Researchers studying an underwater city in Italy say they have discovered an ancient mosaic floor that was once the foundation of a Roman villa, a find the local mayor has called “astonishing.”
The discovery was made in Sommersa Bay, a marine protected area and UNESCO World Heritage Site off the northern coast of the Gulf of Naples. The area was once the Roman city of Baia, but was submerged over the centuries by the sea. volcanic activity in the regionUnderwater structures remain relatively intact, allowing researchers to make discoveries such as mosaic floors.
The Campi Flegrei archaeological park announced the latest discovery on social media, which includes “thousands of marble slabs” of “hundreds of different shapes.”
Edoardo Ruspantini
“This marble floor has been at the center of the largest underwater restoration work,” the park said, calling the research “a new challenge” and made “very complicated due to the extreme fragmentation of the remains and their great expansion.”
The marble floor is made of reclaimed and second-hand marble that had previously been used to decorate other floors or walls, the park said. Each piece of marble was cut into squares and engraved with circles. The floor likely dates to the third century A.D., the park said in another post, citing the style of the room and the reuse of materials as common practices at that time.
Archaeological Park of Campi Flegrei
Researchers are working carefully to extract the marble pieces from the site, the park said. The recovery work will require careful digging around collapsed walls and other fragmented slabs, but researchers hope “to be able to salvage some of the geometries.”
Once recovered, the slabs are brought back to land and cleaned in freshwater basins. The marble pieces are then studied “slab by slab” to try to recreate the ancient mosaic, the park specifies.
Archaeological Park of Campi Flegrei
“The work is still long and complex, but we are sure that it will offer many impulses and great satisfactions,” the park said.
