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Declassified images from Cold War undercover agent satellite have let out hundred of previously undiscovered Romanic forts in Iraq and Syria — and their cosmos suggests the eastern border of the ancient imperium was n’t as violent as ab initio think , a fresh discipline finds .
Researchers already knew about a serial publication of fort — traverse close to 116,000 substantial miles ( 300,000 square km ) from the Tigris River in advanced - day Iraq to the knit stitch of the Euphrates River in Syria — that were once thought to belong to a N - south border bulwark that separated the Romans from the rival imperium of Persia .
Four roman forts captured in satellite photos by the U.S. military’s Corona project, which ran from 1960 to 1972.
But the dispersion , from east to west , of the newfound forts along with those previously know ones , hint that they were build to help passive swop and travel . The new survey , published Thursday ( Oct. 26 ) in the journalAntiquity , refutes a 1934 hypothesis by the Gallic archaeologist and Jesuit priest Antoine Poidebard that the easterly munition were build to repel invader .
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" Since the 1930s , historiographer and archeologist have consider the strategical or political use of this system of fortification , " lead cogitation authorJesse Casana , a prof of anthropology at Dartmouth College , said in a command . " But few bookman have questioned Poidebard ’s basic observation that there was a business line of forts delimitate the easterly Roman frontier . "
stretch across the deserts of Iraq and Syria , Poidebard discovered 116 of the second and third C A.D. fort after take ethereal photographs in the 1920s and 1930s . Looking at their placement from his biplane , which he learned to vanish during World War I , Poidebard hypothesized that the square - shape fastness created a N - Dixieland defensive logical argument that drove back foray from Parthians and later the Sassanid Persians .
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Until now , Poidecard ’s hypothesis was widely accepted by historiographer . But after analyse high - solution images of the region take by undercover agent satellites in the sixties and seventies , the researcher discovered 396 antecedently unnamed forts or fortress - like construction that were sprinkled widely from eastern United States to west .
This suggests the border was more smooth than first thought , with the frontier settlement existing not along the boundary line but through it — protect trade caravans as they ferried masses and good between Rome and the neighboring Parthian ( late Sassanid Persian ) Empire . The archaeologists say this grow an authoritative question about the mete : " Was it a wall or a road ? "
The research worker say their study highlights the grandness of declassified picture in archaeological research — especially as many of the forts revealed in the exposure have now been destroy by agricultural expansion and urbanisation . They expect more discovery to accompany the declassification of other aeriform images , such as those take by U2 undercover agent planes .
" deliberate analysis of these powerful data point holds enormous potential difference for next uncovering in the Near East and beyond , " Casana sound out .
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