Mysterious 'Winged' Structure from Ancient Rome Discovered

Source

A recently discovered mysterious "winged" structure in England, which in the Roman period may have been used as a temple, presents a puzzle for archaeologists, who say the building has no known parallels.

Built around 1,800 years ago, the structure was discovered in Norfolk, in eastern England, just to the south of the ancient town of Venta Icenorum. The structure has two wings radiating out from a rectangular room that in turn leads to a central room.

"Generally speaking, [during] the Roman Empire people built within a fixed repertoire of architectural forms," said William Bowden, a professor at the University of Nottingham, who reported the find in the most recent edition of the Journal of Roman Archaeology. The investigation was carried out in conjunction with the Norfolk Archaeological and Historical Research Group.

The winged shape of the building appears to be unique in the Roman Empire, with no other example known. "It's very unusual to find a building like this where you have no known parallels for it," Bowden told LiveScience. "What they were trying to achieve by using this design is really very difficult to say."

Just thought I would share this discovery with all of you and get some input on it.

I love this story because as I have said before there is no better mystery than one that involves history, and anything that has no parallels to it is always going to provide good reading material.

I looked around on here and didn't find this mentioned, so I thought I would bring it up. Enjoy.

Any thoughts?

Pred...

reply to post by predator0187


Maybe it's just me but all I see is a field?

Good find! S+F

It is a curious site.

reply to post by chrismicha77


I was going to say that too, but I figured that the little white branches of the middle part were what they're talking about.

I was actually going to tell people to point out what they thought it was in my OP.

Pred...

It's particularly interesting because the shape doesn't seem to be related to the landform. Hopefully a dig will uncover some artifacts that indicate what the building was used for. It's very strange, though, isn't it?