A team of researchers from the University of Cádiz was searching for remnants of a Roman settlement when they set out to excavate an area in the Sierra Cádiz. But what they have uncovered is truly astonishing.
From an article in Interesting Engineering by Maria Mocerino.
The researchers uncovered not one or two but 57 sites that point to “a hidden empire” from the Roman era, previously unknown to archaeologists.
This unprecedented discovery, led by Macarena Lara, utilized cutting-edge technology to investigate a site that had long been on archaeologists’ radar but never explored to this extent.
These 57 sites could potentially reshape our understanding of the Romans or, at the very least, expand our current knowledge by revealing a new facet of their civilization.
A whole new empire
Although a few of these sites had first been identified in the 1980s and 1990s, this area in Southern Spain had not been investigated until 2023. The team from Cádiz set out into the countryside of Spain to begin their “intense excavation” at the Roman villa of El Cañuelo in Bornos.
Their aim was to understand “the interaction between the Bay of Cádiz and the settlements in the Guadalete River depression during the Roman period.” However, they never anticipated finding a network of sites likely interconnected by trade and communication routes along the Guadelete River.
The state-of-the-art tools employed in this remarkable discovery include multispectral cameras and LiDAR technology. LiDAR, which has been instrumental in numerous groundbreaking archaeological discoveries in recent years, detects underground objects using pulsing radar.
These separate settlements might point to “a hidden empire” or, at least, a hidden part of the Roman empire that archaeologists didn’t know about until now, as reported by Express UK.
What’s next for the “hidden empire?”
The researchers wanted to delve into the Roman Empire’s presence in the Guadelete River valley over 2,000 years ago, a period shrouded in mystery. The Romans supposedly integrated this region into their empire upon conquering Spain in 264 BC, as reported by the Independent, but the 57 structures just unearthed have not been dated yet.
Based on historical knowledge, they estimate the sites to be at least 2,000 years old. Their distribution across several areas—Arcos de la Frontera, Bornos, Villamartin, and Puerto Serrano—suggests they might be part of a “hidden empire,” though further investigation is necessary to confirm the nature of this remarkable conglomerate of settlements, though it appears to be Roman.
For the complete story on a new Roman settlement CLICK HERE.
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