Cold War spy satellites reveal hundreds of undiscovered Roman forts
Researchers used images from the first spy satellite program to assess the accuracy of the world's first-ever aerial archaeology survey.
Scientists analyzing declassified images taken by Cold War-era spy satellites have revealed the locations of a whopping 396 previously undiscovered Roman forts in Iraq and Syria.
Thought to have been built during the second and third century AD, these installations stood at what was then the eastern frontier of the Roman empire.
Forts in this area were actually first discovered by one of the first aerial archaeology surveys ever — conducted in the 1920s by one Father Antoine Poidebard, a French Jesuit priest who had piloted a biplane during World War 1.
Poidebard recorded a linear set of 116 forts, which he proposed formed a north–south defensive line to protect the empire’s eastern provinces from Arab and Persian incursions
Instead, however, the new study has revealed hundreds more forts spread east-to-west across the region, suggesting they were designed less for defense and more for facilitating trade and communication with neighboring regions.
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The study was undertaken by archaeologist Professor Jesse Casana and his colleagues at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, in the US.
Casana said: “Since the 1930s, historians and archaeologists have debated the strategic or political purpose of this system of fortifications.
“But few scholars have questioned Poidebard’s basic observation that there was a line of forts defining the eastern Roman frontier.”
To assess the accuracy of the priest’s survey, the team took advantage of spy satellite imagery of the Syrian Steppe taken during the 1960s and 1970s.
The researchers said: “These images formed part of the world’s first spy satellite programmes.
“[They] preserve a high-resolution, stereo perspective on a landscape that has been severely impacted by modern-day land-use changes.”
The team began by looking for the 116 forts recorded by Poidebard — some of which have not survived the last century.
Casana explained: “We were only able to confidently identify extant archaeological remains at 38 of Poidebard’s 116 forts.
“In addition, many of the likely Roman forts we have documented in this study have already been destroyed by recent urban or agricultural development, and countless others are under extreme threat.”
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By using the forts found by Poidebard as references, the team were then able to identify 396 more.
These were distributed across the survey region from east to west — a fact which counters the original argument that the forts represented a north–south defensive border.
Instead, the researchers now propose that the forts may have been constructed to support interregional trade, helping to protect and support caravans traveling between the eastern provinces and the non-Roman territories beyond.
If this is correct, it would suggest that the borders of the Roman World were less rigidly defined and exclusionist than previously believed — with the eastern frontier likely not a place of constant violent conflict.
Instead, while the Romans were undeniably a military society, they clearly valued trade, communication and cultural exchange with regions not under their direct control.
Given the evidence of the loss of ancient sites to development revealed by their investigation, the study highlights the value of satellite imagery for recording archaeological features before they are lost to history.
As more declassified surveillance recordings become available — such as, for example, US reconnaissance images taken by Lockheed U-2 spy planes — new archaeological discoveries will be able to be made, the researchers said.
Casana concluded: “Careful analysis of these powerful data holds enormous potential for future discoveries in the Near East and beyond.”
The full findings of the study were published in the journal Antiquity.