Ancient Roman Road Older than Venice Discovered Beneath a Lagoon in Italy
The discovered structures may be centuries older than the city of Venice, which in itself is 1500 years old.
Archaeologists have found a Roman road and extensive settlements around it beneath a Venice Lagoon, a shallow and enclosed bay of the Adriatic sea in Italy. The discovered structures may be centuries older than the city of Venice, which in itself is 1500 years old. Archaeologists believe that people during the Roman era were able to access the large area by land, which is now covered by the lagoon and submerged in water.
Using SONAR, researchers mapped the floor of the lagoon and found evidence of 12 ancient structures in the Treporti Channel, an 1140 metres long area in the lagoon. The structures, which are up to 52.7 metres long and up to 2.7 metres tall, are aligned in the northeastern direction. Among the structures, four were relatively large, with a length of 134.8 metres and height up to four metres.
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Previous studies of the area had discovered stones that were used by the Romans to build roads and were similar to modern-day paving rocks. According to archaeologists, the discovery of paving stones indicated that the structures below the lagoon may have been aligned along a road. The largest of these structures, according to the researchers, was probably a potential harbour.
Archaeologists also suggest that the road may have been connected to a wider network. Travellers and sailors, travelling between the Northern Venice Lagoon and the city of Chioggia, may have used such a network of roads in the Italian Veneto Region.
However, the precise origin of the road and structures is not determined. Scientists are also not able to uncover how long the structures were used before they were submerged into the water.
Researchers say that during the last 2000 years — since Roman times, the sea level in the area has seen a rise of up to eight feet. “The Venice lagoon formed from the main sea-level rise after the last glaciation, so it’s a long-term process," said Fantina Madricardo, the lead author of the study, in a statement to Live Science. The study was published on July 22 in Scientific Reports, a Nature journal.
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