'Significant' early Christian church emerges beneath former fish market in ancient city
Archaeologists in Italy recently unearthed the remains of a city's earliest known Christian church — all near the site of a former fish market.
The discovery was announced in a June press release by the Archaeological Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the Metropolitan Area of Venice and the Provinces of Belluno, Padua and Treviso.
Pictures shared with Fox News Digital show the remains of the ancient church, including intricate polychrome mosaic floors and human burials alongside its foundation walls. The remains are located in Oderzo, some 40 miles northeast of Venice, in the area of a former pescheria, or fish market.
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The church dates to between the fourth and fifth centuries A.D., during the Late Roman period. Oderzo was known as Opitergium at the time.
Excavation at the site began last November as part of preparations for a residential redevelopment project in the city's historic center.
Archaeologists determined the 1,600-year-old building was a large rectangular church measuring about 75 feet wide and at least 98 feet long, with a central aisle and two side aisles.
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"The foundations, up to 1.2 meters (4 feet) thick and built from brick bonded with mortar, rest on wooden piles driven into the alluvial soil—a construction technique widely used in antiquity to improve stability," officials said in a statement translated from Italian.
The church's eastern end has not yet been excavated — suggesting the complex may be even larger than currently known.
At the site, archaeologists also uncovered four burials containing the remains of seven individuals.
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"Anthropologists are currently studying the remains of the seven individuals, and future specialized analyses are expected to provide additional information about both the cemetery and those buried there," officials said.
Researchers have not yet determined when the church fell out of use, though evidence suggests it was abandoned and later stripped of building materials before being destroyed during the Middle Ages.
Archaeologists believe the discovery represents the earliest known Christian place of worship in ancient Oderzo, as the church dates to a period when Christianity was becoming the dominant religion of the Roman Empire.
Officials described the discovery as "exceptionally significant."
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The discovery "[opens] a new chapter in the history of ancient Opitergium during the Late Roman and Early Medieval periods," the statement said.
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Italy's rich history has produced a string of archaeological discoveries in recent months.
This summer, archaeologists uncovered a hidden chamber beneath Hadrian's Villa in Tivoli, Italy, that they believe could be the oldest surviving structure at the imperial estate once owned by the Roman emperor.
Earlier this spring, construction crews building a highway in northern Italy uncovered the remains of an ancient sanctuary near Ponso.