FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

This map includes a reconstruction of the roman baths (thermae) based on those that have been excavated at Heerlen (Coriovallum) in the southern Netherlands.
As only the foundations and the lowest parts of the buildings have been found the rest of the building is an educated guess at the best. The layout of the building is an adaption to the voxel grid of Minetest and as thus is not absolutely true to the archaeological findings.

And indeed all this uncertainty and adaption is the basic idea to this map. In the overview map you can see the plan of the building repeated five times around my reconstruction. You are invited to build your own version based on one of those plans. This could also be used as a multiplayer map with different teams using a plan each. For example as classroom project.



Consider using different materials, different wall types and styles (e.g. the top parts could have been timber framed) or different heights. The three rooms to the left of the main building where oriented towards the inner courtyard in the older reconstructions. More recent versions have interpreted them as open to the street and containing little shops. The gate to the courtyard on the right is probably wrong and a mistake of mine, just as the little office and restroom I put into the building on the right. Rather some toilets may have been located here among other things. I have not rebuilt the hypocaustic heating system as that would have needed an extra mod. Similarly the draining system for the used water has not been reconstructed.

So study some ancient roman architecture and try yourself at the art of reconstructing a long gone building or build your very own fantasy freestyle version of a roman style public bath.

Visit the homepage of the Museum or search for thermenmuseum heerlen to see plans, fotos and other reconstructions.

Salve twoelk, Thank you for sharing the map.

In my opinion the map could use a mod or another.
Maybe you can extend your map and upload a circus maximus too. This could spark an rebuild of the old rome, including the many sites Rome is famous for today.

Have a nice time,
wintermute

looks cool :D

Experimenting with other buildings and just not getting proportions right.

For those interested as of July-August 2015 the map is sometimes hosted on the Isarnho server, present in the public list for some random hours now and then. Keep in mind though that at the moment that server is used to test several different maps and will not become a permanent public server as of now.

Interact is not granted by default and only very seldom on request. At times you may find school kids testing the online version of the map.

Nevertheless, if you do have an awesome well designed ancient roman or greek building - I just might be persuaded to add it to the map ;-P

At the moment I am looking for fitting themed skins I could add.

So
as may be concluded from the previous post I have indeed started to add some buildings to a map based on the one offered for download - and sometimes I even run it on a server with public access. ;-P

So
what started just as a little proof of concept project has become a little larger than planed. I had played with the publicly hosted version to test some stuff that I thought might be useful for a teacher or some other educator of sorts. I must admit though that I rather investigated the art of building than getting the educational tool-set to work as intended.

And
a recent visit to the Saalburg with some real roman ruins and some impressive romantic reconstructions sort of got me even more involved in the questions of just how everyday life might have looked like some two thousand years ago.

So
here are some more pictures of my ventures into the architecture of the roman empire. Of the 14 or so private buildings I have only furnished some 3 to some extend and have found it surprisingly difficult to come up with a convincing variety of some simple households.

And
now for the pictures:

Some times my Isarnho server dreams of some "superflat" plains and somewhere in the middle of some fertile fields there rises a settlement of ancient roman design.


Near a little park (in a rather modern style) that lies along the thermae district there is a temple built in what is supposed to resemble a Greek style.


It took a little while to translate the proportions as taught for example by Vitruvius into the rather coarse grid of Minetest.


After having spent some time with the experimenting of what sort of buildings might have stood on the foundations uncovered in places such as Colonia Ulpia Traiana near modern Xanten the inhabitants of the "Roman" settlement thought that they now needed some more really roman buildings.


A forum with a nice basilica in the style of the northern provinces was added based on the findings at Xanten.


Of course an imperial central main temple was needed so another holy district was surveyed facing the new forum.


-and within a vast courtyard surrounded on three sides by a porticus a podium temple was erected.


Shown here is the built up area of the insula with the houses based on designs unearthed in the provinces north of the alps. Among these there are five buildings in "strip" design with the two on the foreground on the right side based on types found near fortresses. The building on the far corner to the right houses a restaurant while that on the corner to the left, just across from the temple district contains a bakery complete with a set of urban mills. Behind the trees of the little park beyond the spawn square one of the atrium-houses contains a little wine shop.

Wow, very nice...

Looks very good! I hope to find time soon to do my own reconstruction. But...why did the Romans build so town-like? :-) That doesn't go too well with mg_villages...which is far less structured. Having some roman towns here and there would be great :-)

Amazing!

Looking over the roofs of the growing roman settlement.

I'd like to play this roman settlement. Maybe once it's a bit larger you could make a Roman Settlement map thread for it? I'd really like to see it up close, so to speak.

swordpaint12 wrote:I'd like to play this roman settlement. Maybe once it's a bit larger you could make a Roman Settlement map thread for it? I'd really like to see it up close, so to speak.

Agreed, this is simply amazing. Would like to have a .zip file for the rest of these.

I wonder if the roman houses could be made into a new village type.

Sokomine wrote:I wonder if the roman houses could be made into a new village type.

That's a really good idea!

Realy amazing work - I would love to wander around there an hear the crickets sing....(btw. we need cricket sound... :-)

If you have the chance to see the 360-degree-Panorama "Rome 312" by Yadegar Asisi - dont miss it.
This Image of Rome surrounds you a 100m long and 30m high and feels so MT-like with sound and day/night light. I thougt all the time - wow I have to build this on MT - but it is so big.

Now I see you already started... go on...

The Panorama is at "Gasometer Pforzheim" at the moment

+1000

I like this map. Its a wonderful Idea and it look very nice!

twoelk, when will you release an actual version of the map as a new download? I wish to wander thru your Roman town.

What the ****? Is it dutch?

uhm, yes the ruins of the building that started this map was found in the Netherlands, a european country where they today speak a language known as Dutch.

Actually Heerlen lies in the very south of the Netherlands and the local language is called Limburgish which is closely related to Dutch and a little lesser to German and in the same group of Germanic languages as Frisian and English is, as opposed to for example the Northern Germanic group that includes skandinavien languages such as Norwegian, Swedish or Danish.

The map that I sometimes run on my semi public server Isarnho and that some of the pictures are made on to date, among others, includes buildings inspired by ruins found at (mostly modern names given):

Italy: Pompeji, Herculaneum, Marzabotto, Ostia, Rome and ancient texts such as those from Vitruv
Germany: Xanten, Trier, Cologne, Saalburg
Switzerland: Augst
England: Silchester, Cambridge, Colchester
Greece: Olynthos, Athens, Delphi, Olympia
Marocco: Volubilis

That is those are the names of places that come to my mind without checking the map in detail. I guess a lot more places could be named, for example I studied a lot of places to design a new street grid and town layout.
So the next map of the project I will post will be a lot larger and the buildings arranged differently to the map I had sometimes allowed access to.

Dude. I am dutch. I know about that Heerlen stuff.

Ah, so it was a rhetoric question ;-P

Dunno. What is rhetoric?

Rhetoric is the art of speech, what I was refering to was a rhetorical question.
A question that did not expect an answer.
In this case because you seem to have allready known the answer and presumably just wanted to show your amazement, using the question form for dramatic effect.

So I simply missunderstood you and used the opportunity to further bump my thread :-D