Nemi ships
The Nemi Ships were ships built by the Roman emperor Caligula in the 1st century AD at Lake Nemi. Although the purpose of the ships is only speculated on, the larger ship was essentially an elaborate floating palace, which contained quantities of marble, mosaic floors, heating and plumbing such as baths among its amenities. Both ships featured technology long thought to be recent inventions. It has been stated that the emperor was influenced by the lavish lifestyles of the Hellenistic rulers of Syracuse and Ptolemaic Egypt. Recovered from the lake bed in 1929, the ships were destroyed by enemy fire during World War II in 1944.
Location
Lake Nemi (Italian: Lago di Nemi, Latin: Nemorensis Lacus) is a small circular volcanic lake in the Lazio region of Italy 30 km (19 mi) south of Rome. It has a surface of 1.67 km2 (0.64 sq mi) and a maximum depth of 33 meters (108 ft).
There is considerable speculation regarding why the emperor Caligula chose to build two large ships on such a small lake. From the size of the ships it was long held that they were pleasure barges, though, as the lake was sacred, no ship could sail on it under Roman law (Pliny the Younger, Litterae VIII-20) implying a religious exemption.
Nemi
Nemi is a town and comune in the province of Rome (central Italy), in the Alban Hills overlooking Lake Nemi, a volcanic crater lake. It is 6 kilometres (4 mi) northwest of Velletri and about 30 kilometres (19 mi) southeast of Rome.
The town's name derives from the Latin nemus, or "holy wood". In antiquity the area had no town, but the grove was the site of one of the most famous of Roman cults and temples: that of Diana Nemorensis, a study of which served as the seed for Sir James Frazer's seminal work on the anthropology of religion, The Golden Bough. In 1514 Marcantonio I Colonna gave to Nemi the "Statuti e Capituli del Castello di Nemi", the first city statute with rules and regulations to observe.
Caligula's ships
Later on, possibly in connection with this cult (nothing substantial is known of the matter), Caligula built several very large and costly luxury barges for use on the lake. One ship was a shrine dedicated to ceremonies for the Egyptian Isis cult or the cult of Diana Nemorensis, designed to be towed, and the other was a pleasure boat with buildings on it. After Caligula's overthrow, the boats were scuttled.
Nemi (comic strip)
Nemi is a Norwegian comic strip, written and drawn by Lise Myhre. It made its first appearance in 1997 under the title Den svarte siden ("the Black Side" or "the Black Page"). At that time, it was a very dark cartoon concerning heavy metal subcultures. Over the years Myhre has turned it brighter, though she still frequently publishes strips about serious issues, especially in the larger Saturday panels. The strip was renamed Nemi after its protagonist, a young goth woman.
Myhre has also illustrated poems by Edgar Allan Poe and André Bjerke in the strip.
Publication
Newspapers
In the UK and Ireland, the strip was, until 8 January 2016, printed daily in the Metro newspaper, after translation into English; background images, and magazines the characters are reading often remain clearly in Norwegian. Originally Nemi was published in monthly extreme music magazine Terrorizer before it lost the UK rights due to the syndication deal with Metro. In Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark the strip runs in several local daily newspapers.
Podcasts:
