Archaeologists no longer need to dig up buried cities to discover what they look like.
A group of Belgian and British researchers recently mapped the entire ancient city of Falerii Novi, about 50 kilometers outside Rome, using ground-scanning radar technology.
For the first time, researchers were able to identify new structures, the types of which have never been seen before. They were also able to determine how the city was organized compared to other Roman cities, writes Business Insider.
Although Falerii Novi was not nearly as grand as Pompeii – a wealthy city buried under volcanic ash in AD 79 – the city had unusual features. His aqueduct, for example, ran under his city blocks as well as along the streets (the most common project for that time period).
Falerii Novi contained hidden shops, baths and temples
Falerii Novi was built around 241 BC. In the first century, it was one of about 2,000 cities in ancient Rome. Many of these cities were buried over time as the ground level began to rise steadily, or deliberately buried so that the Romans could build new settlements on top.
The last human inhabitants of the city left during the early medieval period in about 700 AD. The findings by Belgian and British researchers, published in June in the scientific journal Antiquity, represent the first use of ground-penetrating radar to map an entire city underground.
The researchers determined that Falerii Novi is about half the size of Pompeii: about 75 hectares. Documenting each of these acres took about eight hours, leaving them with more than 28 billion data points by the end of the study.
To the southeast is a market building and a public bath. Both of these are new discoveries.
A temple directly south of the bath lies on the edge of the city. To its west is a housing complex, consisting of two or three houses with an atrium. The researchers found evidence that the houses had been remodeled over time.
These detailed discoveries, often hidden by rubble, were "previously possible only through excavation," the researchers wrote. Their new study method, they added, "has the potential to revolutionize the archaeological study of urban sites."
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