Archaeologists are racing the clock to finish excavating the ruins of a Roman city lying under a construction site in Paris. Roads, houses and baths have been found where the town of Lutetia once stood.
Remnants of private houses rigged with baths and ingeniously heated floors were among the findings, now on view in a stunning dig. Over the next few weeks, however, archaeologists will rip up the ruins to make way for a research center.
The archeologists gradually remove every layer of ruins until they reach the geological stratum — the original ground — and eventually draw a chronological diagram.
"Excavating is destroying. We dig into historic layer after historic layer," said Didier Busson, scientific supervisor of the archaeological site.
The discovery, during construction work on the Pierre and Marie Curie University near the famed Sorbonne, offers a window onto one of the many layers of history underpinning this bustling capital.
They have to be finished by June 30th when construction is set to resume. It's always fascinated me that the ruins of whole cities could end up buried deep beneath a still inhabited place.
I knew all those archeology courses would come in handy.
The answer is that a good place to live way back then, is likely to remain a good place to live over time. The ancient builders selected their sites with care: good water, on established transportation and trade routes, easily defended, close to other natural resources, good agricultural lands, etc.
The optimum mix of geographical and social attributes doesn’t really change much over time. So, once you find a good spot to build on, it usually stays good, and if destroyed by fire, earthquake, or warfare, it gets rebuilt again and again because it’s still the best spot around.