Monte Testaccio

Listen to the ground under your feet here. On the slopes of this hill it does not crunch like gravel or settle like soil. It clinks. Look closely at any bare patch and you will see curved pieces of orange and brown clay. Some are as big as your palm, others no larger than a coin, and all of them lie packed tightly together. Grass and scrub cover much of the surface, but underneath there is almost no earth at all. This entire hill is made of broken pottery.

Welcome to Monte Testaccio. It is one of the strangest hills in Rome, and one of the very few that people built on purpose. The name comes from the Latin word testae, which means potsherds, or broken pieces of pottery. Romans sometimes call it Monte dei Cocci, which carries the same meaning. It rises roughly thirty-five metres above the surrounding streets. A walk around its base covers close to a kilometre. And every part of it was carried here by hand, one broken jar at a time.

To understand why, picture this district about two thousand years ago. Just a short walk to the west, the Tiber River curves past the old river port of Rome, known as the Emporium. Ships and barges came upriver from the coast here, loaded with goods for a city of perhaps a million people. Grain, wine, marble, and above all olive oil arrived on these riverbanks. Long rows of warehouses stood behind the quays. The most famous of them were the great storehouses known as the Horrea Galbae.

Olive oil was essential to Roman life. People cooked with it, of course, but they also burned it in lamps, rubbed it on their skin at the baths, and used it in medicines. Much of the oil came from Baetica. That was the Roman province in what is now Andalusia, in southern Spain. It travelled in large, round clay jars called amphorae. Archaeologists have a name for the most common type here: the Dressel 20. It is a heavy, globe-shaped jar with two short handles.

Here is the problem the Romans faced. Once an oil amphora was emptied, it was almost useless. The oil soaked into the porous clay and turned rancid. That made the jars difficult to wash or reuse for anything else. So workers broke them. They smashed the jars into pieces and hauled the fragments up this growing mound. The dumping went on for roughly two and a half centuries, from about the first century to the middle of the third century. Researchers estimate the hill holds tens of millions of jars.

The surprising part is that this was not a careless rubbish tip. Excavations show that the mound was built in a methodical way. Workers laid out the sherds in terraces. They often stacked the broken necks and handles to form retaining walls, and then filled the spaces behind them with smaller pieces. They also seem to have scattered lime over the layers. This probably helped to cover the smell of old oil in the summer heat. In other words, this was a managed landfill, with engineering behind it.

For historians, the hill is also an enormous archive. Many of the amphorae carried stamps pressed into the clay before firing. These often named the workshop or estate that made the jar. Others carried painted inscriptions in ink. These notes recorded the weight of the empty jar and the weight of the oil, the name of the merchant, and sometimes details of official inspections. Spanish and Italian teams have studied these labels for decades. From them, they have rebuilt a picture of how the Roman state moved oil across the Mediterranean.

When the dumping stopped, the hill stayed. Rome shrank after antiquity, and this corner of the city became fields, vineyards, and open ground inside the old walls. The mound became a gathering place. Medieval sources describe carnival games held here, known as the Ludus Testacei. According to these accounts, carts carrying live pigs were sent rolling down the slopes, and crowds below fought to claim the animals. Later, the hill gained a religious role. A cross was placed at the summit, and processions climbed it during Holy Week.

Now look at the base of the hill, especially along the street that runs around its edge. You will see doorways and arches set directly into the slope. These were once caves dug into the packed sherds. The broken pottery allows air to move through it, and so the caves stay cool all year. For generations, people used them as cellars to store wine. Today, many of these spaces hold restaurants, bars, and music clubs. At night, this quiet ancient dump becomes one of the liveliest corners of Rome.

The neighbourhood around you also takes its name from the hill. Testaccio is a district with a strong working-class history. In the late nineteenth century, the city built a large slaughterhouse here, called the Mattatoio. Its workers were sometimes paid partly in offal, the cheaper cuts of the animal. Local cooks turned those cuts into some of the most loved dishes in Roman cooking. One famous example is coda alla vaccinara, which is oxtail stewed slowly with tomato and celery. The old slaughterhouse buildings now house cultural spaces and a university campus.

If you want to walk on the hill itself, plan ahead. The summit is fenced, and access is usually only possible on organised visits arranged through the city's heritage authorities. From the top, the view takes in rooftops, domes, and the line of the Aurelian Walls. Even from the street, though, you can get a sense of the place. Walk slowly around the perimeter. In several spots, erosion or fencing gaps let you see the layered sherds clearly, like the cut side of a cake.

A short walk away, you will find two more neighbours with long histories. The white marble Pyramid of Cestius rises beside the gate of Porta San Paolo. A wealthy Roman built it as his tomb. Behind it lies the Non-Catholic Cemetery, a calm garden where the poets Keats and Shelley are buried. Together with the hill, they make this corner of Rome a place where ancient trade, death, and daily life sit side by side.

Before you leave, look once more at the slope in front of you. Every curve of clay in that bank was once part of a full jar. That jar was filled in Spain, carried across the sea, and lifted off a boat on the Tiber. Then someone emptied it, broke it, and carried it up here. Rome remembers its emperors with arches and columns. This hill remembers the dockworkers, the merchants, and the ordinary kitchens of the city. As you walk away, listen... you may still hear the faint clink underfoot.