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Teenagers Stayed Overnight at Their School and Found Hidden Ancient Roman Ruins

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Teenagers Stayed Overnight at Their School and Found Hidden Ancient Roman Ruins

#53
post #21

As an American, where we have comparatively little history (we’re celebrating 250 years - some folks in Europe live in houses older than that!) visiting Rome is almost mind blowing to see SO MUCH ancient history right there, and almost everywhere. So cool!

There are older structures and artifacts than 250 years, they're just not European in origin. Like Cahokia Mounds in Illinois: https://cahokiamounds.org/ Arrowheads are an example of something that's not too difficult to find in the wild if you know where to look.

A few years ago I made a graphic showing the years before present dates of some of the earliest archaeological sites across the Americas for Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peopling_of_the_Americas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternatives_to_the_Clovis_Fir...

Re: Teenagers Stayed Overnight at Their School and Found Hidden Ancient Roman Ruins

#54

Whose first instinct is it, when finding an ancient roman villa hidden underneath your school, to smear graffiti on the walls. I cannot relate.

It seems that the students who actually reported the ruins may not have been the ones who graffiti'd it. They supposedly heard from other students who'd discovered it before. Whether or not that's true is harder to say.

Re: Teenagers Stayed Overnight at Their School and Found Hidden Ancient Roman Ruins

#55
Having lived in Italy for 7 years as a teen, the word is that construction of commercial, governmental, and private sites will be shut down for sometimes years so the Italian government and bureaucracy can have its go in deciding what action to take. A Roman era catacomb was found when my sister's school was being expanded, and the Nuns running the school managed to hush it up pretty well. I imagine they explained to the working crew their loss of a job if word got out..

It seems reasonable a similar thing happened here even as far back as the 1870s when the original construction was taking place.

Re: Teenagers Stayed Overnight at Their School and Found Hidden Ancient Roman Ruins

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparatively few historical ruins built out of materials that would have lasted this long, but a long history, actually, and some you can still see... Mexico City is a quick plane ride from the USA, and while some of their ruins are buried, you can hop a short bus ride outside the city to walk among standing ruins of Teotihuacan, the largest city in the Western Hemisphere at the time Jesus walked on the Earth. It wa…

Nitpick but we do know who built Teotihuacan -- it was the Teotihuacanos! Unfortunately it's true that we know relatively little about them.

This feels kind of tautological. We know who built Teotihuacan, it was the Teotihuacanos! What do we know about them? Well, they built Teotihuacan...

(Seriously, though, _is_ anything much known about them beyond that?)

Re: Teenagers Stayed Overnight at Their School and Found Hidden Ancient Roman Ruins

#57
post #21

As an American, where we have comparatively little history (we’re celebrating 250 years - some folks in Europe live in houses older than that!) visiting Rome is almost mind blowing to see SO MUCH ancient history right there, and almost everywhere. So cool!

we have some omega ancient history here in america like possibly 13,000-16,000+ year old history, we just don't have structures that stood the test of time mostly stone crafted tools and hunting weapons and such. but first peoples history goes way back mindblowingly far

Re: Teenagers Stayed Overnight at Their School and Found Hidden Ancient Roman Ruins

#58
post #55

Having lived in Italy for 7 years as a teen, the word is that construction of commercial, governmental, and private sites will be shut down for sometimes years so the Italian government and bureaucracy can have its go in deciding what action to take. A Roman era catacomb was found when my sister's school was being expanded, and the Nuns running the school managed to hush it up pretty well. I imagine they explained to…

Similar thing in Tunisia where if ruins are found, the government will own the site. Theoretically, it should compensate the owners for their loss, but practically they pay peanuts. So if people find ruins in their lands, they just hide it/throw it/bury it.

Re: Teenagers Stayed Overnight at Their School and Found Hidden Ancient Roman Ruins

#59
post #58
post #55

Having lived in Italy for 7 years as a teen, the word is that construction of commercial, governmental, and private sites will be shut down for sometimes years so the Italian government and bureaucracy can have its go in deciding what action to take. A Roman era catacomb was found when my sister's school was being expanded, and the Nuns running the school managed to hush it up pretty well. I imagine they explained to…

Similar thing in Tunisia where if ruins are found, the government will own the site. Theoretically, it should compensate the owners for their loss, but practically they pay peanuts. So if people find ruins in their lands, they just hide it/throw it/bury it.

There is a phrase "Shoot, shovel, shutup" used in the US whenever anything is found on private property (usually endangered animals) that the government has an interest in protecting/restricting. The owners will destroy it immediately and before anyone finds out so that they don't lose their property rights. Thus you have the unintended consequences that these regulations accelerate rather than mitigate their destruction.

Re: Teenagers Stayed Overnight at Their School and Found Hidden Ancient Roman Ruins

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I visited Rome last year. There was a lot of talk about how long it was taking to build a new subway line, because they kept running into ancient artifacts. It was also commonly said that the city was like a lasagna, with layers upon layers of history under everything. Building that were originally built elevated are now at street level. It almost seems hard not to find ancient ruins. It then becomes a question of pr…

If they're so common, why not incorporate into the construction project? Walk through a modern subway, see bits & pieces of ancient history all over the place. Buy icecream, sit on a bench that labourers hacked out of stone 2ky ago.

That's actually done a lot in ruin-heavy cities. For instance, here's a Lidl with bonus underfloor Viking village in Dublin: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/aungier-street-lidl-arch...
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