Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hi brain Stuff.
Speaker 1: Lauren vog Obam here with a classic episode from our
Speaker 1: former host, Christian Sagar. So this one is about the
Speaker 1: ruins of a lost Roman city off the coast of
Speaker 1: northern Africa and evidence about what led to its loss.
Speaker 1: A plus a more fishy finding. Hey, brain Stuff Christian
Speaker 1: Sagar here. Archaeologists recently discovered more than fifty acres or
Speaker 1: twenty hectares of Roman ruins off the coast of northeastern Tunisia.
Speaker 1: That's a small country on the northern tip of Africa
Speaker 1: and situated on the Mediterranean Sea. The discovery has researchers
Speaker 1: believing they may have finally found some convincing evidence that
Speaker 1: the city of Neopolis, not to be confused with the
Speaker 1: Italian city of the same name, that Neopolis was wiped
Speaker 1: out by a natural disaster about a thousand, six hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty years ago. In addition to streets and monuments,
Speaker 1: researchers found about one hundred tanks that would have been
Speaker 1: used to produce a garam that's a fish based fermented
Speaker 1: condiment commonly consumed in ancient Rome. In an email, how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works, spoke to Carlos F. Nor Aenia, Associate Professor
Speaker 1: of History at the University of California, Berkeley. He says
Speaker 1: that the discovery is important because it lends support to
Speaker 1: the theory that Tunisia Neopolis was submerged by a tsunami
Speaker 1: in the fourth century. A d that's a useful reminder
Speaker 1: that environmental catastrophe is not only a phenomenon of the
Speaker 1: modern world. Scientists wrote in a study in the journal
Speaker 1: Nature that a tsunami was caused by an earthquake that
Speaker 1: occurred in three sixty CE in Crete. There's no surefire
Speaker 1: way to know the extent of the quake, since measuring
Speaker 1: tools didn't exist at the time, but scientists believe two
Speaker 1: separate tremors happened in succession, and the larger one had
Speaker 1: a magnitude of eight point o on the Richter scale.
Speaker 1: The resulting tsunami destroyed about fifty thousand homes and killed
Speaker 1: approximately five thousand people in the city of Alexandria, Egypt,
Speaker 1: and because the geological fault at the center of the
Speaker 1: earthquake was located off the coast of Crete, that Greek
Speaker 1: island was actually lifted up in certain areas by as
Speaker 1: much as thirty three feet or ten meters. Historian Omnianus
Speaker 1: Marcellinius recorded the event, and the newly found ruins reveal
Speaker 1: that there's much more to the story. Nurena says. The
Speaker 1: discovery also illuminates the economy of Roman North Africa and
Speaker 1: provides further evidence for the popularity of garum in the
Speaker 1: Roman diet. The detail is significant. Garam was a big
Speaker 1: deal throughout the Roman Empire, and as Italian archaeologist Claudio
Speaker 1: Giardino has told NPR, it played a major role in
Speaker 1: the society's economy. He says that according to the Roman writers,
Speaker 1: a good bottle of geram could cost something like five
Speaker 1: hundred dollars today, but that they also had garam for
Speaker 1: slaves that was extremely cheap, so it is comparable to
Speaker 1: a modern amenity like wine, for instance. The underwater findings
Speaker 1: of Neopolis and its abundant manufacturing materials indicate that the
Speaker 1: city was a major historical hub. Neopolis, which means new
Speaker 1: city in Greek, was originally founded in the fifth century
Speaker 1: b c e. And various warring territories claimed ownership of
Speaker 1: it throughout its history. Experts believe that because the city
Speaker 1: failed to pledge allegiance to the Romans. There are very
Speaker 1: few written records documenting the details of life there. That
Speaker 1: means the new discovery is that much more important to
Speaker 1: understanding the full history of the era y. Today's episode
Speaker 1: was written by Michelle Knstantinovski and produced by Tristan McNeil
Speaker 1: and Tyler Klang. For more on this and lots of
Speaker 1: other curious topics, visit how stuff works dot com. Brain
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