midst of a marsh, the air is perfectly innocuous … Another remarkable peculiarity is that of its vines, which, though growing in the marshes, make very quickly and yield a large amount of fruit, but perish in four or five years. Altinum stands likewise in the marshes, its situation being very similar to that of Ravenna."

In his description of the Veneto Region, Pliny the Elder, the 1st century BCE and CE naturalist, wrote that the River Sile flows from the hills of Treviso to Altinum. Regarding the River Po, he wrote, "There is no river known to receive a larger increase than this in so short a space; so much so indeed that it is impelled onwards by this vast body of water, and, invading the land, forms deep channels in its course: hence it is that, although a portion of its stream is drawn off by rivers and canals between Ravenna and Altinum, for a space of 120 [Roman] miles, still, at the spot where it discharges the vast body of its waters, it is said to form seven seas … and … "The next mouth [of the Po] … the [Etruscans] formerly made from Sagis, thus drawing the impetuous stream of the river across into the marshes of the Atriani, which they call the Seven Seas; and upon which is the noble port of Atria …"  By invading the land Pliny meant floods. The seven seas (Septem Maria) was the series of lagoons which  the emperor Clausius connected to Altinum (see above). Atria is now modern Adria.

Vitruvius, the 1st century BCE Roman architect, wrote about laying out the ground in marsh areas. "… if in marshes walls are laid out, and these marshes are along the sea, and they look towards the north or between the north and east, and these marshes are higher than the sea coast, they will seem to be reasonably laid out. For if dykes are cut, there is made an outlet of water to the beach; and when the sea is swollen by storms, there is an overflow into the marshes, which being stirred and moved about and mixed with sea salt, does not permit the various kind of marsh creatures to be born there: moreover, those which, by swimming from higher parts, arrive near the coast, are killed by the unfamiliar saltness. An instance of this may be found in the Gallic marshes which are round Altinum, Ravenna, Aquileia and other townships in like places which are nearest the marshes. For owing to these causes, they have an incredible salubrity."  This description fits the walls and canals system of Altinum.

In his Commentary on the Georgics of Virgil,  Maurus Servius Honoratus, a grammarian (floruit late 4th century), wrote this about the lintres (small flat-bottomed boats): "Lintres: small river vessels. It is not without reason that [Virgil] remembers the lintres, because in most of Venetia, rich in rivers, every trade is carried out on lintres, such as in Ravenna and Altinum, where even hunting, fowling and the cultivation of the fields are carried out in the litres."

Grattius Faliscus (63 BC – 14 AD) a poet known for his Cynegeticon, a poem on hunting, wrote about types of woods to be used for hunting. He mentioned the pine wood and the broom from Altinum. Broom was used to make arrows.

Regarding the Pectine nigerrimi cockles, Pliny the Elder  wrote, "the pectine, the biggest ones and among them those more black in the summer are the most  they are found at Mytilene, Tindari, Salona, Altinum …"

In his treatise on agriculture (De Re Rustica), Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella (4-70 CE) wrote, "For this use it is better to procure cows from Altinum, which the people of the area call "Ceve". They are short and produce a great abundance of milk, it is for this reason that this breed is bred ..." He also wrote that while previous generations of farmers considered sheep from Calabria, Apulia and Mileto to be the best, in his days "the breed form Gallia [northern Italy] best is considered the most valuable one, especially the one from Altinum."

Sheep grazing was important in the Roman days as people wore woollen clothes. Regarding white wool, Martial wrote, "Apulia is noted for fleeces of the first quality; Parma for those of the second. The sheep whose wool is of the third quality distinguishes Altinum." Tertullian 155 – c. 240? BCE) mentioned "... the sheep of Mileto, Selegas, Altinum, or those for which Tarentum or Baetica are renowned, because the nature of those places gives colour to the wool." The 301 Edict on Maximum Prices issued by the emperor Diocletian assigned the wool of Altinum a rather high price (200 denarii per pound). It also assigned a pay of 30 denarii per pound to the workers who made wool in  Tarentum, Laodicea and Altinum.

Medieval history
By the 10th century, the area of Altinum was totally abandoned. The bishop of Altinum moved to the island of Torcello (see above). The bishops of Torcello stressed their Altinum lineage and retained the juridical title of bishop of Altinum for centuries. The monks of the monastery of Santo Stefano moved to the Tumba Leseda
island (nowadays it is called La Salina) in the archipelago of the settlement of Ammiana in 900. They established the monastery of Santi Felice e Fortunato. Both settlements were in the northern part of the Lagoon of Venice.

Documentation about the area in this period is scant and comes mostly from ecclesiastic institutions (the monasteries of  Santi Felice e Fortunato and of San Giorgio Maggiore and the bishop of Torcello) or to families which owned land in the area (the Carbonara, Collalto, Marcello and Querini). A 1095 text attested the existence of an Altino Maiore and an Altino Pitulo, which indicates that there was still a village and that it may have split into two parts. The text also indicates that the churches of Santa Maria (the old cathedral), San Martino e Sant'Apollinare still existed.

In 1388 when the Republic of Venice annexed the Treviso area, which reached the mainland shore of the Lagoon of Venice, wealthy Venetians founded an agricultural village close to the shore and to the site of Altinum. It was named San Michele del Quarto after a small church which was four Roman miles from Altinum.

Despoliation of the town
After Altinum was abandoned there was a gradual despoliation of its buildings and cemetery stones for use as building materials in Torcello and other islands in the lagoon and in the future Venice because there was a lack of building materials in the lagoon. The 16th century humanists and subsequent antiquarians and scholars traced some of the stones from Altinum  through the search of  inscriptions from the Roman age. In the second half of the 19th century Theodor Mommsen aimed at cataloguing the entire body of Latin epigraphy in Venice. Under the Altinum entry he collected and translated 181 inscriptions. Many were of uncertain provenance and only a small part is securely identifiable.

Archaeological and remote sensing studies
Archaeological studies started to develop mainly after the draining of this marsh area in the early 20th century. Altinum is the only large Roman town in Northern Italy and one of the few in Europe where medieval towns were not built on top of them. This makes archaeological research easier and allows remote sensing surveys to be carried out.

The finds of flint artefacts attributable to the sauveterrian culture have revealed the presence of hunter gatherer groups in 9500-6500 BCE. The wetland environment, which was rich in vegetation due to  water courses  fed by melting ices and springs in the plain made up for the survival difficulties created by the hot and arid climate of the late  boreal age. The finds of shells and sea molluscs suggest the use of food resources of the coastal environment. In those days the Lagoon of Venice had not formed yet and the coastline was a few kilometres further inland than it is now. Human presence in the areas by the Adriatic coast continued in the subsequent millennia with late Mesolithic (6,500-5,500 BCE) hunter-gatherer groups.

An early Neolithic site of farmers and grazers with artefacts typical of the cultures of central-northern Italy of this time has  been found in the nearby Tessera. In Altinum artefacts dating from the Neolithic to the early Copper Age have been found.

Starting from the mid-Bronze Age (1600 BCE), there was a colonisation of the plain of the River Po and central-eastern Veneto. A late Bronze Age (1300-1000 BCE) subapennine  culture (1350-1150 BCE) site has been found to the northeast of Altinum. There have been finds dated to this period on the Siloncello canal very close to Altinum (to the northeast) and in the town. A settlement on sandy mounds close to the River Sile was abandoned in the early Bronze Age due to marine ingression.

Aegean pottery was found on the islands of Torcello and Mazzorbo. These were probably along a sea trade route form the Aegean Sea and the eastern Mediterranean to the Altinum area between the 9th and 7th centuries BCE. This route continued to be used in the Iron Age, as attested by the finds of Attic pottery in these two islands and other islands in the northern part of the Lagoon of Venice (San Tommaso dei Bognomi, San Giacomo in Paludo, Vignole and Sant'Erasmo).

A land path with a fort equipped with wooden elements has also been traced Ca' Tron and Portegrandi, to the northeast of Altinum. It preceded the via Annia. It might have connected these two coastal centres to other coastal centres on the Adriatic Sea from the 11th century on and to the inland centres and the Alps via the rivers Sile and Piave.

For information related to Altinum's contacts with Celtic groups see the Pre-Roman Altinum section above.

Until the 1990s it was thought that the origins of Altinum were dated to the 7th century BCE. More recently, a burial attributable to the late Bronze Age was found. It was contemporary to other materials found in the nearby areas (by the River Zero, close to the coast of the lagoon and to the east). This has led to the hypothesis that the earliest protohistoric settlement nucleus was close to the Santa Maria channel (see below). The earliest trace of human activity in Altinum is datable to the first half of the 8th century BCE. It is a simple quarry for fictile materials similar to those found in other Veneti centres dated to a slightly earlier time. The quarry was later filled in by a settlement centred around a large building (13 m long and 6.75 m wide) with two internal asymmetric spans which must have supported a double pitched roof. Soon afterwards the narrower side was widened with a portico. It was active in the second half of the 8th century BCE and was abandoned in the first quarter of the 7th century BCE. It is one of the oldest attestations of square plan buildings in the Veneto. It is derived from housing and productive prototypes found in Treviso, Oderzo and Concordia Sagittaria. In the next phase, after a brief period of abandonment, the site seems to have changed to a workshop area. There was a wooden well connected to a small canal system and a small furnace until the mid-7th century BCE. Thus, the earliest evidence of a settlement nucleus is dated from the mid-8th century to the mid-7th century BCE. Then the area was briefly unused before it was devoted to a sacred area.

In the 7th century BCE the settlement moved slightly to the northwest, in its historical location. This is attested by aerial photography, stratigraphy and sample excavations below the ruins of the Roman town. It was on a man-made mound. Two sacred areas have been found in diametrically opposite locations to the north and to the south of the settlement. The first one was identified indirectly through the find of a fragment of an altar with an inscription dedicated to the god Belatukadro. The second one  was found during the restructuring works of the museum area and was excavated  from  1997 to 2000. It is dated to the late 6th century BCE and developed in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE. Dedicative inscriptions in Venetic language and alphabet indicate that it was dedicated to Arno or Altinum, a god of the Veneti. Thus, the town was named after this god. It had a commercial role, the protection of the trade in local agricultural and manufacturing goods and horses and the imports from the Mediterranean Sea and form beyond the Alps. This is indicated by  its location by the Santa Maria channel which connected it to the lagoon. Moreover, its votive deposits which had objects from Greece, Magna Graecia and the Etruscans in the plain of the River Po. Its function as an emporium is shown by inscriptions. These also show a male and military character due to the need to protect the traded goods. It was one of the main pre-Roman sanctuaries in the region.

In the 5th century BCE this sanctuary was a large outdoors space enclosed by a rectangular portico which had two symmetric cells at the centre of its short sides. Two large ash altars were found inside the courtyard and in parallel with the cells. The deposit pits with the sacrificial remains and the votive objects were found outside this area. The remains of many horses were found in a pit at the edge of the sanctuary. The sacred area progressively grew until Romanisation (2nd-1st century BCE). This denotes an increase in the number of pilgrims as the town's trade in the Adriatic Sea increased. In the second half of the 1st century BCE the sanctuary came to be devoted to the Roman god Jupiter and assumed the look of a sacred wood.

Stratigraphy related to the late Bronze Age and the transition to the Iron Age was found to the south-east of the town in the late 1990s and further out to the north-east, close to the River Sile, in 2005. In 2002 tombs datable to the late 6th- early 5th century BCE were found at the eastern edge of the town and to its north, by the River Zero. They were related to a cemetery investigated in the late 1970s. The pre-Roman cemetery area to the north of Altinum covered the whole of the northern strip which was later crossed by the northern tract of the Via Annia and the Roman period cemetery. It stretched to the left bank of the River Zero. This arrangement of cemetery areas at the edge of a town and separated by watercourses was typical of other pre-Roman Veneti towns, such as Este and Padua. It can be surmised that watercourses had a particular role in funerary ceremonies and represented a route from the town of the living to that of the dead and a transition to the afterlife.

In 1999-2002 ditches and cemetery areas were found in a section of the Via Annia to the south-west of Altinum. Their dating is problematic as the road was progressively widened until it reached a width of 12 m. In the area of the Via Claudia Augusta, to the north-west of the town, there were traces of ditches and small canals attributable to a late antiquity systematic parcelling out of land and maintenance interventions. Larger areas of land divisions were noted in the mentioned areas to the south-west which was linked to a network of ditches and canals. Similar traces were found to the south and further away from the town (5 km), close to the edge of the lagoon, within the  current airport area, and to the north-east, at Portegrandi, close to the edge of the lagoon.

Excavations in the centre of the town in 1995-97 identified a large baths complex dated between the 1st and 3rd century. In the early 1990s an investigation of the layer below a town gate on a canal pushed back its dating, which was previously attributed to the Augustan period, to the first half of the 1st century BCE and brought to light the remains of an imposing foundation ceremony. The ancient bed of a navigable canal with moorings which was an extension of the Siloncello canal (see below) was discovered in the layers below the area of the Augustan period. It traced back the creation of a systematic hydraulic plan of remediation for the delicate ecosystem by the lagoon to the first half of the 1st century BCE.

A 2000 systematic excavation of the cemeteries found a more than 2000 tombs and an extraordinary number of funerary monuments, which makes Altinum a prime site for the study of funerary architecture and rituals in northern Italy in the Roman imperial period. The Augustan period was a period of big mausolea especially for those of the baldachin type which was derived from Aegean-Oriental models. Several sumptuous examples were found in the monumental cemetery by the Via Annia where the ruling elite started to build their grandiose burials in the last decades of the 1st century BCE. In the 1st century CE they were replaced by numerous funerary enclosures  along both fronts of this cemetery. They were sometimes aligned close to each over a length of over 170 m with mausolea alternating with various types of funerary buildings and areas taken up only by tombs. Cylindrical and octagonal altars typical of Altinum's sculptural art were a recurrent decorative element in the enclosures. They were probably placed in pairs at their corners.

The southern tract of the Siloncello canal (see below) was blocked in the last decades of the 1st century CE to start the eastern expansion of the town. This is attested by the urban plan of the new Augustan neighbourhood.

In 2007 a team of geomorphologists from the University of Padua carried out a survey with visible and near-infrared (NIR) aerial photographs which were taken after a period of prolonged drought and developed a digital elevation model (DEM) to reconstruct the urban topography and the environmental setting of Altinum. NIR is highly sensitive to vegetation and crop marks highlight archaeological features.

The crops were suffering from drought and were highly sensitive to the subsurface presence of stones, bricks or compacted soil. They were in different stages of ripening due to differences in the amount of water in the soil. This created lighter crop marks which indicated stonework and revealed the outlines of buildings at least 40 cm below the surface. Darker marks indicated depressed features such as ditches and canals. To the south of the town centre there was a wide strip of riper crops which were growing above what used to be a canal. The survey covered an area of 100 hectares.

The map of the town was reconstructed in great detail, revealing the urban fabric and the waterways, the town walls and gates, the street network and previously unknown neighbourhoods and buildings, including monumental ones: the amphitheatre, the theatre, the odeon,  and the forum, which are attributable to the 1st century BCE and the 1st century CE. The town was on top of a 2- to 3 m-high mound and in Roman times the lagoon shore probably reached the foot that mound. Altinum was probably partially surrounded by water. The researchers conclude that the results indicate a complex urban system "adapted to the peculiarity of the lagoon environment" and show that "the Romans successfully exploited the amphibious environment several centuries before the city of Venice started to emerge."

The map of Altinum which was reconstructed through remote sensing can be seen overlaid on Google Earth.

The political and administrative heart of the town was in the northernmost part. Here, besides the outlines of the forum, amphitheatre, theatre and odeon, the outlines of the capitolium (the temple of the Capitoline Triad) and the basilica were also identified in the 2007 remote sensing survey. The theatre had a length of 120 m and a radius of 60 m. It is dated between 40 and 20 BCE. It was one of the first ones in northern Italy and one of the first in a provincial town in the whole of Italy. The odeon was half its size. The amphitheatre was in the outskirts, to the north of the canal which marked the northern limit of the town. Its longer axis was 150 m and its size was similar to that of the Arena di Verona (which could host 30,000 people) and was larger than those of Padua and Aquileia.

Between 2012 and 2015 Ca' Foscari University of Venice carried out surveys in an area in the east of the town, where a 2000 a geophysical survey indicated an urban area, roads and a building with an apse which correspond to the area of the late Republic monumental town gate. In the 2007 survey it came out blurred. Between 1989 and 1990 there was a geophysical survey in this area and the one next to it to the east. A series of plinths along the main canal and a secondary canal which branches from it were identified. This tallies with some 1972 samplings on the eastern bank of the secondary canal which found the foundations of a brick quay resting on wooden piling and seven rectangular plinths related to a big building which is identified as a warehouse. This suggests that it was a commercial area.

In 2012 just under half of the area was surveyed. It focused on surface finds (at a depth of 20–30 cm). The area had been devoted to medicinal plants for years and had not been ploughed. It was on a marked mound. Pottery and architectural  fragments, coins, fictile materials and other items were found. High concentrations of plaster, mosaic tesserae and architectural and stone fragments indicate that there were buildings. The 2014 campaign covered the rest of the area and used the same methods. Electromagnetic prospections detected three northeast–southwest parallel gravel roads with an average length of c. 7 m and a road perpendicular to them along the northern edge of the area, which was parallel to the canal which marks the northern end of the town. Another structure with the same orientation was detected in central area of the survey, but gravel was not detected and it might have been a canal.

The finds of some concentrations of glass leftovers and fragments of a crucible suggest that there were glassworks. This is an important find because it could confirm the hypothesis that Altinum had a role in glass production in the Roman days.

The port and the canals
The networks of ditches and canals discovered to the northwest, southwest and south of Altinum, the canals in the town and the canals which connected the town to the lagoon show that Altinum needed to both connect its port to the lagoon and to create a hydraulic system to manage the delicate hydraulic and environmental setting of the marshy area it was in. This shaped the geomorphology of the town. Vitruvius gave some indication of the management needs in marshy areas, including Altinum, and Strabo indicated that the town had a system of canals (see above). Altinum was successful in managing its often waterlogged marshy environment.

Altinum was crossed in the middle by a west–east main canal. An oblong semi-circular canal marked the northern limit of the central part of the town and a southern one marked the southern limit. These three canals reached the River Zero, to the west of the town. The Siloncello canal, which still exists, run in a northeast–southwest oblique straight line form the River Sile. It came close to the north-eastern edge of the town. A southward extension of this canal was connected to the three mentioned canals. It continued to south of the town and reached the Santa Maria canal, which still exists and runs south of the town from the River Dese to the lagoon at the Palude di Cona marsh and thus connected the port, which was to the east of the extension canal, to the lagoon. The Siloncello canal turns east at a right angle just before the town and then south, reaching the Palude di Cona slightly further east. Thus, the port could be reached through the Siloncello form the east and the Santa Maria form the west.

The Siloncello canal also continued eastwards and reached the River Sile, close to its mouth. At the time the River Piave must have flowed into the Sile. The Piave was a preferred route for the transport of wood from the forests of Cadore towards Altinum as attested by an inscription found in Feltre. Thus, this canal was of strategic importance for the supply of wood. The remains of a 192 m long mooring dock on the western bank of the Siloncello was found in 1930 a few hundreds of metres north of the town.

A fluvial dock area found between 1988 and 1993 on the west bank of a north–south canal that was aligned to the Siloncello canal. It had porticoed warehouses. The dock and the canal bed were below the urban structures of the Augustan period urban period. In this period the canal was filled in.

A monumental town gate was built following the model of urban gates with a central body and angular towers. It has been dated to the first half of the 1st century BCE. It was richly decorated. The central body with the gate had two towers at each side. The structure was flanked on both sides by two short wall tracts attached to the towers. It rested on strong pilings made with oak trunks. It was on the canal that marked the northern boundary of the town. The canal was crossed, perhaps through two arches, by the cardus maximus. This canal is now only a ditch. It was shown in a 16th-century map. It still had a considerable width, was visible and reached the River Zero in the late 19th century. It was the preferred route to take goods from the port to some presumed moorings at the northern border of the town and to the beginning of the Via Claudia Augusta.

In 1972 the foundation of a 16.3 m brick dock with fully curved arches linked to a large building were found close to the gate, on the eastern bank of a secondary canal which branched off the main one inside the urban area. Its materials are dated to the late 1st century BCE and the mid-1st century CE. The remains of an imposing complex of porticoed docks was found along the opposite bank of the canal in an electromagnetic survey. The results indicate that it stretched for an over 120 m angled course which seems to faithfully follow the morphology of the canal, whose width was around 10 m.

The foundations of another porticoed dock similarly linked to a large building were detected along the canal which marked the southern border of the town, whose bed was indicated by a considerable depression in the terrain in the mid-60s. It stretched eastwards immediately before the northern shoulder of the bridge which linked the Via Annia to the town. It is dated to the late Republic period. It was in a key position in the immediate vicinity of the southern entrance of the town and along a fluvial a route which started from the port and must have gone through the Santa Maria canal. This canal was connected to it. It was also liked to the Via Annia. From here goods could reach the inland markets overland via the Via Annia or by following a wide canal with wooden banks which flanked this road in the north.

UNESCO World Heritage Site
The "Venice and her Lagoon" UNESCO World Heritage Site was established in 1987. It includes the Altinum archaeological area.

See also
National Archaeological Museum of Altino

References

Further reading

 Cresci Marrone G., Tirelli M., (eds.),  Altino dal cielo. La città telerivelata. Lineamenti di forma urbis, Studi e ricerche sulla Gallia Cisalpina, Quasar, 2012;

Frazioni of the Metropolitan City of Venice
Archaeological sites in Veneto
National museums of Italy

nl:Altino (Quarto d'Altino)

Altinum


Maria Misra is a Lecturer in Modern History at University of Oxford and a Fellow of Keble College, specialising in the politics, culture, and economics of nineteenth- and twentieth-century imperialism and colonialism.

She has written two books on Indian history: Business, Race and Politics in British India and Vishnu's Crowded Temple, India since the Great Rebellion.  The latter, published by Allen Lane to be timed with India's 60 years of independence, addresses the question of how India's traditions of caste and religious identities are able to coexist with a modern democratic state on its way to becoming a major economic power.

She has presented a television documentary series on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century India which was broadcast in 2001, has written for the New Statesman, The Guardian, The Times and The Financial Times and has contributed to the Saturday Review on Radio 4. She is a columnist for the Times Higher Education Supplement.

Publications
  "Politics and Expatriate Enterprise in India: The Inter-War Years" in Business and Politics in India: A Historical Perspective (ed. D.Tripathi), (New Delhi, 1991)
 Business, Race and Politics in British India c.1860-1960. (Oxford, 1999) 250pp.
 "Gentlemanly Capitalism and the Raj: British Policy in India, c. 1860-1947" in Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Imperialism: The New Debate of Empire (ed. R.E. Dumett), (Basingstoke, 1999) pp 157–174
 "Business Culture and Entrepreneurship in British India, 1860-1950", Modern Asian Studies 34:2 (2000) pp 333–348'''

Notes

External links
 Interview at Channel 4

Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
Historians of India
Historians of colonialism
British historians
Fellows of Keble College, Oxford

Maria Misra


The U-Drop Inn, also known as Tower Station and U-Drop Inn and Tower Café, was built in 1936 in Shamrock, Texas along the historic Route 66 highway in Wheeler County. Inspired by the image of a nail stuck in soil, the building was designed by J. C. Berry. An unusual example of art deco architecture applied to a gas station and restaurant, the building features two flared towers with geometric detailing, curvilinear massing, glazed ceramic tile walls, and neon light accents. It has traditionally held two separate business: "Tower Station," a gas station on the western side, and the "U-Drop Inn," a café on the eastern side. Though it has passed hands several times in its history, the building has consistently housed the same types of businesses it was originally constructed for.

Once considered a beautiful and impressive example of Route 66 architecture in Texas, the U-Drop Inn fell into disrepair with the decommissioning of Route 66. It closed for business in the late 1990s. After it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in September 1997, the building was purchased by the First National Bank of Shamrock, which then gave it to the city. Primarily funded by a US$1.7 million federal grant, the city hired a firm specializing in historical renovation to restore the building to its original glory and adapt it into a museum, visitors' center, gift shop, and the city's chamber of commerce. In the 2006 animated film Cars, the fictional town of Radiator Springs was based on multiple real U.S. Route 66 landmarks from Peach Springs to Baxter Springs; the U-Drop Inn's distinctive architecture appears as Ramone's automotive body and paint shop.

History

Early days
Opened on April 1, 1936, the U-Drop Inn was built by J.M. Tindall using a design created by his friend, John Nunn, who scratched the design on a patch of dirt in the driveway of a nearby motel. Tindall had Pampa architect J.C. Berry draw up the blueprints for the art deco structure, and construction began at the busy intersection of Route 66 and U.S. Route 83. Nunn, whose family owned and ran the business, sponsored a contest to decide the name of the new building. An eight-year-old boy won a week's worth of waitressing pay (approximately $50.00 at the time) with his entry of "U-Drop Inn." In addition to a café, the building housed a gas station that sold Conoco brand fuel and a store.  The store was never actually opened as a store, and became a ballroom and overflow dining area for the café.

When the business opened, the local newspaper called it "the most up-to-date edifice of its kind on U.S. Highway 66 between Oklahoma City and Amarillo," with the café considered "the swankiest of the swank eating places." At the time of opening, the U-Drop was the only café within  of Shamrock, enjoying brisk business and becoming a successful establishment. Nunn sold the Inn after several years, but purchased it back in 1950 and renamed it Nunn's Café. In 1957, John Nunn died and his wife Bebe sold the café to Grace Brunner who again renamed it, this time to Tower Café, and added a Greyhound bus station.

Decline
After Nunn's death, the building passed through the hands of a few more owners and the station sold gasoline from various other companies. In the 1970s, Fina took over the building, painting it red, white, and blue. In the early 1980s, James R. Tindall, Sr. purchased the building, the construction of which his father had originally financed, repainted it to its original colors, and changed the name back to the original name of U-Drop Inn. In the mid-1990s, the building was repossessed by the bank and closed completely in 1997. Up through its closing, the café at the U-Drop was praised for its low-priced and tasty "home cooking".

With signing of the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, Route 66 fell into decline, with segments being bypassed via turnpikes and newer highways. With the opening of Interstate 40, Shamrock became one of the bypassed towns and the U-Drop Inn, which once served thousands of travelers fell into disrepair due to neglect. In 1984, Route 66 was decommissioned by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, seeming to seal the fate of the town and the U-Drop Inn. In 1990, several state and local historical associations began efforts to preserve the architectural landmarks along the old route, particularly the many derelict or abandoned motels.

Restoration

Called "one of the most impressive examples" of Route 66 architecture by the Texas Historical Commission, the U-Drop Inn was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 18, 1997.  In May 1999, the First National Bank of Shamrock purchased the U-Drop Inn, then gave it to the city of Shamrock.

The city of Shamrock began taking measures to revive the neglected structure as a tourist attraction. In 2000, the city hired Phillips Swager Associates of Dallas and Architexas, a firm specializing in historical preservation, to begin implementing a phased restoration plan.

The company adapted the old gas station and café to act as the community's chamber of commerce and visitor center while preserving the building's architectural features and historical authenticity. Old photographs and interviews with residents were used to aid the company in uncovering the buildings original details. They peeled away decades of paint layers and fabric to find the original interior and exterior colors. One of the more difficult aspects was in restoring the neon accents. While historical photographs showed where neon existed, they had all been taken during the daytime when the neon lights were off, making it difficult to determine what color the lights originally were.

The restoration also included turning the building into a museum of its own history, giving it the authentic appearance of a working 1940 gas station. With $1.7 million in funding by the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, the restoration was completed in July 2003.

In May 2013, the neon lighting of the restored U-Drop Inn was damaged by a hailstorm; the damaged elements were replaced by LEDs in February 2014. The café will serve fountain drinks, coffee and floats in 2014 after many years with no food or beverage service.

Architecture
With its glazed brick, "zigzag" motif, strong vertical elements, and the decorative structure, particularly the metal "tulip," the building is considered to be an excellent example of the Art Deco style. Art Deco was most commonly seen in large commercial and public buildings, so its use in a gas station and roadside restaurant was a rare sight. The U-Drop is one of the few Art Deco cafés built in the 1930s, and it stands out architecturally from its peers, as most depression-era cafés had simpler and similar wood-frame and clapboard designs or followed the Streamline Moderne offshoot of Art Deco.

The original building was designed by John Nunn and architect J. C. Berry. The 1-story concrete and brick building has a modified rectangular layout with a flat roof.  It features a flared tower over the gas station, and two canopies, one facing Route 66 and one facing Highway 83 over the front of the gas station office. In the rear, a second, shorter tower contained the restaurant. The main buildings were built of structural clay tile with terra-cotta glazed brick. The two towers are clad in stucco with decorative green and gold glazed terra-cotta tiles and cast concrete stepped forms. Designed to attract the attention of the passing motorists, the towers also feature geometric detailing, curvilinear massing, and are outlined with neon lighting added additional character and uniqueness to the building's design.

Historically, the U-Drop Inn held two separate businesses that shared a single interior wall. The west side, commonly called "Tower Station" "is dominated by a large four-sided obelisk rising from the flat roof and topped by a metal "tulip." The tower displayed the station name, Conoco, in all capital letters on each side, with neon lighting on the corners. Vertical-rubbed detailing goes along the base of both towers, as well as two canopies that extend south and west from the western tower. The posts of the canopies were originally encased in decorative glazed tile and vintage metal signs. Between the canopy posts are fuel islands designed to hold three fuel pumps each. 1960s-vintage pumps are situated on the islands, with three on the western canopy and two on the southern. A chamfered corner separates the two canopies. Multiple-pane windows surround the glass doors of the office station, as well as dominating much of the southern side of the building. Situated between the office and the café are two service station bays with roll-up style overhead doors.

The east side of the building, commonly called the "U-Drop Inn café" has a similarly designed, three-sided, shorter version of the main tower. Mirroring the "Conoco" wording, it has "Café" written in the same green paint with drop shadowed lettering, and a small ornamental metal sphere perched at its top. Just below the tower, an outstretched metal and wooden sign, added in 1950, displays the name of the building and points towards the recessed entrance. This side mirrors the tiled detail found in the station side, and once had a neon "starburst" around the sign and entryway. Inside the café, the eastern and southern interior walls are lined with booths. The northern wall holds two small restrooms, with the kitchen once located in the northeastern corner. On the southern wall, a recessed doorway flanked by large single-paned windows led into the café's main dining room. The building's exterior is painted beige with dark green accents. On the northern facade, the original brick remains unpainted.

In popular culture

The 2006 Pixar computer-animated film Cars is set in the cartoon village of Radiator Springs, which was created as a composite of real landmarks and personalities encountered by Pixar artists on multiple research trips on  of the former U.S. Route 66. Among the buildings and structures based on Route 66 landmarks is a version of Tower Station. U-Drop Inn's unique design and architecture is portrayed as an automotive body shop owned by the character Ramone, a Chevrolet Impala lowrider.

See also

National Register of Historic Places listings in Wheeler County, Texas
Recorded Texas Historic Landmarks in Wheeler County

References

External links

TexasEscapes.com page on the U-Drop Inn

Transportation buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Texas
Buildings and structures in Wheeler County, Texas
Tourist attractions in Wheeler County, Texas
U.S. Route 66 in Texas
Commercial buildings completed in 1936
Tourist attractions along U.S. Route 66
Towers in Texas
Restaurants in Texas
Art Deco architecture in Texas
Restaurants established in 1936
Retail buildings in Texas
Museums in Wheeler County, Texas
National Register of Historic Places in Wheeler County, Texas
Recorded Texas Historic Landmarks
Restaurants on the National Register of Historic Places
1936 establishments in Texas

U-Drop Inn