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Teenagers Stayed Overnight at Their School and Found Hidden Ancient Roman Ruins

142 pointsby thunderbonglast Thursday at 2:22 AM71 commentsview on HN

Comments

nstentstoday at 4:46 PM

Having lived in Italy for 7 years as a teen, the word is that construction of commercial, governmental, and private sites will be shut down for sometimes years so the Italian government and bureaucracy can have its go in deciding what action to take. A Roman era catacomb was found when my sister's school was being expanded, and the Nuns running the school managed to hush it up pretty well. I imagine they explained to the working crew their loss of a job if word got out..

It seems reasonable a similar thing happened here even as far back as the 1870s when the original construction was taking place.

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fredleytoday at 1:57 PM

> To William’s complete lack of surprise, the little cellar under the shed was much better built than the shed itself. But then, practically everywhere in Ankh-Morpork had cellars that were once the first or even second or third floors of ancient buildings, built at the time of one of the city’s empires when men thought that the future was going to last for ever. And then the river had flooded and brought mud with it, and walls had gone higher and, now, what Ankh-Morpork was built on was mostly Ankh-Morpork. People said that anyone with a good sense of direction and a pickaxe could cross the city underground by simply knocking holes in walls.

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napoluxtoday at 2:13 PM

In Italy, almost anywhere you can find roman artifacts. They're just in the layer underneath the WW2 bombs.

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DougN7today at 3:07 PM

As an American, where we have comparatively little history (we’re celebrating 250 years - some folks in Europe live in houses older than that!) visiting Rome is almost mind blowing to see SO MUCH ancient history right there, and almost everywhere. So cool!

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Dependancetoday at 1:29 PM

There must be a metaphor somewhere in this, when somehow it is the angry youth that discovers something of value hidden in plain view that no one bothered to look at before !

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amarcheschitoday at 1:42 PM

In my tuscanian city the university is building a new building for the engineering department. While digging they randomly found an ancient etruscan well. In this case everything went smoothly and timely and it will be preserved, an underground parking near the center had ww2 remains and deeper than that, archeological ones that slowed down the whole thing

newaccountman2today at 3:29 PM

Did the ruins come alive at night with like Roman soldiers and stuff running around, etc?

Febriss33today at 5:10 PM

had you ever been to rome? totally normal.. there is an entire hill made of roman pottery waste.. is a public park! best city ever

Chaseraphtoday at 4:38 PM

Dang, all I found was a used condom when I did this.

j45today at 4:23 PM

This has Magic School Bus episode written all over it.

MrBuddyCasinotoday at 3:01 PM

Whose first instinct is it, when finding an ancient roman villa hidden underneath your school, to smear graffiti on the walls. I cannot relate.

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jrjrjrkrfkfkkrtoday at 1:45 PM

> Covid-19, the teenagers occupied their school, spending several nights camped out in the building

So instead of keeping lockdown, they killed bunch of innocent people just to have a party! What sort of person would do that!?

At that time we had military trucks in Italy hauling dead bodies, because regular services could not keep up with all the corpses!

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