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

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/these-italian-teenagers-stayed-overnight-at-their-school-they-found-ancient-roman-ruins-hidden-in-the-basement-180988917/

by thunderbong • 1 month ago

194 104 1 month ago

smithsonianmag.com

Dependance• 1 month ago

There must be a metaphor somewhere in this, when somehow it is the angry youth that discovers something of value hidden in plain view that no one bothered to look at before !

al_borland2• 1 month ago

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 priorities and resource allocation.

sidewndr46• 1 month ago

I thought the buildings getting lower was just the ground compressing. The foundation is solid, but the ground underneath still compresses. There are circumstances like Seattle where they literally built up the city, but those are less common

RetroTechie• 1 month ago

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.

WalterBright3• 1 month ago

My obvious thought is why not dig deeper to build the subways?

hvb2• 1 month ago

There was graffiti as well so others had already found it

amarcheschi• 1 month ago

In my tuscanian city the university is building a new building for the engineering department. While digging they randomly found an ancient etruscan well. In this case everything went smoothly and timely and it will be preserved, an underground parking near the center had ww2 remains and deeper than that, archeological ones that slowed down the whole thing

fredley• 1 month ago

To William’s complete lack of surprise, the little cellar under the shed was much better built than the shed itself. But then, practically everywhere in Ankh-Morpork had cellars that were once the first or even second or third floors of ancient buildings, built at the time of one of the city’s empires when men thought that the future was going to last for ever. And then the river had flooded and brought mud with it, and walls had gone higher and, now, what Ankh-Morpork was built on was mostly Ankh-Morpork. People said that anyone with a good sense of direction and a pickaxe could cross the city underground by simply knocking holes in walls.

Cthulhu_• 1 month ago

For a modern example, see the Raising of Chicago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago. I think I've seen an image of what the old ground level looks like now, and / or that you can take tours there. There's probably loads of stuff buried there now.

Edit: Actually it was Seattle, you can still visit its old ground level: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Underground

spwa4• 1 month ago

https://futurama.fandom.com/wiki/Old_New_York

WorldMaker• 1 month ago

My understanding of the Chicago case is that most of what the old "ground level" was is just sewers today. I heard some of it was railroad tracks and maybe some are still used for cargo-only trains, but most of Chicago wasn't really raised a full "floor" with enough headroom for interesting underground spaces.

A US city often overlooked for some intricate people explorable underground spaces is Cincinnati: https://www.visitcincy.com/blog/post/unmistakably-cincinnati...

Some of Cincinnati's underground exists from plans to build subway trains that never completed. I think that makes Cincinnati's particularly sad being that it constitutes a perpetually unfinished public works/public transportation project.

Relatedly to that, Atlanta also has a tiny underground leftover from passenger train lines that ended passenger travel decades ago (and so was turned into a mall, because America): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_Atlanta

glenngillen• 1 month ago

And Edinburgh in Scotland

mr_toad2• 1 month ago

Old cities used to just level old buildings and build on top of the rubble.

But that doesn’t work if you need to support a skyscraper (not if you want it to stay upright), or dig a metro line, so new developments are now excavating the old rubble.

theturtlemoves• 1 month ago

Vot a nice... castle...

napolux• 1 month ago

In Italy, almost anywhere you can find roman artifacts. They're just in the layer underneath the WW2 bombs.

karmakurtisaani• 1 month ago

It's truly amazing. In Rome, you can find ruins of all historical periods, all the way up to early 2020s!

MrBuddyCasino2• 1 month ago

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

txru• 1 month ago

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.

MrBuddyCasino2• 1 month ago

Does it matter which generation of students did it?

DougN72• 1 month ago

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!

cableshaft2• 1 month ago

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.

stephenhuey4• 1 month ago

I've been to Cahokia, and look forward to revisiting it in future decades since only 10% has been excavated so far!

contingencies• 1 month ago

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...

rigonkulous• 1 month ago

Narwala Gabarnmang says hi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabarnmung

44,000 years of continuous human occupation. (Except for a brief period during the 20th century ..)

DougN72• 1 month ago

Those are very cool. Worth a visit if you’re ever in the St Louis, Missouri area.

jghn• 1 month ago

Also if one expands it to the Americas more broadly it goes back pretty far. Earlier this year on a trip to Central America I stayed in a home that dated to the mid-16th century. Still not as impressive as what Europe has, but was neat!

derdi2• 1 month ago

250 years is longer than the existence of a country called Italy, let alone the Italian Republic. Just like in Italy, the history of people in your area did not start with the founding of your country.

inigyou2• 1 month ago

Really? My history class taught me that before the Europeans arrived there were only the native americans, so nothing of historical value.

stephenhuey4• 1 month ago

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 was 20 square kilometers whereas Rome at the height of the empire had only 14 square kilometers within the Aurelian Walls.

I've been on the Great Wall of China and all over the world and Teotihuacan was fascinating for me to see. Even more intriguing, no one knows who built it. Aztecs discovered it many centuries after it was abandoned and forever wondered about its origin.

viciousvoxel• 1 month ago

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

thaumasiotes4• 1 month ago

Teotihuacan, the largest city in the Western Hemisphere at the time Jesus walked on the Earth. It was 20 square kilometers whereas Rome at the height of the empire had only 14 square kilometers within the Aurelian Walls.

...so what? Why would you compare "the size of Teotihuacan" to "the area enclosed in the Aurelian Walls"? Why not compare it to "the size of Rome"?

I can think of one reason you'd do this...

alsetmusic7• 1 month ago

I see someone who might really enjoy the Fall of Civilizations podcast. Check it out. I love it.

boogieknite• 1 month ago

some folks in USA have houses older than that too

gambiting• 1 month ago

I was in Pompeii just 2 weeks ago, the thing that absolutely blew my mind was that there is a section where archeologists are working _right now_ still uncovering more buildings, and you can see them exactly as they are coming out of the ground - I think with the rest of the ruins I've had this feeling that you know, it got somehow cleaned up and repaired a bit for tourists, but nope, you can see in that section of active excavation works that these 2000 years old structures are really coming out of the dirt with the frescoes and mosaics still intact.

And then we went to Paestum, which is an even older Greek settlement in Italy - with the original Greek temples still standing. Mindblowing, and I'm used to old stuff being around(a friend of mine lives in a house where a portion of it is a listed structure dating to the 12th century, it's just a bathroom and a storage room for them lol).

projektfu2• 1 month ago

The crazy thing is that Pompeii's art was so well preserved by the ash but now it is exposed to the elements and will degrade.

mothballed3• 1 month ago

Early settlement of Europeans into present-day USA started in earnest in the early 1600s.

Swizec• 1 month ago

(we’re celebrating 250 years - some folks in Europe live in houses older than that!)

We used to smoke weed on the roman wall behind my friend’s high school. Very popular hangout spot. Lots of people using it for rock climbing practice (you’re not far off the ground and can climb laterally for hundreds of meters).

The local castle, about 1000 years old, is a popular makeout spot for teens.

kakacik• 1 month ago

Stuff built long time ago still serves its purpose - the people.

Anyway yes we have some comparatively old stuff here, you get used to it quickly. Colleague lives in cca 400 years old house, nothing special. Just more building restrictions, not because its somehow protected but simply due to meter-thick stone walls and corresponding architecture, statics and so on. One couldn't tell if its 100 years old or 400 from outside. After renovation even less (it was a farm house before, so french state doesn't feel the urge to interfere with his property).

trueno• 1 month ago

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

mikestew• 1 month ago

some folks in Europe live in houses older than that!

TBF, so do some folks in the U. S.; though in most cases, just barely.

quadrifoliate2• 1 month ago

we have comparatively little history (we’re celebrating 250 years)

You didn't exactly say this, but I'd stop short of defining history around the existence of the current US government and structure. Ironically 250 years is probably longer than any continental European government has been around in its present state.

In terms of history as such, we have just as much history in the US as Europe does. Just ask the Native Americans / First People. There are lots of examples elsewhere in the conversation.

mr_toad2• 1 month ago

There are several levels of understanding of your history. Firstly, you have none. At the second level you suffer the misapprehension that your country has been there forever (which is the level that most nationalists get stuck at).

After that it starts to get complicated.

newaccountman2• 1 month ago

Did the ruins come alive at night with like Roman soldiers and stuff running around, etc?

j45• 1 month ago

This has Magic School Bus episode written all over it.

Chaseraph• 1 month ago

Dang, all I found was a used condom when I did this.

nstents• 1 month ago

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.

csomar2• 1 month ago

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.

mothballed3• 1 month ago

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.

Febriss33• 1 month ago

had you ever been to rome? totally normal.. there is an entire hill made of roman pottery waste.. is a public park! best city ever

edwinjm• 1 month ago

Surprised that Smithsonian magazine makes such an awful website. Every minute, new ads are loaded, shifting the text up and down, making it hard to read.

lqstuart• 1 month ago

I feel like the real news story is kids protesting against school being closed

justinclift• 1 month ago

This is like the physical version of exploring a legacy codebase. ;)

yesitcan• 1 month ago

Clickbait title

The students who found a way into the ruins weren’t the first amateur explorers to rediscover the site. Some of the graffiti scrawled on the walls of the villa dates to between 1920 and 1950, when the building was occupied by a religious order. Other markings are more recent, perhaps left by students at the high school

giuseony• 1 month ago

It's pretty much like this everywhere in Italy. I'm originally from southern Italy and my father worked as a laborer for a local municipality. About 20 years ago, during excavation work to rebuild a wall, he personally unearthed some pottery that turned out to be the contents of a Magna Graecia storehouse dating back roughly 3,000 years. Another time, more recently, on the outskirts of my hometown, during roadwork to repave a sidewalk, a Greek tomb dating back approximately 2,400 years was discovered. The lands around the Mediterranean have been inhabited for so long that wherever you dig, you're very likely to find some kind of artifact.

alsetmusic7• 1 month ago

A caption for one of the photos:

A room with monochrome stucco decorations Cantieri Narranti

Unlikely. We know that the white marble statues that we have were once painted. Time turned them into what we see today. This room was surely vividly painted.

wolvoleo• 1 month ago

This sounds so Stranger Things lol. At least they didn't find a Demogorgon

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

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