Reconstructed/revisualized street view of the south part of the city of Ammaia. Courtesy 7reasons
Posted on 06/23/2015 12:17:15 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
...for the archaeologist of 20 years ago, might have been the stuff of science fiction. Who would have known then that scientists would resurrect in startling detail an entire ancient Roman town after only fractional excavation? And who would have known that thousands of people from nearly every corner of the world would be able to 'walk' through that town without ever physically setting foot within?Â
This, however, is exactly what has happened for an obscure archaeological site located in Portugal -- a relatively small ancient Roman town whose few visible remains have attracted comparatively few visitors -- at least as compared to the iconic Roman city of Pompeii in the south of Italy.
But unlike Pompeii, this Roman town, known as Ammaia, has been the subject of an intense, comprehensive focus through the remarkable new advances of what is being penned 'non-invasive archaeology' -- the application of state-of-the-art remote sensing, mapping and visualization technologies to uncover what an otherwise prohibitively expensive and lengthy archaeological investigation might reveal. Efforts began in 2009 with the launch of the Radio-Past (an acronym for Radiography of the Past) under the coordinative co-direction of Cristina Corsi of the Universita degli Studi di Cassino, Italy, and Frank Vermeulen of the Universiteit Gent in Belgium. Through the collective efforts of a consortium of European institutions spearheaded by the University of Evora in Portugal, as well as a broad array of experts, Radio-Past approached the site with a non-invasive research strategy, collecting data not as much through traditional excavation as through the application of technology and a multi-disciplinary plan to, in essence, 'see' what was hidden beneath the surface without digging it up. In the end, the results were both abundantly informative and visually stunning.
(Excerpt) Read more at popular-archaeology.com ...
Reconstructed/revisualized street view of the south part of the city of Ammaia. Courtesy 7reasons
links to YouTube, "AMMAIA - A Roman town in Lusitania".
It looks like a Call Of Duty 2 map.
Until they can smell the pee and poo and fend
off the beggar-bums.. well, good job anyway.
Too cool for words!
This is really, really cool. The town is due east of Lisbon, not far from the Spanish border. It appears to have been a relatively small, provincial town. A backwater, really. So, it shows what an ordinary Roman town would have looked like.
Where did the romans put section 8 housing???
Surprised no one has built a Williamsburg style; living; Roman town.
Same thing with in Egypt.
having recently concluding a study of archeo astronomy, I wonder about the street orientation. One wonders about the bearing of the main street and those at right angles
There are lots of references but I found nothing on the street alignment
Very cool.
bfl
Show something existed before mohammad?
I don't think so!
They have an ampitheater almost 3 stories tall, It’s just the biggest Roman town in all of Portugal, They’ve gone about as fer as they can go...They’ve gone about as fer as they can go.
The video can be seen at this link
They have. It's in Las Vegas inside of a casino.
Link here
Thanks submarinerswife.
Very interesting town.
When I lived in Rota, Spain, the Navy sponsored a trip to the ruins of Colonia, what had been a small Roman town along the Strait of Gibraltar. It was famous in the Republic and Empire for its fermented tuna fish sauce. The town had an active pottery sector which created the ceramic jars that held the sauce.
The main street of Colonia resembled the street depicted in Ammaia, but there were only the curbs of stone - no buildings - as the buildings had all collapsed due to earthquakes. The main street was stone paving, like is depicted in Ammaia, but the stones were not aligned but rippled. Colonia is a very active earthquake area.
Colonia ceased to exist as a town when the fish moved on. Tuna is fickle that way.
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