That week in June when the construction crew hit the Roman sewer under Main Street

I work for the city planning office and we got a call on a Tuesday about a collapsed sewer line. What they pulled out of the dirt was a section of clay pipe stamped with a maker's mark from 120 AD. The contractors almost jackhammered through it before someone yelled stop. We had to shut down a whole block for 4 days while the archaeology team documented everything. Turns out it was part of a drainage system from a bathhouse they didn't even know existed. Has anyone else dealt with a construction crew finding something ancient right in the middle of a project?

3 comments

3 Comments

susan64917d agoMost Upvoted

Drove past that spot last week and saw the whole mess. My buddy on the crew said they almost wrecked the clay pipe with a backhoe. City had to reroute traffic for days over some old Roman poop pipes.

jamie77017d ago

Not really Roman though, those clay pipes were mostly laid by the Victorians. Same basic idea but about 1800 years apart, easy mixup.

robert_bell16d ago

Is it really that serious though? I mean, they hit an old pipe, it happens. A few days of detours is annoying but not the end of the world. My town had a water main burst last year and they had roads closed for two weeks straight. Compared to that, a little reroute over some Roman clay sounds like a pretty minor inconvenience. Seems like people just like to blow these things out of proportion.