Surprise Find Under Soccer Field: Medieval Convent

Centuries of Danish history have been hiding under a modest soccer field. Archaeologists say a routine scan of a long-used playing field in Roskilde, Denmark, has revealed the remarkably intact footprint of a 13th-century convent long believed to have been lost from history, reports Smithsonian Magazine. Ground-penetrating radar picked up clear outlines of rooms, cloisters, pillars, and a church sitting about three feet below the surface—"among the clearest GPR results from a monastery complex in Scandinavia," says Arne Abel Stamnes of the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research in a release.

St. Clare's Convent, founded in 1256, was shut during the Protestant Reformation, its bricks sold off to help build a nearby castle. Unlike Roskilde's other medieval monastic sites, it never gained protected status, largely because experts assumed it was gone. Plans for an underground parking facility triggered the recent survey by Danish museum group ROMU and national researchers. The scans suggest a four-wing complex wrapped around a courtyard, with a tall church in the south wing. Archaeologists now hope to excavate and to learn more about the women who once lived—and were buried—there. Meanwhile, "it's safe to assume parking garage plans are currently on hold," per Popular Science.