Swiss archaeologists have stumbled upon the remnants of a stone wall built by the Roman Empire some 2,000 years ago, the largest such find in nearly a century.
The wall was found near Cham, a municipality of Zug canton in central Switzerland. At the time it was built, the area was on the Roman Empire’s northern frontier, separating it from Germania.
Switzerland’s Office for the Preservation of Monuments and Archaeology has called the find “sensational” and “extraordinary,” the first of its kind in the area in nearly 100 years, according to the archaeologists.
"At the moment, we're wondering what this complex of buildings was used for," Kathrin Rüedi, from the Historical Monuments and Archaeology Service, said in a state news release, adding it could have been either a villa, an inn, or a temple.
The discovery includes a perimeter wall surrounding an area of at least 5,300 square feet (500 square meters) that would have surrounded a group of buildings. Inside they have found fragments of a plaster wall, iron nails, gold fragments that may have once been jewelry, and a host of everyday items such as glassware, pots, amphoras and millstones.
While other Roman artifacts and structures have also been found across Switzerland, they are not the oldest in the region. Items judged to be from a Celtic culture have also been discovered, as the tribes held sway across much of Central and Western Europe before the Roman conquests or the arrival of German migratory tribes from the north and east. At the peak of their power, an alliance of Celtic tribes sacked Rome under the Senones chieftain Brennus in 390 BCE.