Large Roman Villa Site in England Surveyed

RUTLAND, ENGLAND—BBC News reports that a ground-penetrating radar survey indicates that a Roman villa complex in England’s East Midlands, where a three-paneled mosaic depicting scenes from Homer’s Iliad was uncovered last year, may have been equipped with a bathhouse, a mausoleum, a chapel, and formal gardens. In all, the villa complex covered an area of about 12 acres surrounded by ditches. “The ditches could date from the Iron Age, with the villa occupying an already defended area, or they could be Roman, marking the villa,” said John Gater of SUMO Geophysics Ltd. The survey also revealed the presence of individual pits and wells, he explained. An aisled building at the site suggests it may have been in use into the Anglo-Saxon period, Gater added. To read about another Roman villa site in England, go to "After the Fall."