Roman Villa Discovered Via Google Earth

Roman Villa, simplifiedWhile 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

25 comments

[...] Monster: “Google Earth has enabled users to make many discoveries, including new animal species, Ancient Roman villas, and meteorite craters, but we aren’t quite ready to add the Loch Ness Monster to that [...]

Pingback by Is That The Loch Ness Monster? On Google Earth? | Search Engine Optimization & Internet Marketing (SEO & SEM) Blog — August 27, 2009 @ 4:40 am

[...] Monster: “Google Earth has enabled users to make many discoveries, including new animal species, Ancient Roman villas, and meteorite craters, but we aren’t quite ready to add the Loch Ness Monster to that list.” [...]

Pingback by Loch Ness Monster Google Earth | Srinivas Katam - Internet Marketing Specialist — August 27, 2009 @ 12:01 am

Wow that is so interesting! I looked on that map and I just couldnt see it. Help
Don Lapre Watcher
http://www.j-ams.org
webmaster@j-ams.org

Comment by Don Lapre Watcher — December 15, 2006 @ 7:46 pm

kl

Comment by hi — December 10, 2006 @ 7:26 am

bullshit!!

Comment by jack — December 4, 2006 @ 2:41 pm

vx rogardi la ville

Comment by hamza — August 2, 2006 @ 11:43 am

[...] I recently came across this story posted on March 6th that tells how a group at Astroseti.org used Google Earth to find promising signs of previously unknown impact craters on our planet. This is similar to the story of an Italian randomly using Google Earth last summer and finding the remains of an ancient Roman Villa in his hometown. [...]

Pingback by Geology News » Discovering Asteroid Impacts from Home — March 21, 2006 @ 4:38 am

[...] Roman Villa Discovered Via Google Earth (made the front page at Digg.com!) [...]

Pingback by Konquest Online » 2005 in Review - Konquest Online - Science and Technology News — December 31, 2005 @ 2:25 pm

Please forgive me Julien… I didn’t mean to be so harsh.

Comment by DK — November 1, 2005 @ 10:10 pm

Julien, who elected you spokeswoman for the group? Since most the folks using this application are amatuers and given the resolution quality on most of the “Google Planets” surface. Your self serving arogance doesn’t need a showcase. Euro trash Mo fo! I envit you to learn better ways to play with otheres.

Comment by DK — October 30, 2005 @ 12:48 pm

how cool a page -
everybody discusses the roman villa; nobody posts a placemark…. Thank you – great use of the Internet!!

Comment by lecomte — October 29, 2005 @ 10:08 am

circus losticus

http://www.google.ca/maps?ll=43.305202,11.455886&spn=0.004569,0.008613&t=k&hl=en

Comment by swerve — October 1, 2005 @ 8:08 pm

I think these features look perfectly normal… The tress just south of the Quail pond look like they were planted by man, but it’s not that strange.

What we’re trying to look for are things like these: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=52.493037,-6.620582&spn=0.004530,0.010131&t=h&hl=en, which was reported by Luca Mori on his blog recently…

Comment by Julien — September 28, 2005 @ 12:08 pm

I was facinated by the discovery and while looking round your geographical area on google earth I noted what looks like a “round pond” @ coordinates, 44d 52′09.61″ N X 10d 22′01.11″ E and just south of there, looks like “Quail” shaped pond @ coordinates 44d 52′01.11″ N x 10D 21′ 59.59″ E… What do you suppose those features are, the trees around the “Quail” shaped pond look strange…
Have a look.

Comment by Darryl King — September 27, 2005 @ 11:47 pm

I know of an entire roman village that is undiscovered, however it will remain that way because the man who owns the land does not want the government trampling all over it and claiming it as theirs.

Comment by Jim — September 17, 2005 @ 4:48 am

[...] In other news; Google Earth has recently been used to find an old Roman Villa. 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. [...]

Pingback by Yelling Lizard » New Google Earth Feature — September 16, 2005 @ 10:17 pm

You’re right, efutch. You can also add to the fact that Central America often have a deep vegetation cover, which makes to groud less seen. You could pick up ancient ruins that rise over the trees, but they are probably already discovered.. :)

Comment by Julien Marchand — September 16, 2005 @ 1:09 pm

Actually finding something else in say, Central America, will be harder, because the imagery does not have this kind of detail. It only zooms to a very high level altitude, and it has a very poor resolution…

Comment by efutch — September 16, 2005 @ 11:50 am

[...] A guy in Italy discovered what seems to be a Roman villa by looking at his neighboring land via satellite. Filed under: Linklog — Owen on 2005-9-15 [...]

Pingback by Asymptomatic » Roman Villa Discovered Via Google Earth — September 16, 2005 @ 10:10 am

[...] A Roman villa was found by some guy looking at his property using Google Earth. [...]

Pingback by iPCG Blog » Blog Archive » Roman villa found by GEarth — September 16, 2005 @ 10:05 am

Crazy! In the satellite photo, the meander of that old river is quite obvious. What is not so obvious is the rectangular shape just to the south of the bend (nestled right in the middle of the meander basically). Even then, I am only seeing it because I know what to look for.

If I wasn’t looking for an ancient structure, I probably would have just ignored that (or strictly been interested in the ancient meander of that river). It’s also interesting that that particular meander is preserved so well. You can’t really follow it at all, even when zooming out. It must have been a perfect coincidence when that picture was taken. Perhaps that field was freshly plowed, no vegetation covering things.

Comment by Dave — September 15, 2005 @ 2:59 pm

[...] How very cool. As an amateur historian, and a technology buff, I love when the two meet. I hadnt really thought about archaeological uses for Google Earth, but this is incredible. I hope this leads to more discoveries, perhaps in South America, and Central Africa.

Look close..maybe.Atlantis? [...]

EDIT by Konquest: Went on your site to take the meat of your post, to bring in a meaningful comment instead of a dull trackback.

Pingback by somesuch » Blog Archive » Roman Villa found via Google Earth — September 15, 2005 @ 1:09 pm

I’ve seen the TV spot on this and they show the guy along with three archaeologists on the field, picking up rocks. You really need to know that something is there to realize that this field is interesting. On the satellite picture it’s pretty straightforward, but on the field, it’s a whole other story.

Comment by Julien Marchand — September 15, 2005 @ 9:29 am

Interesting indeed. Strange that none of the surrounding villas had noticed anything though.

Comment by dmce — September 15, 2005 @ 5:09 am

This is a very cool story. This proves it Google is making the world a better place.

Comment by BanGy — September 15, 2005 @ 3:26 am