Wednesday 27 May 2009

S is for...

Streetsign

When you wanted to visit your friends or relatives in ancient Rome, you had a bit of a problem: sat nav hadn't been invented yet and there weren't any roadmaps. Your main tool in finding your way around a large town was your mouth: just ask for directions! And if you wanted to get your directions and were counting on the streetsigns to help you out, you would be sadly mistaken! Because streetsigns were few and very far between.

I found this streetsign in Ercolano (an underground village in Naples) which was covered in lava in 79 aD. Quite a bit of the village was preserved and this streetsign was one of them.

Fortunately nowadays, streetsigns are widely used (as are sat nav and road maps), so loosing your way isn't really necessary anymore. They are fluorescent out in the country side, they're at funny angles so you can never ever read them when you enter a street and they come with great names and colours.

From humble beginnings...

For more S words, please visit: ABC Wednesday

10 comments:

  1. Oh, that street sign is SO cool! It's amazing how well the lava preserved it.

    I have missed so much! Back SOON to read all about your trip to France!!

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  2. I love that old street sign - if only our modern signs were as beautiful and unobtrusive.

    I guess the truth is that we all go around at such a pace these days that signs need to be highly visible, but they can be so ugly, they really spoil the whole view at times. :(

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  3. Interesting post....glad we have street signs...I'm always lost....

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  4. i agree with jay and i love all you are teaching me thanks!

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  5. Wow...
    Great s!
    Thanks for taking us on your trip.
    Sherry

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  6. Amazing that the street sign survived the lava...amazing. Nice post!

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  7. Isn't it amazing that the street sign survived the lava? Interesting post.

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  8. Street signs! See why didn't I think of that?

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  9. Wonderful S!

    Maar de ANWB en TomTom zijn ook niet altijd te vertrouwen ;-)

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Any weighty (and not so weighty) comments are welcome!