Roman gladiator school digitally rebuilt
Imaging tools revive an ancient city’s training facility with no excavation
By Bruce Bower
Without breaking ground, researchers have uncovered the largely complete remains of a nearly 1,900-year-old Roman school for gladiators in what’s now eastern Austria.
Advanced imaging techniques led to the discovery of a training center for these warrior-entertainers at Carnuntum, a Roman city excavated on and off since the late 19th century. The ancient facility lies beneath a field near the remains of an amphitheater that could have held about 13,000 spectators.
Archaeologist Wolfgang Neubauer of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology in Vienna and colleagues describe the discovery in the March Antiquity.