A pedestrian who spotted a strange arrangement of stones wound up helping archaeologists rediscover an Ancient Roman building.
The find was announced by the Swiss canton of Solothurn on Facebook on May 20.
The “exciting” discovery was spotted at a highway construction site near Luterbach, 22 miles north of the city of Bern, the group said.
“About a week ago, a pedestrian found stones and pieces of brick near the motorway bridge,” stated the post, which was translated from Swiss German into English.
“It soon became clear: A Roman building is buried here.”
Pictures of the site show the stone foundation shockingly close to the road.
“[T]he Roman foundation remains will be covered again in the preparatory work for the replacement of the bridge over the highway,” the release added.
Interestingly, this is likely not the first time that archaeologists have excavated the building.
The canton noted that “as early as the 1860s, an old structure made of pebble and granite stones was excavated at this location.”
“[Archaeologists discovered] brick fragments, parts of a silver bowl, and later finds from Roman and late Celtic times,” the Facebook post added.
“However, the exact location of the ‘old structure’ remained unknown. Until now.”
The recent discovery is the latest addition to a long list of ancient finds made in Europe so far this year.
In Greece, archaeologists recently excavated an ancient workshop that revealed several unfinished projects.
This spring, volunteers in the United Kingdom unearthed an ancient depiction of a Roman goddess while digging near Hadrian’s Wall.
