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why does everything seem to be buried?

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by aplhurst (U683139) on Sunday, 5th November 2006

  When looking at roman ruins why do they often appear to be buried under a few feet of mud? did someone cover them up to build on them?

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  Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Sunday, 5th November 2006

  How can I put this?
  
  Not all ancient buildings' vestiges end up subsumed by earth. Some remain on top. Those that remain on top get weathered, nicked, destroyed, etc etc. - ie. they disappear.
  
  Those which are protected by detritus and accumulated amalgam of dust, dirt (and other preservative filth) remain to be found later.
  
  However, to my almost certain knowledge there were never bands of 'mud slingers' whose job it was to tour round the Roman ruins after the empire's fall neatly packaging old foundations in filth for future posterity.

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  Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Sunday, 5th November 2006

  Hi Aplhurst,
  
  A great deal depends on where in the world your Roman remains are. In hot, dry areas like North Africa the remains may well still be on the surface (if they've escaped the odd sandstorm). Things are very different in Britain.
  
  As Nordmann says good cut stone has always been at a premium and so most Roman buildings have been extensively robbed. The accumulation of organic material, like leaves, and the action of the earth worm tends to cover the remaining foundations with soil in a century or two. This process occurred in antiquity so it is not uncommon to find the remains of one Roman villa built on top of an earlier, with perhaps an Iron Age round house under both.
  
  On well draining hill-top sites Roman remains may be just under the ploughsoil - and indeed are commonly damaged by the modern deep plough. Wet soil tends to move slowly downhill (colluvial flow) and therefore valley bottom sites have a thicker depth of soil as cover.
  
  In a wet UK urban site like London or York things are very different. Century after century organic materials have been imported into the towns in vast quantities. Examples of these are wood, animal bone, foodstuffs, thatch and human beings that ultimately become dead bodies. The organic material survives very well in waterlogged soil and accumulates in the form of middens, cess pits, cemeteries, rubbish heaps, and so forth. Common practice seems to have been to remove those parts of a decaying building that were above ground, cover the site with soil or rubble and build again. The process went on century after century and the earliest structural remains may now be 3m deep.
  
  In parts of the world where building in sun dried mud brick was common the buildings returned to soil eventually and further mud brick constructions were placed on top, only to decay in their turn. By this means, over thousands of years, large occuation mounds or tels were created.
  
  Regards TP

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  Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Tuesday, 7th November 2006

  A human construction cannot remain above the earth's surface for many millenia even in relatively friendly environments. No matter if it has a natural near-zero decay (an ideal situation) at some point some physical destruction will hit it and make it pieces future generations will find under the earth.
  
  Mind you the earth may cover things but also can uncover according to the type of movement that occurs in a specific area, and that is how dinosaur bones (of animals dead for million of years) can be at some point found in the surface (within rock formations etc.) - things that had in the past given birth to myths like those about dragons etc.
  
  It is known that the most "active" lands are those with a lot of earthquakes like Greece or Japan and it is no secret in both of these countries you cannot find easily houses that withstood more than 100 years old apart your... occasional ancient/medieval temple that had been overengineered 100 times (see, at those times they were not capitalists, thus did not do savings on material and craft!). In other parts of the world you may find really old houses. Like for example in England, in Oxford I remember seeing one house that was built in the 14th century if I remember well.
  
  Another very important factor is the extend that older constructions are reused. If a culture dies and noone else replaces it then more is saved but in places like eastern Mediterranean and Middle east that the one power replaced the other continuously, most material was reused again and again. Its funny seeing in medieval churches stones with more ancient writtings (e.g. names of ancient gods, grave writings etc.).

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  Posted by widget (U2260877) on Tuesday, 7th November 2006

  Yes, amazing isn't it. I'm studying in Lincoln and if you visit the Bailgate at the top of Steep Hill near to the cathedral you will see brickwork in the road which are the caps on top of the Roman Columns which stood at the entrance to what is thought to have been a temple. If you go into a very nice shop called Midas and buy somethihng and ask very nicely they may let you go down into the cellar where you can see the bottom portion of one of the columns. The remains of soime of the other columns are used as foundations for the existing houses there.

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  Posted by sagethyme (U5272261) on Thursday, 9th November 2006

  When I was a child we often visited the Roman Wall remains in Northumberland, and my father pointed out old local farmhouses with obviously Roman stones in the walls.
  
  You can easily test the effects of weather and worms by leaving a few bricks in a row in your garden. They won't stay clean and neat in a row for long!

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