Here are some of the modern buildings built over ancient ruins that you can easily come across in your daily life.
Zara store built over an ancient Roman tomb in Athens
The Zara store in Athens, Greece is built over an ancient Roman tomb. The tomb, which dates back to the 1st or 2nd century AD, was discovered during the construction of the store in the early 2000s. Despite being a significant historical and cultural site, the tomb was not fully excavated and the store was built over it.
Supermarket built over a 1,000-year-old home of Hiberno-Norse Dubliners, who were ancestors of the Vikings
Embedded in the architecture of a new Lidl store in Dublin is a glass floor that allows shoppers to peer down into medieval history. During the supermarket’s construction, archaeologists discovered a 1,000-year-old home of Hiberno-Norse Dubliners, who were ancestors to the Vikings, in addition to a 13th-century wine jug and the below-stage trap of the former Aungier Street Theatre. Rather than excavate the items and build on top of the site, covering the ruins, the store installed glass flooring that provides shoppers with a literal window into local history.
A hotel built over the world’s largest 9,000-square-foot intact ancient mosaic in Antakya, Turkey
A 9,000-square-foot mosaic is opened to the public after its discovery nine years ago during the construction of a new hotel in Antakya, Turkey. Archaeologists believe the geometric work once decorated the floor of a public building one of the most important cities in the Seleucid Empire.
Remains of the old Roman city beneath street level in Verona, Italy
The lobby of an apt building has a glass floor that allows seeing the ancient ruins beneath in Italy
A McDonald’s restaurant built over an ancient Roman road that was discovered while excavating in Marino, Italy
A hotel built over the ruins of an ancient Roman amphitheater in Sofia, Bulgaria
The ruins of a Byzantine church, revealed during construction works, can be seen via a glass roof in Istanbul’s 17th-century historic library renovated by Tabanlioglu architects
A multi-faceted roofscape designed to evoke the inside of a cave from the prehistoric era, which roughly covers the period between 12,000 and 3,000 BC in the Miyahata Jōmon Museum, Japan
The New Acropolis Museum in Athens, Greece
