Dr. Bednarz urged us today to begin really making connections to the different sites we visit. My mind was racing with the ability to make a physical connection with ambassador, and caused a blockade in my ability to see connections such as the pagan symbols on sarcophagi (the Bacchanal Procession).
After our visit with Ambassador Diaz and our tour of the Doria museum, I will claim that the rest of the day was a complete waste. A complete waste thanks to my own personal ambitions to simply rest up. I could have ventured to other churches and to other sites, but did not....
I'm starting to really get what this trip is about. We go to sites not for the ability to say that we visited a beautiful Roman villa (turned museum), but rather for our own personal ability to grow as scholars. Although we are traveling the streets of Rome as a group, we are mainly traveling as individuals. Out individual connections we make is collectively brought together to form a picture of the ancient world.
All this said, I would like to make my own theory on these sarcophagi we are seeing. Could these sarcophagi, with pagan representations such as a Bacchanal Procession (showing the procession of the god Bacchus, Jesus, riding with an ass and surrounded by those closest to him), be safeguards to the wellbeing of tombs during persecution? A thought to end on in this rather topsy-turvy whirlwind of a blog post that probably makes no sense. Then again, does anything?
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