Amphora.

Some days ago you were assigned a bit of homework. You ought be grateful that this was specified as “google” homework, as that would allow you to cut or copy, open a new tab, then paste this word you may well not have recognized and probably couldn’t pronounce into the search box of everyone’s favorite internet search engine. I’m not trying to be demeaning. I myself didn’t know how to pronounce this word nor to what it might refer until fairly recently. Like you, once I saw a picture of one, I thought “oh yeah – one of those."

Many years ago, like way before you were born (that easily includes the oldest among you), D’s Grandpa (her Mom’s Dad) found a few relics that were left over from what we now call the Roman Empire. Among these was an Amphora (spelled “Amfora” in Italian which makes it a real pain in the ass to google first time around) that had spent some centuries beneath the surface of the Mediterranean Sea before coming into Gramps’ ownership. Centuries.

Ownership is probably not the exact proper term here. In Italy (which includes Sardinia, to the chagrin of at least a few of the good people who live there), the rules state that if you find a significant antiquity, you’re required to immediately inform the authorities so that they can halt whatever project had you digging in the first place, then send out some people to assess the relative worth of the site before deciding whether or not you’ll be allowed to put a swimming pool in your own backyard. In the US, this kind of rule would probably lead landowners to sit in the front yard with a six pack and a shotgun while shouting about their rights… but this is Italy, where people aren’t quite so indignant. Over here, they’re more likely to keep things quiet, to abandon the notion of a swimming pool, or to just accept what could easily become a 5 year delay on their capital improvement. There’s an odd mix of urgency and – dare I use the term – laissez faire – in this arena.

This “report your antiquity” rule didn’t exist back when Grandpa Persico found the Amfora – that rule (or law - or guideline, depending on who you ask - is really only about thirty years old). Whoever might currently own a similar relic is well within their legal rights. And once the item is on your mantle, nobody’s going to ask questions anyway. But here’s the rub: given that everyplace in Italy is Italian, you can count on finding something really cool just about any time you stuff the head of a shovel into the dirt.

Take an evening walk through Cremona (or any other town anywhere within the seabound borders of this odd squiggly boot) and you’ll certainly see some ruins to remind you that at one time, this was part of the Roman Empire. In Cremona, there’s a couple sidewalks covered with Lexan (or some kind of super stout plexiglass type stuff that you can walk on) that allow a view about fifteen feet down, displaying what was once the road to Rome. Not far from here is a parking garage (?!) surrounding another group of remnants of this former glorious time, complete with a well, and a really impressive mosaic floor. I used to lay tile. I know what a top tier mosaic looks like. This one kicks butt.

There are a few different generations of Amphorae (you’ll remember this, no doubt, from your homework). The earliest versions were narrowest, with relatively thick walls, and held the least amount of water or grain or oil or wine. Later versions had thinner walls and more bulbous shapes, such that they could carry a higher net volume without unduly increasing the gross weight of vessel and contents. The two handles at the spout end to allow for easy pouring while the pointy bottom provides easy stacking (as well as the ability to poke the vessel into the sand or dirt without it tipping over). Apparently sand and dirt was more plentiful than these “table” things of which we’ve grown so fond in the last 2000 years. I can picture these things stuck in the garden, full of wine and ready to quench a fellow’s thirst after a hard afternoon of weeding but the notion of stacking them one inside the next for transport does seem a bit of a stretch.

So Grandpa found one of these things along with a number of other similarly old cool things. This one spent enough time under the sea that it became encrusted with sea critters – things that look like coral, other things that look like clams, and a bunch of those cool hollow things that look like a hard-shell parka for a worm. It’s not one of the earliest versions, and it doesn’t exactly match any of the photos I (or you) have found among the ‘google images.’ This one had a flat bottom, as though the pointy end had been cut flush. Probably around the time that really smart dude invented The Table. As near I can tell, it’s not more than two thousand years old, but everything I can find tells me that it’s more than 1800 years old. If you’ve found anything more precise, please please please let me know.

Anyway, Grandpa gave it to G, who put it in a three legged holder so that it could be proudly displayed, near the bottom of the stairs, in the home she shared with her two daughters. There it sat, for years, decades after he’d uncovered it, on this rickety metal frame. Over and again, one of the daughters would bump the thing, it would teeter this way and that, G would holler something like ‘Guarda dovai vai’ and life would return to normal.

On the day that D had finished her studies at University and was to become a bona-fide architect (all that remained was her final presentation), she was running late. And running down the stairs. And running into this nearly two millennia year old handmade piece of history. It teetered. It tottered. It fell down and broke into twenty-one pieces [plus little shards and bits of grit].

She was devastated.

The pieces went into a box and stayed there until last week, when we came across their container while digging through storage stuff. And we decided that although this item can never be whole again, that it can at least be displayed once more.

If you know me, you know that one of the things I enjoy most is bringing derelict machines back into service. To this end, I’ve owned more than two dozen motorcycles and scooters and – at last count – sixty-seven cars. The experience of being the first one to take apart something that was assembled by its creator years ago is a unique one. Reassembling it with more care than the factory afforded that first artisan is more than a simple task or exercise. It’s an expression of one’s desire to excel. To demonstrate to a faceless, perhaps long deceased, mentor that you’ve benefitted from her or his expertise at the same time you leave an unwritten example of your own for the next lucky steward. If you do well, your workmanship will outlast the carbon based machine you call your “self.” This taking a turn at stewardship isn’t something that readily meets description. Its aesthetic value can’t be conveyed in mere words. Your hands either have an appreciation for what other hands have created in the past, or they don’t. You either wish to leave an example of the quality your own hands can produce, or you don’t. Some of us make things. Others of us write checks.

Tricky thing about that old terra cotta stuff: it’s not readily repaired. I can’t make this amphora whole again, nor can I make it functional or useful. And though it may have been a valuable thing unbroken, its designed utility is now millennia obsolete; its financial worth as an antiquity is lost. What was once as important and as common as a kitchen sink will forever more be nothing other than an ornament. I've made no effort to hide the fractures, as doing so would diminish its authenticity. It's a really old thing that was broken and has been glued together. In the practical sense, it's this and nothing more.

In a more aesthetic sense, however, it's an ancient thing of handmade beauty. For that reason alone, it deserves to be displayed. Putting it back together – though not with the same level of expertise as a Smithsonian curator – has been an honor. To feel the contours of the interior as they were made nearly twenty centuries ago and to think of the hands that had carried it, the contents it had held, and the role it played in someone’s kitchen – or the corner of their garden – is a tactile and emotional experience that cannot be expressed.

Tomorrow, we’re taking it back to Cremona, where we’ll display it in G’s house. She doesn’t know it, but when she gets home from the hospital it’ll be there waiting. Something for her to look upon for the first time in nearly twenty years.

Welcome home, Mamy.

Cameron