Digging through time
About this video
Dr. Darius Arya explains to Dr. Beth Harris why ancient ground levels in Rome are so much lower than today's. After fires and other disasters, the Romans levelled ruined buildings and built on top of the rubble, so the Forum holds layer upon layer of history, as with the Basilica Julia and the buildings it replaced. Archaeologists decide how far to dig by finding openings to earlier levels without destroying what exists.
You'll be able to
- explain why ancient ground levels in Rome are lower than today's streets.
- describe how the Basilica Julia shows layer upon layer of building history.
- explain how archaeologists decide where and how far to dig.
Key words
- ground level
- The height of the ground surface at a particular time in history.
- rubble
- Broken pieces of stone and brick left after a building is destroyed.
- basilica
- A large Roman public hall used for business and law courts.
- layer
- One level of material in the ground, from one period of time.
Transcript
A conversation with Dr. Darius Arya & Dr. Beth Harris We know that when the archologists look for traces of ancient cultures, they dig down and we often read about how the ancient ground level was much lower. So how did this happen? What gets layered on top of ancient cultures?
People back then are like us today. Every action that we take, everything that we do, everything that we purchase, we're gonna leave something behind, there's gonna be a trace. The Romans were ultimately very efficient so they said often times if there is destruction from a fire: "Let's level off those buildings, make the ground floor into the basement or simply level off the building and put all that rubble around, smooth it and we now have the foundations for the later structures."
So, Romans didn't necesserily look at their cities after disasters: fires, floods, earthquakes, the way that we do. So after Katrina in United States, we digged it out. But for the Romans, that's too much effort. Why you're gonna haul that material away? Just level off and jack your city up to a higher level.
So, standing here in the Forum, we notice we go down into the Forum and we look up at the streets around us. So, are we at an ancient ground level now? Yes, and even beneath this are several other layers of ancient Rome. So, we'd go down another 20 feet to get to the archaic layers and every monument that you see has a precedent.
Like this is Basilica Julia. This was built after fire in 283 A.D. It replaces the one that's burnt down that was built by Julius Ceasar and completed by Augustus. It in turn replaced a second century B.C. Basilica It in turn replaced earlier republican houses.
So you've got layer upon layer upon layer. So how do archeologists make the decision when to stop digging? Feels like you could dig and just go further back in history. So, when you're looking for opportunities to go down further such as someone's put a cut in the floor that allows you then to go down to an earlier level and what they end up mostly satisfying themselves with for the Forum Piazza today.
What you see is largely on the Augustan to second century A.D. levels. But there are many opportunities throughtout the area in the Roman Forum where they can go down to earlier and earlier levels. So finding places to do that where you don't destroy what is existing now, that you could say?
Exactly. Thanks. Thank you.
Video © Khan Academy, used under CC BY-NC-SA. Watch on Khan Academy. Puzzicle is not affiliated with Khan Academy.