Construction near Pompeii unearths dozens of 2,000-year-old burials. Take a look
Any construction project near the iconic ancient Roman city of Pompeii, Italy, will likely encounter some ruins. The question isn’t if something will be found, but what will reemerge?
For workers at a nearby railway station, their answer came in the form of a 2,000-year-old burial ground.
The workers were building an underground parking garage at Pompeii Santuario train station as part of a larger railway project, the Superintendence of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the Metropolitan Area of Naples said in an Aug. 2 news release. The construction site was less than a quarter mile east of Pompeii Archaeological Park.
As they dug, workers uncovered dozens of graves dating back 2,000 years.
The pre-Roman burial ground was used from about 300 B.C. to 1 B.C., archaeologists said. So far, 35 graves have been excavated.
The burial styles vary, ranging from simple pit graves to graves covered with pottery imported from North Africa. A photo shows two of these pottery-covered graves. The jars look almost like modern scuba tanks and are arranged in alternating directions.
The ancient graves had few artifacts, mainly ointment jars or coins, but were well-preserved due to the groundwater, archaeologists said. Other photos show two of these largely intact skeletons.
The construction work also confirmed the presence of buried ancient fields preserved by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D., officials said. The agriculture work likely supplied daily markets in ancient Pompeii.
Archaeologists have not finished analyzing the field but their initial work suggests it was an artichoke crop.
Buried even further under the construction site, a human-made canal filled with destroyed artifacts was found by workers, archaeologists said. The items included hundreds of tile and pottery fragments, wooden objects and a carved female figure.
The artifacts likely originated from pre-Roman burials and ended up in the canal due to agricultural work.
Archaeologists are still excavating the site and analyzing the finds, officials said.
Pompeii is along the southwestern coast of Italy, near Naples, and a roughly 150-mile drive southeast from Rome.
Google Translate was used to translate the news release from the Superintendence of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the Metropolitan Area of Naples.
This story was originally published August 6, 2024 at 11:29 AM with the headline "Construction near Pompeii unearths dozens of 2,000-year-old burials. Take a look."
