Dirt and detritus have built up in Rome over the centuries—the city now sits well above ancient street level.
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Dr. Beth Harris: [0:04] We know that when archaeologists look for traces of ancient cultures, they dig down. We often read about how the ancient ground level was much lower. How did this happen? What gets layered on top of ancient cultures?
Dr. Darius Arya: [0:19] People back then are like us today. Every action that we take, everything that we do, everything that we purchase, we’re going to leave something behind. There’s going to be a trace.
[0:27] The Romans were, ultimately, very efficient. They said oftentimes, if there’s destruction from a fire, “let’s level off those buildings. Make the ground floor into the basement, or simply level off the building and put all that rubble around, smooth it, and we now have the foundations for later structures.”
[0:42] So Romans didn’t necessarily look at their cities after disasters, fires, floods, earthquakes, the way that we do. After Katrina in the United States, we dig it out. For the Romans, that’s too much effort. Why are you going to haul that material away? Just level off and jack your city up to a higher level.
Dr. Harris: [1:00] Standing here in the Forum, we notice we go down into the Forum and we look up at the streets around us. Are we at an ancient ground level now?
Dr. Arya: [1:09] Yeah. And even beneath this are several other layers of ancient Rome. We’d go down another 20 feet to get to the archaic layers. Every monument that you see has a precedent.
[1:20] This is Basilica Julia. This is built after a fire in 283 A.D. It replaces the one that’s burnt down that was built by Julius Caesar and completed by Augustus. It in turn replaced a 2nd-century B.C. basilica. It in turn replaced early Republican houses. So you’ve got layer upon layer upon layer.
Dr. Harris: [1:38] How do archaeologists make the decision when to stop digging? [It] feels like you could dig and go further back in history.
Dr. Arya: [1:45] You’re looking for opportunities to go down further, such as somebody’s put a cut in a floor, that allows you then to go down to an earlier level. What they end up mostly satisfying themselves with for the Forum piazza today, what you see is largely on the Augustine to 2nd-century A.D. levels.
[2:04] There are many opportunities throughout the area of the Roman Forum where they could go down to earlier and earlier levels.
Dr. Harris: [2:10] So finding places to do that where you don’t destroy what is existing now that you can see.
Dr. Arya: [2:15] Exactly.
Dr. Harris: [2:15] Thanks.
Dr. Arya: [2:23] Thank you.
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