Italian archaeologists find lost Roman city of Altinum near Venice

The Times ^ | 7/31/2009 | Hannah Devlin

[bruinbirdman]

The bustling harbour of Altinum near Venice was one of the richest cities of the Roman empire. But terrified by the impending invasion of the fearsome Germanic Emperor Attila the Hun, its inhabitants cut their losses and fled in AD452, leaving behind a ghost town of theatres, temples and basilicas.

Altinum was never reoccupied and gradually sunk into the ground. The city lived on in Venetian folk tales and historical artefacts but its exact position, size and wealth gradually faded into obscurity.

Now, using aerial photography of the region, Italian archaeologists have not only located the city, but have produced a detailed map revealing its remarkably intact infrastructure and showing it to be slightly larger than Pompeii.

The abandonment of the city and its subsequent preservation makes it an archaeological time capsule, a unique find in Roman heritage. “It’s extremely unusual for a town to go out of use like this and that is what makes it absolutely invaluable for achaeologists. It gives a full profile of what the town looked like without the imposition of modern infrastructure,” said Dr Neil Christie, a specialist in the Roman empire at the University of Leicester.

The team behind the study located the ancient city by studying hundreds of aerial photographs of the region, mostly taken by private companies for cartography purposes.

In July 2007, during a particularly dry summer, crops were suffering from drought and were highly sensitive to the subsurface presence of stones, bricks or compacted soil. On the image taken by the mapping company Telespazio, the lighter crops indicated stonework, while the darker patches revealed depressed features such as pits and canals.

The team, reconstructing the town using the aerial images and knowledge of Roman architecture, was able to identify temples, theatres, a basilica, the marketplace and city walls as

[Rodebrecht]

But terrified by the impending invasion of the fearsome Germanic Emperor Attila the Hun

I can't take the rest of the article seriously now.

[LifePath]

Why?

[Rodebrecht]

Attila the Hun was Germanic? I don't think so.

[La Lydia]

El Pais has some super pictures of this:

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/sociedad/ciudad/romana/precursora/Venecia/emerge/camaras/infrarrojas/elpepusoc/20090730elpepusoc_11/Tes

[SaxxonWoods]

Thanks for posting, very interesting find.

[LifePath]

His empire included the area of historical Germany.

[TXnMA]

GGG Heads up!

[TXnMA]

Color IR aerial -- probably with shadow-convolution filtering.
About the only thing better for showing occupation patterns might be
a composite of color IR and LIDAR -- or remote GPR...

Thanks for the post, bruinbirdman -- and for the link, La Lydia...

[stormer]

Germania (a region) was contained within the Hunnic Empire. Attila was probably born near what is now Hungary (Get it? Hun... Hungary?).

[uncle fenders]

How is it possible for earth to change mans actions? I thought it was only us that could cause damage to the planet through car use and such?

I don’t even think air conditioning was around to blame..This is amazing.

[stormer]

I’ve had some exposure to spacial analysis using remote sensing data for resource management purposes, and I’ve got to say, if I were a younger man, that’s the technology I’d be jumping in to. Incredible.

[bruinbirdman]

From everything I've read, they haven't dug here.

What, they leave it as is to test their instruments?

yitbos

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

To rephrase a line from the movie “Red October” and address it now to the Italian Ambassador, “You’ve lost a what? A city?” “How did that happen?”

[Rodebrecht]

I know where Hungary got its name. But the Huns weren’t from there; they settled there. They were originally from Asia.

[Defiant]

Thank you for your sanity. I saw this article and was about to post the same thing you did, when I saw that you had already defended Germania. It is scary how fragile knowledge of the past is.

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

Thanks TXnMA.

old moldy related topic:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2084427/posts

[TXnMA]

As a member of the Texas Historical Commission's Archeological Stewards Network, my main activities are focused on the location and mapping of early roads, trails, and "Traces". That means that most of my work is concentrated on overhead imagery analysis, cartography and GIS.

A small group of us "Rut Nuts" were just scheming as to how we could get access to a small, LIDAR-equipped 'copter for mapping out things like Trammel's Trace and the "roads" and campsites left by several Spanish military expeditions across Texas...

LIDAR, of course, is "Laser RADAR", which can achieve at least two inch vertical resolution -- and can effectively "see through" an overhead vegetation canopy...

That Altinium image sure looks like LIDAR to me...

~~~~~~~~~

Yep -- I've "been into" spatial analysis for archeology (official TX spelling, BTW) for many years.

Here's one of my current projects -- a new State Historical Marker at the only (known) site where Trammel's Trace is visible from a Texas state Highway. (The "marker" is virtual -- CGI that exists only in my computer.)

...and HERE IS a high-res image (with readable inscription) of that scene with the final "virtual" version of the marker -- which is at the foundry, being cast right now...

[TXnMA]

Meant to include you in the “pingees” to # 19...

[blam]

Xiongnu

[TXnMA]

Here's a link to another "Altinium" article that we "Rut Nuts" were discussing this evening:

"A Good-for-something Drought"

Apparently it was extreme drought conditions that first made "Altinium" visible on color IR photos...

[blam]

Interesting, thanks.

[stormer]

Excellent. A buddy of mine is advising one of his grad students on fire fuel/moisture regime data using LIDAR. It's pretty interesting; they're even able to tell tree specie density rates in even small stands just based on the reflectivity. Very cool. It's remarkable how obvious something cam become when properly viewed - especially when you can't discern any trace from the ground.

[TXnMA]

"It's remarkable how obvious something cam become when properly viewed - especially when you can't discern any trace from the ground."

Yeah -- or the other way 'round... Take a look at this composite image...

~~~~~~

The way I got started on "chasing old roads" was when I accepted the challenge of locating -- and putting on a modern map -- the "Y" junction where the (1813) "Trammel's Trace" joined the earlier "Spanish Trace".

I had two historical clues:

1) It was on the "Dan'l Barecroft" (actually "Barcroft") Republic of Texas land grant tract (per the little old "headright" sketch at lower right).

2) It was supposedly "about a mile SW of the old Dalton Cemetery".

After I first located the "Barecroft" Tract on a B&W aerial, I spotted Trammel's Trace. (See it going off to the upper right? The historical marker will be placed where the Trace crosses the highway...) Then I downloaded the "IRDOQQ" of the area (which is what you see as the base for the above composite.)

When we went out to "ground truth" the find, we went directly to the UTM (GPS) coordinates of the "Y" that I had derived from the overheads -- "georeferenced" to a modern topographic map. BUT -- when we reached the supposed location of the "Y", we found ourselves in the nastiest, near-impenetrable sweetgum brush thicket you can imagine! We could hardly see the ground -- much less where two faint paths came together...

Then, when we took another look at the color IR image, we had a genuine "DUH!!" moment: See that lighter yellowish "blob" surrounding the "Y"? That's clear evidence of young, deciduous growth. The southern half of that tract had obviously been "clear-cut" for its timber, not re-planted, and allowed to grow up in -- sweetgum brush.

If we had looked at the IR image for vegetation signs as well as for evidence of old trails, we would have known we were heading into a thicket! :-(

So, yes, overhead imagery can provide a lot of useful information -- if you analyze it properly! '-}

[bruinbirdman]

Are you a member of E Clampus Vitus?

yitbos

[TXnMA]

No — as far as I am aware...

[TXnMA]

In fact, at the moment, I don’t even own a red shirt... ‘-)

[TXnMA]

OTOH, at times, Texas Archeological Society (of which I am a 40+ year member) Field School late evening gatherings can approach the same level of wierdness... ‘-}

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks TXnMA!

[colorado tanker]

I wouldn't discount the discovery because they called Attila a German. Probably just a reporter who thinks he knows way more than he does making an assumption without fact checking it. Sorta like our President often does.

Attila did some serious damage in the Veneto.