ഗൂഗിൾ എർത്തിലൂടെ കണ്ടെത്തിയ പുരാതന റോമൻ വില്ല: ചരിത്രത്തിന്റെ മറനീക്കി ഒരു അത്ഭുത കണ്ടെത്തൽ

The Kent Archaeological Society runs the ongoing Trosley Heritage Project, which Current Archaeology describes as a larger landscape project studying how Trosley has been inhabited over time. Part of this work is done at the desk, with members searching publicly available satellite imagery of the fields for signs of buried features. Because crops can grow differently above buried walls and ditches, creating crop marks visible in satellite imagery even when they are not apparent at ground level, volunteers noticed a distinctive pattern in farmland near the village. Kent's Historic Environment Record provides the relevant heritage record. The Society later held a community excavation of the site, with residents working alongside the Society's more experienced excavators and the dig also hosted school visits. The dig uncovered partial foundations of what may have been a high-status Roman villa, along with painted wall plaster and remains of the villa's hypocaust system.

Crop marks in Google Earth images from 2007 and earlier finds of Roman building materialThe Kent Historic Environment Record entry titled Possible Romano-British building, Trottiscliffe describes a faint cropmark visible in Google Earth images from 2007 and in aerial photographs from 2008.

It is described on record as two squares connected by a rectangle, around 28 metres in length but no wider than 14 metres. The same record notes that roof tiles, box flue tiles, fragments of painted plaster and coins dating from the 3rd and 4th centuries were found in a field north of Trottiscliffe and that fieldwalking there turned up Roman roofing tile and pottery together with mortared rubble suggesting a buried Roman masonry structure, perhaps a villa.

The Society's own report, Roman villa with bathhouse and hypocaust system revealed near Trosley, written by Jacob Scott, appeared in issue 119 (Winter 2022) of the Kent Archaeological Society magazine. It describes how crop markings were spotted on Google Earth after a particularly dry period, which led to fieldwalking and test pits in the year before the excavation. The cropmark projections created by Chris Blair-Myers were used for trench placement. Current Archaeology, as reported by The Past, says the Society first found the site in 2010 during a survey of Google Earth images, while the 2007 date given by the record and the Society refers to the date of the images that showed the cropmarks.The September 2022 community excavation and what trench 1 revealedIn excess of 50 volunteers assisted with the September 2022 excavation directed by site director Richard Taylor, according to The Past in its write-up of issue 394 of Current Archaeology. Trench 1, which was dug on the main building, revealed foundations of the villa made of local ragstone and flint. Third and fourth-century ceramics found at the site include local coarse wares, Oxfordshire wares and some Samian wares alongside several coins dating back to the 4th century.The Kent Archaeological Society magazine report also mentions a quantity of multicoloured painted wall plaster from Trench 1, which likely adorned the villa's interior walls. Archaeology magazine lists a fourth-century copper-alloy strap-end shaped like an amphora, a small Romano-British key and two fourth-century coins. For many volunteers, it was a first excavation, Taylor told Artnet News and he pointed out that most archaeology in Kent is developer-led, which makes openings for volunteers uncommon. The same report says the Society first identified the villa complex from Google Earth images and that volunteers later helped excavate trenches over the main building and what is believed to be a bathhouse.A pilae stack at least 11 tiles high and a rare surviving hypocaustOther trenches discovered the foundations of a bathhouse and a pilae stack, which is an upright stack of tiles that supported the floor above the heating room. The Past describes how it had risen to at least 11 tiles, but the bottom tile remains to be excavated. At some time, possibly during the 4th century, the bath house seems to have been filled up and converted into another structure. The metalled surface of compacted flints was discovered west of the bath house structure. Taylor said in a statement, reported by Artnet News, that among the hundreds of villas across Kent, a surviving hypocaust is rare. Archaeology magazine includes his assertion that running the hypocaust was costly because it needed an uninterrupted supply of wood fuel and a labor force to run it.Farming wealth and the September 2023 return to Trosley CourtTaylor told Artnet News that the occupants probably farmed the surrounding land and sold their crops in London, Canterbury or Gaul. The Society's magazine report said it planned to return in September 2023 to investigate the bathhouse further and the Society's own later page on the site states that its 2023 excavations at Trosley Court revealed a Romano-British bathhouse.