Scientists uncover lost Venetian city

— -- Venice, the floating city, owes a curious debt to Attila the Hun. " The Scourge of God" sent the Venetians fleeing in 452 A.D. from their city, Altinum, to found Venice deep in the marshes on the edge of the Adriatic.

But despite the best efforts of Attila (and the Venetians, who carted away the stones of their sacked home to build Venice), archaeologists have mapped the lost city, detailed in the current Science.

"Now we have a rather unique opportunity of finding an abandoned Roman city," study lead author Paoli Mozzi of Italy's Padua University told Science. "Now we can really start to make some kinds of reasoning about the way the city lived."

A combination of drought and aerial photography in July of 2007 conspired to reveal the location of Altinum, reports the team. Infrared images showed how drought affected corn and soybean crops growing over the site, in turn revealing the streets, buildings and even the large canal that once ran through the middle of the vanquished city. Cut through the 10-foot rise of the town, the canal was a surprise, Mozzi says, suggesting Altinum was a mini-Venice before Venice.

"The right constellation of circumstances — a site that has not been settled since Late Antiquity, and a severe drought — have combined to enable these particularly illuminating photographs to be taken and interpreted," says Harvard classicist Kathleen Coleman. "Altinum was one of the most important cities in northern Italy because of its strategic position as a hub where routes over the Alps, around the top of the Adriatic, and down the eastern seaboard intersected."