2,000-year-old Roman city under construction site

Historians have found the remains of a 2,000-year-old Roman city beneath a construction site in southern France.

Remains of an ancient Roman city being excavated by archaeologists. Photo: Sun.

The excavation team was surprised to discover the ruins of the city of Ucetia in Uzes, France, Sun reported. Previously, historians only knew of the city's existence through an inscription in Nimes, an important outpost of the Roman Empire located in present-day France.

The Roman Empire began its conquest of France in 121 BC and Julius Caesar completed the conquest in 51 BC. Researchers believe the newly excavated city could have been built between the 1st century BC and the 7th century.

The archaeological team found huge mosaics and traces of public buildings, providing the first evidence of the city's past. The finds included a large-scale painting, continuous geometric patterns and a large central circle surrounded by a deer, duck, owl and eagle. They also found a house with a large number of earthenware jars.

The floor has a square pattern with a dolphin pattern, and a nearby room has a hypocaust furnace. This is a central heating system inside a building that produces and circulates hot air under the floor of the room, while also warming the walls through a series of air ducts.

Experts will excavate and analyze the patterns before a boarding school is built on the site in 2019.

According to VNE