Domestic del Chirurgo in Rimini, Italy

Per Atlas Obscura, the Domus del Chirurgo — the Surgeon's House — is an archaeological park in Rimini, Italy covering more than seven hundred square meters and spanning two thousand years of the city's history. The site takes its name from its most famous resident, a surgeon identified by more than one hundred fifty surgical instruments and a taberna medica, or doctor's surgery, discovered there. When the house burned in the middle of the third century, probably during barbarian invasions, that fire inadvertently preserved a vivid snapshot of Roman life: mosaics, frescoes, and furnishings that illuminate how people lived in ancient Rimini. The story didn't end with the flames, though. A palatial residence was rebuilt atop the ruins in the fifth century, and further structures rose and fell through the seventh century and early Middle Ages, each one adding a new layer to this site's enduring narrative.

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