All roads lead to Rome? Not exactly – almost a hundred thousand kilometers of new small roads were found

All roads lead to Rome, goes the old saying.

Now it has been revealed that not all minor roads led directly to Rome.

So many new roads have been found. The road discoveries increase the length of the road network of the ancient Roman Empire on the map by more than 90,000 kilometers.

New the map was compiled from several sources. Previous databases, satellite images and various archaeological reports were included.

The new map got a name It’s itineraryand it is freely available online.

Itiner-e describes on the map more than 290,000 kilometers of Roman roads, in a total area of ​​five million square kilometers.

By way of comparison, let’s say that the length of the entire Finnish road network is now about 454,000 kilometers, they say The Finnish Railways Agency’s website.

Road map reveals the extent of the road network important to Rome as it existed in 150. At that time, the Roman Empire was prosperous.

The old highways that were built between population centers are included. We already knew about them before.

Now roads used by soldiers and other local routes were included. They had been ignored in the old maps, says the science magazine Scientific American.

Map accurately traces the ancient road network all the way from Britain to North Africa.

“For the first time, we have a good and nationwide overview of the Roman road network, including main and side roads,” says an archaeologist from the Autonomous University of Barcelona Adam Pažout.

He is one science journal Scientific Datassa lead authors of the published study.

The authors say that the map helps to better understand the mobility, trade and also the spread of diseases at that time.

“There are roads everywhere the Romans traveled on foot,” says the archaeologist and co-author of the study Tom Brughmans from Aarhus University in Denmark.

“Roman there were villas, towns and farms everywhere in the kingdom. You could get to each of them by road,” he says.

The biggest Roman roads, such as the via Appia that led south from Rome, were thoroughly built. The road had layers of sand, gravel and stones.

In ancient Rome, the road network was first built in the area of ​​present-day Italy. Little by little, even the most remote areas of Rome changed when the road network reached them. Interaction between cities increased.

Tract made it possible for the troops of the Roman army to move where they were needed, says the historian Ray Laurence from Macquarie University, Australia. He was not involved in this study.

Roads from Roman times are the basis of many roads connecting cities today.

One such is, for example, present-day Britain highway A5,’s share between London and Wroxeter. The A5 takes you from London close to the Welsh border. The road was built on the route of the Roman road.

Antiquity Brughmans, who studied the roads, reminds us that only a few percent of the entire length of the road network is known with certainty, says the website Science Alert.

About 90 percent of the roads marked on the map have been assumed to be roads, because there were reasons for that. In the area of ​​present-day Israel, for example, there is a road in the archives that ran between the coast and the military camp.

About seven percent of the new roads are those that are believed to be on the site of old roads. You have been studied for over 200 years.

“The exact location of roads during the Roman period still requires research”, Brughmans says.