MOS MAIORUM ROMA - APS
Associazione di Studio e Ricostruzione Storica
Experimental Archaeology
Education
One of the most satisfactory activities we have always carried on in Mos Maiorum is the didactic to the benefit of children and kids, either at our events and in the schools.
We always receive the same comment from them: I never studied history in this way!
And that's true, because we're not professors, we do not make use of books and blackboard.. we leave these indispensable tools to scholars, who are much better and more competent than us in childrens' education.
We, more humbly, just want to show history, the same history written on books, from another perspective, more practical, visual, tactile.. in other words we try to bring it back to life through the objects, customs and tradictions of the past.
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For instance, to make children understand how the romans wrote, we just show it to them and we use the same language, handwriting, tools and implements we would have found back then, accurately reproduced upon archaeological, iconographic and and epigraphic evidences. And the children (but adults as well !) do greatly appreciate to write their thoughts on the tabula cerata (wax tablet) we give them.
To tell the history of money from its 'invention' up to the roman world, a real argentarius shows and let the children touch faithful reproductions of the aes grave, of the silver denarius, of the tools used to test precious metals, of the ancients weight and measurement units, of the roman abacus.
Our children learnt at school that Rome became a great empire also thanks to the might of its legions.. but do they have ever seen a real legionary? We show them a legionary armed and equipped like 2,200 years ago, as he would have looked like on the eve on the battle of Cannae, or at the time of Julius Caesar, and we tell them why he fought and for whom, who waited for him at home, how his home was like, what gods he worshipped, what food he ate.
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How did the romans: start a fire? Make a dress? Bake bread? Preserve food? Build a bronze tool? Make a bow? Produce coins? Make a pair of shoes? And more.. who was in command in Rome? What medicine did the romans take? What were their games and pastimes? Why were the legions so mighty? ... these are only some of the questions to which it is good to answer together with the children, along an 'experiencial path' where study turns into a game!
