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Rising waters threaten Venice’s cultural heritage, but untold treasures may already be hidden at the bottom of the sea. Beneath the murky waves of the Venetian Lagoon, researchers have discovered the remains of an ancient Roman road and other possible port facilities, such as a wharf, which could predate the founding of the Italian city. Their findings were published Thursday in the journal Scientific reports.
The head of the study, Fantina Madricardo, a geophysicist at the Institute of Marine Sciences (ISMAR) in Venice, began in 2013 a large sonar study of the canals of the Venice lagoon in order to better understand the ancient landscape of the city. . “It is a paradox that in an environment as well known as the Venetian Lagoon, the tidal channels have really not been well studied,” she said. ARTnews during a telephone interview.
The murky waters of Venice and rapid tidal currents make it difficult to explore the seabed using traditional methods of underwater archeology such as diving. However, new remote sensing technologies such as multibeam sonar have enabled researchers like Madricardo to create high-resolution 3D maps of the seabed without donning a wetsuit.
While studying the sonar data from this study, Madricardo noticed structures that appeared to have been man-made in a part of the lagoon known as the Treporti Canal, northeast of central Venice. “All were lined up,†she said. “I thought: this can’t be a coincidence. “
Upon further investigation, Madricardo learned that archaeologists in the 1980s found part of this long, odd feature and speculated that it may be a road. Using their new data, Madricardo and his colleagues counted 12 structures aligned over a span of 3,740 feet at a depth of about 13 to 16 feet. Some of these sunken structures were up to 9 feet high and 173 feet long.
Using underwater images captured by police divers, Madricardo and his colleagues confirmed that these structures had regular, smooth-faced stones that were typically used to pave Roman roads. The researchers concluded that it was probably an ancient Roman Imperial road located on a sandy ridge that once stood along the beach at sea level around 2,000 years ago, but is now submerged. . They also documented other large structures, some as long as 442 feet, which could be ancient Roman docks.
“The pieces came together like a puzzle,†Madricardo said. “It’s not a finished puzzle, of course.”
Some of the most important missing pieces relate to important dates in the history of the road: when was it used? When was it abandoned? When in the past 2000 years has it been covered by the sea? The researchers took cores from the remains of the road and radiocarbon tests could help them determine the date of its construction and use.
The Romans built tens of thousands of kilometers of roads across their empire to connect shopping malls and military outposts. This was perhaps once part of a larger network, traveled by sailors and other travelers making a journey between what is today Chioggia, a town on the southern edge of the lagoon, and Altinum, the ancient Roman city further north on the mainland.
Venice was founded in the 5th century and its landscape today is dominated by medieval sites built when the city was a maritime superpower with territories as far apart as Cyprus. Past finds of Roman artifacts in the city and its waterways suggest that the lagoon was populated much earlier. Some researchers have argued that the islands are dotted with port infrastructure or even residential areas as an extension of Altinum. Finding a road can help archaeologists determine to what extent the area was inhabited.
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