Arya News - The 1,700-year-old wooden supports tell the story.
Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:
Historians have long believed that a Roman-era bridge must have spanned the Aare River in Switzerland, but they could never find physical proof.
Recently, archaeological divers scouring the soil beneath the river water churned up wooden stakes that were later dated to the fourth century C.E.
Experts believe that the Roman-era bridge was part of an ancient highway connecting Italy to Germany.
Historians in northwest Switzerland have long believed a fourth-century Roman road that once connected Italy to Germany passed through Solothurn, a small town on the Aare River. Signs of the ancient road have been found on either side of the river, but there was no physical evidence of the bridge that would have allowed people to cross it some 1,700 years ago.
That evidence is now in hand.
As archaeological diver s explored the soil under the river as part of a renovation project on the nearby Wengi Bridge (a modern railway crossing over the Aare), crews looked for hints of past bridges. Researchers couldn’t be more excited with what the divers found, according to a translated statement from the Swiss Office for Monument Conservation and Archaeology.
The divers discovered wooden stakes, which researchers dated to the fourth century C.E. “The long-suspected Roman river crossing at Salodurum, the ancient Solothurn, is finally documented by soil finds,” the office wrote.
The discovery came just a few feet upstream from the Wengi Bridge and roughly 32 feet from the south bank of the river. The team uncovered a row of roughly six-foot-long wooden piles running with the river, which experts now believe were the pillars that once supported the roadway superstructure.
Samples from the wood allowed researchers to date the pilings to the fourth century C.E. (the Late Roman period), when settlements in Solothurn’s region had evolved from open-style towns to fortified cities known as castra. These strongholds were connected by ancient highways like the one through Solothurn, which linked Northern Italy with the Rhine frontier. Travelers would cross the Great St. Bernard Pass, the Swiss Plateau , and the Jura region on their way from Italy to the Aare region.
Historians had an abundance of clues about the ancient bridge. Along with the history of the ancient highway nearby, the location itself was an obvious choice for a crossing, as the strongly winding Aare River narrows into a tight channel at this spot. In addition, the name Salodurum is the Latin form of a Celtic village name that means “river narrows”—another clue to the function of the site during the Roman period.
The final proof is in the physical remnants of the bridge, which the Office of Monument Conservation and Archaeology noted only survived until their discovery through a “stroke of luck.” A water management project in 1969 deepened the riverbed near Solothurn, but because the stakes of the Roman bridge were so close to the modern Wengi Bridge, they were protected from any major dredging or construction.
Officials plan to leave the wooden stakes underwater , but hope that future exploration will expose more of the historical bridge, further cementing the link between Italy and Germany via a 1,700-year-old bridge over the Aare River.
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