Archaeologists Find Ancient Roman Road in the Venetian Lagoon

Researchers have descry the remains of a Roman - geological era road at the bottom of the Venice ’s far-famed Venetian Lagoon . The discovery give cue to what the city look like in antiquity , well before the fabled date of its introduction in 421 CE .

The Venetian Lagoon is the water body on which Venice sit , tucked away from the Adriatic Sea thanks to a twosome of wafer - thin roadblock islands , Lido and Pellestrina . Over the centuries , the H2O stratum in the lagoon has run short up and down but mostly spring up , erasing old features from the landscape and make only new ones . That also imply that the archaeological track record is faltering , with hints of inhabitancy — the clay of a tower here , a stop - and - go bit of road there — but much of it concealed under the blue - green waves . The recent squad ’s analysis of these huge submerge features in the lagoon waspublishedtoday in Scientific Reports .

“ We have to reckon a totally different landscape painting at that time , in order of magnitude to understand why we incur a road , a tower , and probably many other social system along the inlet , ” order study co - writer Maddalena Bassani , an archeologist at Università Iuav di Venezia , in a video call . “ It ’s authoritative to try and represent this different situation to encourage the idea of protection of this place . ”

San Giorgio Maggiore island in the Venetian lagoon in 2019.

San Giorgio Maggiore island in the Venetian lagoon in 2019.Photo: TIZIANA FABI/AFP (Getty Images)

The inquiry team scanned the level of the Treporti Channel , a watercourse a few miles east of the metropolis . They get 12 rectangular features lined up over the line of about three - quarters of a mile , ranging from about 6 to 60 metrical foot spacious . Some of the structure were over 12 feet grandiloquent , and one was monolithic , with an almost orbitual protuberance . The team suspect that the formation , which would ’ve sat on the water based on previous research on water degree modification in the area , may have been a harbour structure , perhaps a wharfage .

“ There was very , very piffling information about the world of the tidal channel , because the water is very murky and the currents are very strong . It ’s difficult for diver to go there , and it ’s difficult to sample , ” said Fantina Madricardo , the subject area ’s lead author and a physicist specializing in acoustical systems at the Institute of Marine Sciences in Venice , in a video call . “ We collected a huge data jell … At some level , I started to analyze the data more cautiously and run into that there were features that were for indisputable anthropogenic . ”

The Venetian constabulary conducted honkytonk in 2020 to look into the features the team realize and found that some of the one-dimensional structure were made up of Stone similar to papist basoli , essentially pave stone , indicating that the analog features were pave — ergo , a road . No nautical archaeologists have yet been on the site , though that may yet come . Though route has yet to be date stamp unlimited , amphora ( vessel ) date to first century CE were found alongside it .

A reconstruction of how the road may have looked in Roman times (left), and the site today (right).

A reconstruction of how the road may have looked in Roman times (left), and the site today (right).Graphic: Fantina Madricardo

Roman clay have been found in the lagune over the centuries , and many of those objects were repurposed for ongoing structure or new decorations , especially during the Medieval Period and the Renaissance . Much of the archeologic work in the laguna is build on the employment of Ernesto Canal , who in the 1960s spearhead much of the early research into who dwell the area before Venice was launch ( Canal even suspected a Roman road lay at the bottom of the lagoon , according to Madricardo ) . But a lot of the cognition of Roman habitation in the area was “ gray lit , ” Madricardo say — information that is include in places outside of the published archaeological record . That clouded the cognition basis the team was function with . Since Canal ’s day , archaeological techniques like remote sensing have been developed , allowing Madricardo ’s team to take gamey - resolution images of the laguna ’s floor without worry about the murkiness of the water and before doing any dives .

Though the route end consist at various point below the water supply , Madricardo enounce that ’s not necessarily where the road was when it was in usage . The land on which Venice sit is prone to raw subsidence , which could behastened by anthropogenetic changesto the landscape . Venice ’s sinking feeling is an existential concern today , but it also affects how the archaeological squad interprets this submerse site . establish on paleoclimatological information , they make love the route sat on what was once a beach stretching into the lagoon , but just when the structure dislocate under the waves is still up for argument . Being bombarded by waves would have expedited its fall , the researcher wrote , but it will likely take more field to figure out the exact events that precede to the disappearance of Roman inhabitation near Venice .

More : Venice High Tide Floods City , unfit in 50 Years

One of the stones found when the diving police unit checked out the site in 2020.