00:00It's no secret that the Romans liked to build roads,
00:04but European researchers say they've discovered an extra 100,000 kilometers.
00:10Using the oldest satellite surveys, topographical maps and software,
00:15they found that the Roman Empire was the size of the European Union,
00:19with nearly 300,000 kilometers of road.
00:23Now for the first time having access to the spatially detailed open data set of Roman roads,
00:29allows us to understand where did these phenomena flow through this massive region?
00:35What was the impact? What were areas that were particularly vulnerable, particularly susceptible?
00:40And what is the overall development over very long timescales of these phenomena that have really shaped our history?
00:48Roads were good for trade and keeping the residents of Rome well fed.
00:52They also helped the Empire expand by conquering cities that lay alongside pre-existing roads.
01:00It conquered areas that were already densely urbanized, with a vast net of existing roads.
01:06The Romans continued to use them, they upgraded them.
01:10An important contribution by the Romans is that they connected up all of those local road systems.
01:15So for the very first time, it was possible to move over land from Syria to Spain, for example, these vast distances.
01:22It was truly the first continental-scale terrestrial transport infrastructure.
01:27The new high-resolution open digital data settings map, called Itinerary,
01:33covers roads throughout the Roman Empire around the year 150 CE.
01:39It's kind of like a GPS, like a Google Maps of the ancient world.
01:45What I want people to do is explore it, see where their house is, see where the nearest Roman road is.
01:50But what we've also created is this route-finding tool.
01:54How do I get from Cologne in Germany to Rome over the Alps on a donkey?
02:00That is how the Romans traveled. It took a very long time.
02:03What were the connections followed? What was the path?
02:06You can do that for the very first time now.
02:08This study was led by researchers in Spain and Denmark and was published in the journal Scientific Data.
02:16and Tom Seku at this week later.
02:21The architecture of South Africa in Japan especially later.
02:27Man is bearing high-levelฬured and públic着ology in guitar,
02:30so it should not be moved in, but to a fear and Juliet,
02:33even though embossessed by all the limit and bekorr to divide
Comments