The gladiator school of Carnuntum
Discovered by archaeological prospection
AThe gladiatorial school of Carnuntum can only be compared with the gladiatorial school, the LUDUS MAGNUS, behind the Colosseum in Rome. Due to its completeness and large dimension, this sensational archaeological finding is currently unique worldwide.
Outside the civilian town of Carnuntum is the amphitheater built in the first half of the second century, which accommodated up to 13,000 spectators and was excavated between 1923 and 1930. According to contemporary inscriptions, it was the fourth largest amphitheater of the entire Roman Empire and the site of numerous gladiatorial games. Despite the excavations, the area to the west of the theater, where the gladiator school was discovered, found little attention before. The aerial photographs show several buildings with inns and taverns along the east side of the Roman road leading from the ancient city to the arena. On the opposite side of the road there is no such building. The aerial photographs show a distinct anomaly to the west of the amphitheater; however, wall structures could only be made out from the air in the spring of 2011. After the first geophysical prospection of the site by ZAMG Archeo Prospections® showed interesting buildings in the late 1990s, a new high-resolution ground-radar system (MALÅ Imaging Radar Array - MIRA) was implemented to reveal a large, internationally unique gladiatorial school. From the more than 20 gigabytes of raw data, three-dimensional visualizations of archaeological structures hidden in the ground were compiled and archaeologically interpreted within a geographic information system in combination with all other existing data in collaboration with the RGZM Mainz. Based on these data, a virtual reconstruction of the structures, which are localized without destruction, was developed.
The Carnuntum LUDUS school of gladiators is located in a 11,000 m2 parcel surrounded by a wall and extending in the northwest-southeast direction. At its southern end, about 80 m away from the northern entrance of the amphitheater, is a completed building complex with an extent of 2,800 m2. The buildings are arranged around a large inner courtyard in which the georadar measurements have revealed a circular training arena with a diameter of 19 m. The detailed archaeological interpretation of the data shows the foundations of a wooden spectator stand. In the center of the training arena you can even see the foundation pit for a central post, the PALUS, on which gladiators were trained. The detailed radar images clearly show the foundations of a 100 m2 heated training hall and an extended bathing complex to the south-west. Through a covered access portal one reached the main entrance, to the left and right side of which the administrative area or the living area of the owner, LANISTA, of the gladiator school was housed. Two elongated tracts, arranged in an L-shape, accommodated the gladiators' average residential area of 5 m2. The necessary infrastructure, such as water pipes, underfloor heating and drainage channels, as well as access routes to the amphitheater, portals or the foundations of memorial stones, are clearly visible in the high-resolution radar data. Directly behind the gladiatorial school is its associated burial ground with individual large tombs, stone sarcophagi and various simpler burials.