Posted on 07/23/2021 8:13:06 AM PDT by Red Badger
Venice, Italy. (Luca Micheli/Unsplash)
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At the bottom of the Treporti Channel, meters beneath the waves of the Venetian Lagoon, a series of surprising ancient structures has just been uncovered.
Aligned for a distance of around 1,200 meters (3,937 feet), they suggest that, once upon a time, before sea levels rose and flooded the area, a Roman-era road stretched across the landscape.
According to archaeologists, this is evidence that a significant Roman settlement was present centuries before the founding and settlement of Venice in the fifth century CE.
"This multidisciplinary study documented the presence of an about 1,200-meter long segment of a submerged Roman road on an ancient beach ridge now submerged in the Northern Venice Lagoon," a team of archaeologists led by Fantina Madricardo of the National Research Council of Italy explains in a new study on the discovery.
(Antonio Calandriello and Giuseppe D'Acunto; Fantina Madricardo)
Above: A reconstruction of the road (left), and how the channel looks today (right).
"The submerged road represents, probably, one of the last route segments in the maritime landscape of Altinum, within a wider network of roads in the Venetia et Histria Regio," the researchers write.
"Its contiguity with other structures and infrastructures, such as ... defensive towers, levees-walkways, port, and private structures, confirms the capillary permanent settlement in the Venetorum angulus."
The ancient Romans did many things very well. Among those things, one of the most well-known is their roads. Wheresoever the Romans roamed, there too you would find long stretches of pavement and corduroy roads, to better facilitate expansion and mobility.
But Roman transportation and trade was not limited to land. The ancient civilization was also adept at navigating the seas, which led researchers to wonder what role the Venice region may have played.
We know the sea level was lower then, and Venice would have looked significantly different. Archaeologists have also found ancient artifacts that suggest Roman occupation in the centuries around the turn of the millennium, long before the city of Venice was founded. How extensive, Madricardo and her team wondered, was that occupation?
Some archaeologists had believed that the artifacts had come from ancient Roman cities overlooking the lagoon, but there were also hints that the area had been more extensively occupied.
A survey conducted in 1985 found structures that suggested evidence of stretches of road at the bottom of the Treporti Channel.
High-resolution multibeam sonar allowed the researchers to map the seafloor geomorphology, and archaeological dives conducted between 1978 and 2016 returned a wealth of information about what's actually down there, including sample cores of the seafloor sediment.
Bathymetric map showing the locations of the structures. (Federica Foglini)
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With further studies in 2020, they documented a series of 12 relief structures aligned parallel to the main channel in a southwest-to-northeasterly direction, for a distance of around 1,140 meters (3,740 ft). The longest of these structures was around 52.7 meters long. A second set of four structures ranged between 14.5 and 134.8 meters (47.5 to 442 ft).
Bathymetric data suggested the presence of a paleobeach ridge - a feature indicative that a beach had existed at some point in the past. The structures were found along this ridge.
The existence of a road is supported by other discoveries in the channel. Multiple archaeological traces have been previously found near the Scanello Channel; these traces suggest large buildings, which could indicate the presence of a harbor.
Previous research also suggested traces of a road at the bottom of the Scanello Channel, too. If that's the case, then the Treporti Channel road would not be an isolated structure, but part of a larger road network in a significant port town.
Comparison with other submerged ruins in the Lagoons of Grado and Marano support this interpretation of the structures. The findings highlight the need to find, document, and preserve archaeological sites in submerged environments, the researchers say.
"The presence of the ancient Roman road confirms the hypothesis of a stable system of Roman settlements in the Venice Lagoon," they write in their paper.
"The study highlights the significance of this road in the broader context of the Roman transport system, demonstrating once more the Roman ability to adapt and to handle complex dynamic environments that were often radically different from today."
The research has been published in Scientific Reports.
PinGGG!.......................
Roman glowbull heat attack caused the glass-ee-yurs to melt.
cool!
Yep, what can we conclude, but that global warming in Roman times caused the sea levels to rise in Venice. It must be global warming. Everything is caused by global warming.
Climate change. Save Venice!
I thought that Venice was sinking. not that the seas were rising? There are plenty of ports on the Mediterranean which are still at the same level they were in Roman times.
“Everything is caused by global warming.”
You forgot “and racism”.
The road is covered by 25 feet of water. If the Romans built the road 10 ft above sea level, that means the sea rose 35 feet in the past 2,000 to 2,500 years. I don’t think so.
Or racism. Anyone factor that into the equation yet? 😱😲💩
Instead of “Roman Times” and “Present”, shouldn’t the comparison photos be labeled “Pre-Climate Change” and “Post-Climate Change”? ... although that would likely created a debate over science which ... a debate over differing opinions ... something the Left fears, something the Left cannot tolerate (much like a silver spike in the heart of a vampire to kill it).
Strange that the article gives no indication of how far the seas rose or, alternately, how far the land subsided (unlikely). Probably doesn’t fit the global warming/ice cap melting fear agenda. U. of Bremen classics Professor Gunnar Heinsohn thinks there may have been an astrophysical catastrophe around the late 200’s AD known as the Plague of Justinian that destroyed cities around the Mediterranean. He also feels that archaeological dating is a total hairball and that 700 years have been erroneously inserted into the historic record around that time. Velikovsky felt that ancient Near East history had been stretched erroneously by about 500 years. Google them.
There are also several Roman ports in Italy that are now inland.
“Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.” ― William F. Buckley
LOL,
When the temperatures did rise for a while, they were also rising on Mars and Venus. CO2 and my gas guzzling car, or that fireball putting out 3.86 x 10^26 Watts that has been known to fluctuate in output?
As a child I was in Italy and Spain a few times each. I remember going down cobblestone roads that were Roman built. Why is it, those Romans can build a road and 1,975 years later it’s still a working road, but today with all our high tech and machines, we can’t build a road to last 20 years?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acqua_Vergine (2040 years old and still running water)
The Romans knew how to build shit.
Very cool!
In addition to his wisdom and intellectual brilliance, Mr. Buckley had the uncanny ability to deliver a stab in the heart of leftist philosophy with aplomb and polish.
Ask the asphalt companies...........
The area around Venice is a marsh.
The land may have very well sunk 35 feet in 2000 years.
So man caused climate change isn’t responsible for rising g seas after all? Who knew. (Everyone knew, even the lying climate change agendists that call themselves scientists knew) climates change, seas rise and fall, all. Because of nature, not co2. Temps always rise first, 100’s of years. Before co2 rises, proving that co2 is not driving temperatures. But they lying agendists have stolen the narrative and now control the language and blame man
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