While searching around his hometown in Google Earth, Luca Mori stumbled on what looked like the meanders of an ancient river. On the satellite image, it looks like “prominent, oval, shaded form more than 500 metres long.“. However, his eye caught what he described as “rectangular shadows“. He led further analysis only to convince himself that these shadows could be nothing else than a human construction.
So he contacted archaeologists at the National Archaeological Museum of Parma and told them about his discovery. After a visit to the site, they confirmed that it was a roman villa. Now only a thorough dig will tell how important this discovery is.
In the Google Maps satellite image, try to look for the dark patch in the center of your screen, it should be fairly obvious.
In his blog, QuelliDellaBassa (in Italian, obviously), he describes his findings. He links a map of the surroundings with the actual Google Maps image.
I picked up this story via Nature News, which is not a bad place to end up with a blog post! He even made it to Italian Television News (direct Windows Media Link). It’s also featured on Ogle Earth.
September 14th, 2005 | General Science, Technology
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