“Hidden for Millennia: Scientists Unveil Secrets of a Lost Roman City with Revolutionary Laser Technology!”
According to CNN, the uncovered public monument baffling experts is only one example of how this new approach could change the field of archaeology. Published in the Antiquity journal, the findings indicate this could merely be the first — in a long line of ancient cities — to be explored this way.
“The astonishing level of detail which we have achieved at Falerii Novi, and the surprising features that [ground-penetrating radar] has revealed, suggest that this type of survey could transform the way archaeologists investigate urban sites, as total entities,” said study author Martin Millett, who teaches classical archaeology at the University of Cambridge.
Verdonck et al., 2020/AntiquityResearchers have yet to analyze all the data they’ve captured — which they imagine will take up to a year.
A joint effort on behalf of the University of Cambridge and the University of Ghent, the scans uncovered a route along the outskirts of the city which Millett believes was likely used as a religious processional way.
For him, no kind of settlement is more informative than urban hubs like this when studying Ancient Rome.
“If you’re interested in the Roman Empire, cities are absolutely critical because that is how the Roman Empire worked — it ran everything through local cities,” he said. “Most of what we’ve got, apart from in sites like Pompeii, are little bits.”
“You can dig a trench and get little insights, but it’s very difficult to see how they work as a whole. What remote sensing does is enable us to look at very large, complete sites, and to see in detail the structure of those cities without digging a hole.”
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