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It makes you wonder what else is buried beneath the streets of cities built on top of ancient ruins. Cairo, Alexandria, Rome, Mexico City, Athens. Cool stuff, i

It makes you wonder what else is buried beneath the streets of cities built on top of ancient ruins. Cairo, Alexandria, Rome, Mexico City, Athens. Cool stuff, if you ask me.

mytec 10y ago
There was a TV series on the History channel that explored the subterranean environment and culture beneath various civilizations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cities_of_the_Underworld https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cities_of_the_Underworld
- wlll 10y ago
  There was also a BBC series that used laser scanning to develop underground maps of some areas, including ISTR parts of Rome.
Finnucane 10y ago
In most of those places you can't put a spade in the ground without hitting some artifact. Archaeologists have to be on call during construction projects.
jacquesm 10y ago
http://www.livescience.com/41559-rome-quarry-collapse.html http://www.livescience.com/41559-rome-quarry-collapse.html
toyg 10y ago
If you ask contemporary Romans, for a lot of people it's just a huge hassle. It slows down economic activity of all sorts - every time you dig, stuff comes up, work is stopped, and lengthy procedures are started to assess what's there etc etc... This, of course, if you are honest and have time to spare. Less scrupulous individuals will simply loot what they can and keep digging, or even smash everything to bits before anyone can notice. Rome has one of the most underdeveloped subways among major capitals, simply because digging anything is very difficult: as the article mentions, soil is quite peculiar over there, and technically it's a city built over several hills. Add the archeological element, and you might as well give up.
- Pxtl 10y ago
  You'd think a hilly city with no digging would experiment with cable gondolas since they're the new thing.
- gtvwill 10y ago
  > Less scrupulous individuals will simply loot what they can and keep digging, or even smash everything to bits before anyone can notice. Crikey, I have heard countless stories from farmers, old construction workers and so on of coming across burial sites, ancient tools or dinosaur bones, where they have just covered the stuff up, buried it further down another hole or even destroyed it just because they had no care or knowledge of that stuff. Some of the stories are pretty interesting (like caves with paintings of mega-fauna or sites of ancient fish farming), but some are also horrifying (One old bloke found a giant bone on his property while clearing scrub, he burnt it).
  - riffraff 10y ago
    My home town was an important Etruscan city, and still has a huge necropolis. One of my grand-uncles told me that when he was a kid (early 20th century) when they found ancient vases they used them for sling practice, it was only later that people realized they had any value.
jbuzbee 10y ago
It was documented in ancient times that Alexandria the Great's tomb was in central Alexandria at a cross-roads, but exactly where is lost to history.
myth_drannon 10y ago
Jerusalem has meters and meters of cultural layer after thousands of years. Basically decent underground into millennias ago. http://www.haaretz.com/st/c/prod/eng/2016/05/jeruz/01/ http://www.haaretz.com/st/c/prod/eng/2016/05/jeruz/01/
kkylin 10y ago
Slightly off-topic, but on a related theme: http://www.exurbe.com/?p=2219 http://www.exurbe.com/?p=2219
- mirimir 10y ago
  Wow, this is a great article! Thanks :) Early cathedrals in Ireland incorporate pieces of pagan buildings: https://goo.gl/images/a5cduy https://goo.gl/images/a5cduy

It makes you wonder what else is buried beneath the streets of cities built on top of ancient ruins. Cairo, Alexandria, Rome, Mexico City, Athens. Cool stuff, if you ask me.

mytec 10y ago

There was a TV series on the History channel that explored the subterranean environment and culture beneath various civilizations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cities_of_the_Underworld https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cities_of_the_Underworld

wlll 10y ago
There was also a BBC series that used laser scanning to develop underground maps of some areas, including ISTR parts of Rome.

Finnucane 10y ago

In most of those places you can't put a spade in the ground without hitting some artifact. Archaeologists have to be on call during construction projects.

jacquesm 10y ago

http://www.livescience.com/41559-rome-quarry-collapse.html http://www.livescience.com/41559-rome-quarry-collapse.html

toyg 10y ago

If you ask contemporary Romans, for a lot of people it's just a huge hassle. It slows down economic activity of all sorts - every time you dig, stuff comes up, work is stopped, and lengthy procedures are started to assess what's there etc etc... This, of course, if you are honest and have time to spare. Less scrupulous individuals will simply loot what they can and keep digging, or even smash everything to bits before anyone can notice. Rome has one of the most underdeveloped subways among major capitals, simply because digging anything is very difficult: as the article mentions, soil is quite peculiar over there, and technically it's a city built over several hills. Add the archeological element, and you might as well give up.

Pxtl 10y ago
You'd think a hilly city with no digging would experiment with cable gondolas since they're the new thing.
gtvwill 10y ago
> Less scrupulous individuals will simply loot what they can and keep digging, or even smash everything to bits before anyone can notice. Crikey, I have heard countless stories from farmers, old construction workers and so on of coming across burial sites, ancient tools or dinosaur bones, where they have just covered the stuff up, buried it further down another hole or even destroyed it just because they had no care or knowledge of that stuff. Some of the stories are pretty interesting (like caves with paintings of mega-fauna or sites of ancient fish farming), but some are also horrifying (One old bloke found a giant bone on his property while clearing scrub, he burnt it).
- riffraff 10y ago
  My home town was an important Etruscan city, and still has a huge necropolis. One of my grand-uncles told me that when he was a kid (early 20th century) when they found ancient vases they used them for sling practice, it was only later that people realized they had any value.

jbuzbee 10y ago

It was documented in ancient times that Alexandria the Great's tomb was in central Alexandria at a cross-roads, but exactly where is lost to history.

myth_drannon 10y ago

Jerusalem has meters and meters of cultural layer after thousands of years. Basically decent underground into millennias ago. http://www.haaretz.com/st/c/prod/eng/2016/05/jeruz/01/ http://www.haaretz.com/st/c/prod/eng/2016/05/jeruz/01/

kkylin 10y ago

Slightly off-topic, but on a related theme: http://www.exurbe.com/?p=2219 http://www.exurbe.com/?p=2219

mirimir 10y ago
Wow, this is a great article! Thanks :) Early cathedrals in Ireland incorporate pieces of pagan buildings: https://goo.gl/images/a5cduy https://goo.gl/images/a5cduy