A buried ancient Roman city uncovered using radar technology

[Judi Lynn]

Ground-penetrating radar allows the non-invasive virtual excavation of Falerii Novi.
ROBBY BERMAN
11 June, 2020

It doesn't look like much to the naked eye. It's basically an empty field, but if you caught it on the right days, you'd have seen a quad-wheel bike going back and forth while pulling an unremarkable-looking bit of not-really-farm gear. What's been going on there is the layer-by-layer discovery of an ancient Roman town, Falerii Novi. While archaeological finds like this are always interesting, this one is special: The long-buried city has been exposed without the removal of a speck of dirt.

Technology and patience



Image source:Frank Vermeulen/University of Cambridge

Falerii Novi was unearthed using ground-penetrating radar, or GPR. With each pass across that field, the bike pulled a rolling frame outfitted with a GPR instrument that bounced radio waves off of whatever lay beneath it. The device took a reading every 12.5 centimeters, eventually imaging the entire 30.5-hectare area. Without disturbing a single ancient artifact, GPR generated a remarkably detailed look at the lost city, with its various different layers depicting changes that occurred over time.

In the end, the researchers were confronted with 28 billion GPR data points to be processed, an almost impossibly huge task. Each hectare takes about 20 hours to work through, and the team is currently developing automation techniques that will allow them to fully explore the data collected by the GPR.

. . .

What's new/old?

Image source: L. Verdonck/University of Cambridge

The visible Falerii Novi contains a number of surprises.

In a broad sense, the town's layout appears less standardized than archaeologists would expect for an ancient Roman community, with a number of notable features.

There's the mysterious pair of large structures facing each other within a porticus duplex located at the town's northern gate at the upper edge of the image above. Experts have no idea what these buildings are, though they conjecture that they may have been some sort of massive monument overlooking the city's edge.

In addition, for a small city, the temple, market building and bath complex are unexpectedly elaborate.

More:
https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/falerii-novi?rebelltitem=3#rebelltitem3