Archaeologists May Have Found Nero's Revolving Dining Hall in Rome

Associated Press

This is amazing. Archaeologists digging on Rome's Palatine Hill have unearthed what they believe to be Nero's revolving banquet hall, which has been referenced in ancient biographies of the Roman emperor. The room was likely built "to entertain government officials and VIPs":

The purported main dining room, with a diameter of over 50 feet (16 meters), rested upon a 13-foot (4-meter) wide pillar and four spherical mechanisms that, likely powered by a constant flow of water, rotated the structure.

The hall, situated as it was, would have had one of the best views of Rome even without the rotating razzamatazz.

Nero ruled from 37 to 68 A.D.—about 1,900 years before the first modern-day revolving restaurant would be built (in 1960 at the Ala Moana shopping in Honolulu, according to this fascinating article in the now-defunct magazine Invention & Technology).

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