In this new episode of Dialogues of Science we hosted Marta Filippi a well-known face from the world of entertainment. Many know her as an actress and voice actress, but few know that Marta also has a degree in archeology. We had a chat to find out what studying the past really means, debunking the myth of Indiana Jones and understanding how an academic passion can coexist (or give way) to the world of theater and social media.
Marta explained to us that archeology is the study of “ancient facts”, inanimate objects that serve to reconstruct the history and culture of a civilization, it has nothing to do with dinosaurs, which paleontology deals with.
The choice of this path was born from the love for Greek and Latin literature and for the history of art, also inspired by a high school teacher who was an archaeologist. The impact with the reality of the excavation was a real “cold shower”. If you imagine the archaeologist with a delicate brush, think again: reality is made up of shifts under the sun, wheelbarrows and heavy tools.
Marta described an archaeologist’s tool to us, the “maleppeggio”: a sort of pickaxe pointed on one side (to do harm) and flat on the other (to do worse).
During her internship at the “Insula Luciana” in Rome, she even had to use it to break concrete flows, feeling more like a dwarf from Snow White than a scholar. But after the effort, there is satisfaction: cataloging fragments, reconstructing ceramic profiles and finding everyday objects such as ivory gaming dice.
Despite the commitment, Marta felt that her true passion was for the theater. She completed college out of a sense of duty, but immediately after graduation she worked as a sales assistant to pay for her dubbing studies. The turning point came unexpectedly during the lockdown when, stuck at home, she started creating comic videos on social media to let off steam. Those videos blew up, leading to her being contacted for TV jobs and launching her acting career.
Even though today she has another profession, archeology has left her with precious lessons such as patience, teamwork and the wonder of being amazed by small things.
