Anthropology

Judi Lynn

(162,534 posts) Mon Dec 25, 2023, 05:25 PM Dec 2023

A Staggering Excavation Has Rewritten The Fall Of The Roman Empire

Tim Newcomb
Sat, 23 December 2023 at 8:00 am GMT-6·4-min read

italy, rome, statue of caesar in front of roman forum
This ‘Backwater’ Roman Town Outlived the Empire
Silvia Otte - Getty Images

A 13-year archeological excavation has shown that what was once believed a backwater town for the Roman Empire lasted far longer than originally believed.

Interamna Lirenas was a thriving town well into the 3rd century AD.

A geophysical survey has allowed researchers to build a highly detailed image of the town’s layout, with an impressive list of urban features.

Interamna Lirenas has turned out to be far more than a “backwater town” of the Roman Empire. According to a published study in Roman Urbanism in Italy, this central Italian town thrived well beyond previous belief, using its impressive urban features and forward-thinking design to stave off the effects of the empire’s collapse well into the 3rd century AD.

“We started with a site so unpromising that no one had ever tried to excavate it,” Alessandro Launaro, the study’s author and Interamna Lirenas Project lead at the University of Cambridge’s Classics Faculty, said in a statement. “That’s very rare in Italy.”

The team was astonished by what they found. From a roofed theater and market locations to warehouses and a river port, the discovery tossed aside assumptions previously held about the area and the decline of Roman Italy. It turns out that Interamna Lirenas survived for around 300 years longer than previously believed, and was a flourishing town to boot.

“There was nothing on the surface, no visible evidence of buildings, just bits of broken pottery,” Launaro said. “But what we discovered wasn’t a backwater, far from it. We found a thriving town adapting to every challenge thrown at it for 900 years.”

The team of archaeologists used magnetic and ground-penetrating radar to survey roughly 60 acres of mostly open fields. They then launched a series of targeted excavations to unearth the history. “We’re not saying that this town was special, it’s far more exciting than that,” Launaro sadi. “We think many other average Roman towns in Italy were just as resilient. It’s just that archaeologists have only recently begun to apply the right techniques and approaches to see this.”

More:
https://uk.style.yahoo.com/staggering-excavation-rewritten-fall-roman-140000794.html