About 30 miles north of Rome is an ancient abandoned Roman city called Falerii Novi. The city spans 75 acres and has very few ruins left at ground level. It is also protected by law, which when coupled with its size means that a traditional archaeological dig at the site would be impossible.
That’s why an archaeology team from Cambridge and Ghent universities decided to use radar technology in order to map the city without having to dig at all. Called ground-penetrating radar (GPR), the tech is mounted on a special rig and towed across the site, stopping about every 5 inches to send electromagnetic pulses into the ground.
Those pulses are used to determine the shape and depth of structures beneath the surface. From that data, the archaeologists can reconstruct the layout of buildings in the area, creating 2D and 3D maps. This marks the first time that technology like this has been used to map an entire ancient Roman city, without any digging.
