2,000-Year-Old Discovery Reveals Hidden History Of This Ancient City

When thinking of the oldest, most revered ancient ruins in the world, Roman structures in Italy probably top your list. But while the Coliseum and the Pantheon are all very impressive, the Romans weren’t the only ones building on Italian soil.

Before they were overshadowed by the Roman empire, the Greeks built colonies on the Italian Mediterranean coast for hundreds of years. In the 8th century B.C., they picked an idyllic ocean-side spot for their first home away from home — a city dubbed Cumae.

Settlers fleeing the Greek island of Euboea quickly found their new home of Cumae to be a total success. In fact, we can thank the thriving colonists of Cumae for the origins of the Latin alphabet; they developed it from early European letters!

Unfortunately, as most flourishing cities with an ideal location do, Cumae caught the envious eyes of neighboring foes, and Romans took the city over around 338 BC. Slowly but surely, the dominant Greek culture was flushed out and replaced by Roman customs.

Cumae became the hot spot of the Roman elite, drawing the rich and fancy to bask on its seaside shores. For hundreds of years, the city remained peacefully under Roman control and maintained its bustling status as a developed Roman escape — until 1207.

That was the year it finally collapsed, and though it was gone, the footnote of Cumae remained relevant in the minds of archaeologists… until they fell in love with the cities buried by volcanic devastation, Herculaneum and Pompeii.

After that, quiet Cumae became the least popular kid in class, and all the researchers left, leaving the city vulnerable to rampant looting for awhile. Interest in exploring the hidden wonders of the city was renewed in the 20th century, however.

It was then — specifically, in 1932 — that explorers discovered an odd, trapezoidal cave, and rumors pegged it as the chamber where a famous prophetess made her predictions.

The prophetess, Cumaean Sibyl, was far from your average fortune teller. She was one of the most prolific prophetesses in history. Michelangelo depicted her as the largest of the four prophets included in his painting at the Sistine Chapel.

More recently, the College de France’s Jean Pierre Brun and Priscilla Muzi, of the French National Centre for Scientific Research, forged new excavations of a necropolis within the city. A short while of digging later, the crews found what they’d been searching for…

Not far below the surface were hundreds of tombs that were once painstakingly carved into the rocky earth. Many of these crypts were devoid of clues, due to the previous looting, though they did recover human remains and funerary relics.

Testing their findings, archaeologists deduced the tombs dated back to 2nd century B.C., after the Greeks lost control of their colony to the Romans. In all the tombs they’d examined, red and white paint covered the walls, until 2018 when they opened one special chamber.

Decorating the deteriorating walls was an ornate painting. It was a mural, and centuries after the painter put down his or her brush, the images were still clearly visible and ready for appreciation.

Experts worked out that the mural was of a naked servant, holding a silver drinking vessel and vase. Besides the nude figure, several other ancient containers called a situla and a krater were commemorated on the walls.

Based on the different components of the painting, it was confirmed that the mural illustrated a banquet. This conclusion led them to believe other figures — guests of the party, specifically — had once decorated the walls but eroded away over time.

Given the craftsmanship and vivid colors used for the tribute, researchers confirmed the crypt had belonged to members of the Roman elite. For them, it was customary for three individuals to share a tomb, and three beds were found inside the space.

Plus, it made sense that images on the wall aired on the edge of adult content because Roman high society had a taste for risque artworks. Plus, nudity was much less taboo in Roman times than in the present day.

Oddly, the archeologists noted the banquet theme had fallen out of fashion several centuries before this mural had been painted on the interior tomb walls. So, to continue their research, they carefully removed the painting from the walls.

For hundreds of years, archeologists ignored Cumae, focusing their efforts on cities that saw their demise thanks to Vesuvius — and they overlooked fascinating discoveries. As recently as 2020, experts have uncovered lost communities right in the heart of Rome itself.

The archaeological team behind the 2020 revelation was comprised of researchers from England’s University of Cambridge and Belgium’s Ghent University. Their work unearthed more important information about a storied civilization.

The team used ground-penetrating imaging system to map an area not far from Rome. The innovative machine scans the area with electromagnetic waves. When these vibrations hit something solid underground, they record the information and translate it to 3D images. And what images they found!

“If you’re interested in the Roman Empire, cities are absolutely critical because that is how the […] empire worked,” explained professor Martin Millett. So when they unearthed the remnants of a lost Roman community, they had to compare it to known sites before jumping to conclusions.

In 500 B.C.E., Rome was only a city-state. Throughout the next two centuries, the Romans conquered Spain, Greece, France, and a section of England, North Africa, and the Middle East. In 27 B.C.E., Rome was a certified empire.

When Trajan was the emperor in 117 C.E., the army had colonized a vast amount of land — the nation was at its most massive. There were territories across the provinces to govern areas of the empire.

Rome had reached a breaking point. The country was so large, one ruler couldn’t effectively govern. In 476 C.E., Rome was split into eastern and western factions. The eastern side, or the Byzantine Empire survived for hundreds of years longer than the west.

Places like U.K. Spain, Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria and Romania each has evidence of Roman influence. Italy bears the most evidence. It’s teeming with sites that each help fill in the gaps in the greater Roman story.

For instance, Romans built wide streets that were situated at 90° angles. A fifth of the streets were different sizes, and a majority of the buildings had strong, lasting foundations. Their walls would commonly be covered in written characters too.

Pompeii and Herculaneum — two sites coated in ash after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 B.C.E. When the volcano suddenly erupted, the towns were frozen in time. An estimated 16,000 people died in the eruption’s aftermath.

This tragedy has given modern archaeologists the majority of their information about the empire. Because the ash served as a perfect preservation method details like graffiti and artwork in the cities would have never been uncovered and forever recorded in history.

Ostia is a working-class town that’s also provided information. It’s often contrasted with Pompeii, which was a much wealthier area. This district sat against the Tyrrhenian Sea, making it was a popular vacation spot. The archaeologists compared these two cities with their find.

So, when the dual-university group discovered Falerii Novi, they had big hopes for their discovery. The town is 30 miles outside of Rome, and that’s where it remained for 450 years. Founded in 241 B.C.E., Falerii Novi is about half the size of Pompeii.

The space was about 75 acres and took 600 hours to fully scan. The team was left with 28 billion data points to examine. They didn’t check every one of the 28 billion but implemented enough of the recorded images to generate an accurate map of Falerii Novi.

The town was founded based on tensions between Romans and the Faliscans. The Romans destroyed the Faliscans settlement and then built their own city a few miles from the site of their slaughter. When they wiped out the town, they erased the Faliscan culture.

After its dark origin, Falerii Novi persisted for nearly 500 years. The town fell close to 700 C.E. The area’s remote location helped preserve the site for the modern archaeological team — their scans unearthed religious temples, a theater, and a bathhouse.

They also noted a large monument in the town. The group’s theory is that it was some type of religious monolith for the Falerii Novi residents. Though they had a clear picture of where it stood, they weren’t able to learn any more about its meaning.

Millett and his colleagues were pleased with their discovery. “The survey provides new insights into the variety of planning concepts underlying what are sometimes incorrectly considered to be ‘standardized’ Roman town plans,” they wrote.

Compared to Pompeii, Falerii Novi was a smaller area and shared more in common with coastal Ostia. It had unique, noteworthy features — like its aqueduct that snaked underneath the city blocks and alongside city streets.

“By providing a contrast with more familiar towns such as Pompeii, this work also raises important questions about the planning of Roman towns more generally,” the archaeologists wrote in their publication.

Besides the aqueduct, the area is also theorized to have religious significance — due to the monument in part, but also for temples that bordered the settlement. The concentrated presence of religious items indicates the thought behind their ideas.

Radar technology is bringing archaeology into a new era. Before now, finds were “previously only possible through excavation,” and the technique “has the potential to revolutionize archaeological studies of urban sites,” according to the group. But in other instances, traces of Rome can be inches under your feet.

Luke Irwin, a famed floor covering and rug designer, had no idea his humble Wiltshire, England, dwelling was hiding an underground relic. There had d been no evidence of anything ancient until workers were digging for electrical wiring on his property.

Luke was sitting inside his home when he heard a worker shout, seemingly in shock. The rug designer ran outside to see what the commotion was about, only to be met with a worker holding a pickax in the air and looking curiously into a hole in the ground.

“In February 2015, while laying electricity cables so my children could play ping-pong in an old barn, we struck a cold, hard surface,” the designer explained. Thankfully, workers noticed the bright colors peaking out of the ground just before shattering whatever it was with a pickax.

Upon further inspection, it was a tiled mosaic boasting bright blues, oranges, and creams. While everyone else scratched their heads, the strange find had Luke thinking of another oddity on his property.

There was a bizarre trough located near his property’s main house, which his contractor asked about. No one knew how long it had been there, so the designer didn’t think much of it at first. But after finding the mosaic? This property was special.

Experts looked at the mosaic 18 inches underground and concluded it was a Roman mosaic floor from approximately the 4th century, preserved for years by the chilly English countryside. As he learned more details, Luke became even more incredulous.

The Roman mosaic was once in a luxurious estate, the Deverill Villa, which existed from 175 to 220 AD. “It really goes to show how all empires stand and fall,” Luke said. The ancient site was far more advanced than experts expected.

“There was running water and heat in this villa,” Luke explained to Architectural Digest. “That hadn’t existed in the 1,600 years after that.” With answers slowly trickling in, he revisited the odd trough on his property. What was it?

Luke had an archaeologist visit his property, who confirmed that the trough was actually a Roman child’s coffin! Clearly Luke was unknowingly living on land rich in ancient history. He felt both foolish and invigorated.

“What this sort of thing throws out to you is a level of your own ignorance. I knew what this thing was, but I had no idea the date of it or the quality,” Luke said. The more Luke learned about the mosaic’s backstory, the more he wanted to honor it.

After discovering the ancient beauty, it didn’t leave Luke’s mind. In fact, he thought about the mysterious mosaic floor for six weeks, trying to calculate how to use it as inspiration for his own floor designs.

“I design floors for the 20th century, and here’s a decorated floor from the fourth century. The conclusion I came to is that you cannot spit in the eyes of the gods when such a gift is given to you,” Luke explained, excitement taking over him.

With the tesserae, AKA the tiny square tiles from the mosaic, as his muse, Luke set out to design a collection of rugs that both recognized the Roman floor’s historic pattern and exuded 21st-century tastes.

“What I wanted to do with all the rugs was to make things that people would look at and see the story of how they were made without it being fussy or overdone,” Luke said. And he had a plan to do just that.

He decided to separate the collection into two distinct categories: Rhythm and Flow. “One is more geometric, and one is more abstract,” Luke explained of his creative decisions.

“The geometrics are more synonymous with the antique pavement. What you’re trying to do is show that inspiration comes from all different places,” he continued. He didn’t simply want to make a “pastiche of Roman mosaics” that would be cheap and unoriginal.

However, the Deverill rug in his Mosaic collection for ABC Home, which is made of silk, is close to an exact replica of the buried floor, as to allow the world to experience the beauty Luke was lucky enough to see in person.

Aside from that one rug, the rest of the collection merely sees the Roman flooring as a creative starting point. “We are not the British Museum shop. We don’t want to replicate; we want to create something new,” Luke explained. And the collection didn’t stick to just one style.

Luke’s past collections have boasted elaborate, elegant designs fit for both striking country houses and mosques, but this collection aimed to speak to more modest floors. “So what you’re balancing are abstract designs and the geometrics, which go in contemporary spaces and work in more traditional environments,” Luke detailed.

And though the designs pay homage to ancient Roman mosaic tiling, the creation of the rugs relies on Indian weaving. With silk and wool blends and a tedious washing process, which all add to the rugs’ antique appearance, Luke calls his weavers’ methods “genius.”

“Part of the adventure of this is that I figured out that the Romans actually made it to India, and there is a trade history between the Romans and the Indians,” Luke disclosed. Today, the world continues to interact with Roman history in magnificent ways.

For instance, in the heart of Rome stands the ancient ruins of Largo Di Torre Argentina. Dating back to 4th century BC, the remains of the historic landmark include four impressive temples and the Theatre of Pompey. It would inspire some incredible rugs.

See, every day people come to visit the spectacular ancient Roman ruins. Tourists marvel at the construction that has withstood over two thousand years of elemental wear.

But, the sheer age of the ruins isn’t the only draw for daily visitors. This place holds significance in Roman history because it was here the dictator Julius Caesar met his tragic end — betrayed and assassinated, on the steps of the portico of Pompey.

After excavation efforts in 1929 under Mussolini, the sunken ruins like those uncovered by Luke were revealed. From then on, visitors paid tribute and witnessed the important place where history changed so abruptly, but that’s not the only reason that tourists just can’t stay away…