Ancient lost city discovered with drones near famed tourist route: 'Source of great pride'

An past metropolis — implicit with a forum and a theatre — was precocious uncovered alongside a fashionable tourer destination successful Italy, according to officials.

In a translated announcement this month, the Italian Ministry of Culture said the metropolis was recovered astatine the archaeological tract of Fioccaglia successful Flumeri, Avellino, alongside the Appian Way.

A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Appian Way is simply a astir 350-mile-long roadworthy that runs from Rome to Brindisi.

With immoderate parts dating backmost arsenic acold arsenic 312 BC, the roadworthy was 1 of the astir strategically important roads successful Ancient Rome — and an antithetic remnant of beingness successful antiquity.

Officials said that the ruins were recovered with the usage of drones, arsenic led by a squad of experts. The ruins day betwixt the 2nd and archetypal centuries B.C.

Italian officials announced the find of an past Roman metropolis astatine the Fioccaglia tract successful Flumeri, Avellino, adjacent the historical Appian Way. (Ministero della Cultura)

The caller excavation "clearly identified the orthogonal layout of the city, with regular thoroughfare axes and planned blocks based connected the exemplary of recently founded Roman towns," according to the statement.

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Officials said the forum — the civilian and commercialized halfway of the metropolis — was crucial. Along with "a antecedently chartless monumental theater, [it is] an constituent that attests to the societal and taste value of the municipality center."

"The findings corroborate that Fioccaglia was a structured metropolis equipped with monumental nationalist buildings, reinforcing its humanities and strategical relation wrong the Roman roadworthy system," the merchandise added.

The Appian Way, which runs astir 350 miles from Rome to Brindisi, is recognized arsenic a UNESCO World Heritage Site. (Antonio Masiello/Getty Images)

Professor Giuseppe Ceraudo, a University of Salento prof who helped find the ruins, credited a operation of "geophysical surveys and distant sensing investigations utilizing drones equipped with thermal and multispectral sensors."

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The exertion "made it imaginable to get a existent ‘X-ray’ of the still-buried past center, identifying structures done variations successful vegetation maturation and successful the magnetic creation of the subsoil," said Ceraudo.

"The multidisciplinary attack has provided a coagulated technological ground for readying aboriginal extortion and enhancement activities," helium added.

Parts of the Appian Way day backmost arsenic acold arsenic 312 B.C., making it 1 of the oldest and astir important Roman routes. (Ivan Romano/Getty Images)

Angelo Lanza, the politician of Flumeri, called the find "a root of large pridefulness and a improvement accidental for our territory."

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"The Municipality is acceptable to enactment intimately with the University and the Superintendency to guarantee that Fioccaglia, a strategical roadworthy junction on the Via Appia, becomes a landmark successful the humanities and taste offering of inland Campania," helium said successful the release.

The find adjacent the Appian Way sheds caller airy connected Roman municipality readying successful confederate Italy. (Antonio Masiello/Getty Images)

The announcement adds to a database of different large humanities discoveries crossed Italy truthful acold successful 2026.

Earlier successful February, officials astatine Pompeii revealed that 2,000-year-old emotion notes were recovered successful a tourist-heavy portion of the archaeological park.

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In January, archaeologists unveiled a long-lost basilica tied to Vitruvius, famously known arsenic the begetter of architecture.

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