Today I learned +

[Autumnal]

The oldest known wild bird in the world. You go, ma’am.

Wisdom, who is at least 74-years-old, returns to Midway Atoll Refuge and lays an egg on November 26, 2024!

The oldest known banded wild bird, a Mōlī or Laysan albatross known as Wisdom has once again mystified biologists. Being able to reproduce and develop an egg, much less survive at sea and rear at l…

friendsofmidway.org

 

[trappedslider]

Rome’s Metro C line has been under construction since the 1980s—and it’s still not done. Not because of engineering errors or budget collapse, but because every time they dig… they uncover history.
So far, the project has unearthed a 2nd-century Roman military complex, an amphitheater no one knew existed, and even the Athenaeum of Emperor Hadrian—a lost hall of learning used for philosophical debates nearly 2,000 years ago.
Construction halts every time something ancient turns up, which in Rome, is almost guaranteed. The city is built on 3,000 years of history layered beneath its streets—a problem (and blessing) unique to Rome.
Unlike most cities, every subway tunnel must be watched by archaeologists, with entire station plans rewritten mid-build to preserve cultural heritage.
Metro C remains only partially open. Digging continues—slow, expensive, and filled with the ghosts of emperors, philosophers, and gladiators.
Only in Rome can a subway project double as an archaeological dig site.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I bet they'd have some similar problems in London.

 

[Dioltach]

Rome’s Metro C line has been under construction since the 1980s—and it’s still not done. Not because of engineering errors or budget collapse, but because every time they dig… they uncover history.
So far, the project has unearthed a 2nd-century Roman military complex, an amphitheater no one knew existed, and even the Athenaeum of Emperor Hadrian—a lost hall of learning used for philosophical debates nearly 2,000 years ago.
Construction halts every time something ancient turns up, which in Rome, is almost guaranteed. The city is built on 3,000 years of history layered beneath its streets—a problem (and blessing) unique to Rome.
Unlike most cities, every subway tunnel must be watched by archaeologists, with entire station plans rewritten mid-build to preserve cultural heritage.
Metro C remains only partially open. Digging continues—slow, expensive, and filled with the ghosts of emperors, philosophers, and gladiators.
Only in Rome can a subway project double as an archaeological dig site.

Rome's not unique. Have you ever been to Athens?

But even where I live, in the Netherlands, it became law perhaps 25 years ago that every civil project has to be overseen by an archaeologist. Just laying new pipes for a heating grid or the sewers will uncover finds from hundreds of years ago. Anybody who studies archaeology is pretty much guaranteed a job nowadays.

Last year, in my town of Leiden, work on repaving a busy street was delayed by weeks because they found the remains of a town gate that nobody knew was there. They had to completely reorient the old maps of the town.

 

[aiouh]

Coming close to dying a final death because the DM doesn't fudge their rolls is hella fun.