Remarkable 2,200-year-old Roman puzzle piece discovered to reveal something the world anxiously awaits

Since the puzzle's discovery in 1562, 1,200 pieces have been unearthed

The world's largest puzzle was unearthed in 1562. It is a 2,200-year-old map of ancient Rome that was once erected against the Templum in Rome.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The ancient map measures 60-by-40-feet and depicts the city of Rome between 203 and 211 AD. The map was etched into marble fragments and erected against the Templum in Rome, which today has its bricks showing through cracked plaster.

There have been 1,200 pieces of the map, composed of 150 marble slabs, uncovered since 1562, with the most recent found in 2014 during a construction project at the Palazzo Maffei Marescotti building, which is owned by the Vatican.

Discovery News reported the newest piece, reading "Circus Flaminius," enabled researchers to piece together three other sections of the large puzzle.

The Superintendency stated: "The fragment relates to plate 31 of the map, which is the present-day area of the Ghetto, one of the monumental areas of the ancient city, dominated by the Circus Flaminius, built in 220 BC to host the Plebeian games, and where a number of important public monuments stood."

According to Oxford University, Circus Flaminius was also a building built by C. Flaminius Nepos in 221 B.C.

It served as a prime location to host games and assemblies, but was also used as a market. At the end of the twelfth century, its ruins began to be gradually covered by modern buildings, with some remains left beneath the Palazzo Caetani in the Piazza Paganica.

In the Middle Ages, the arcades on the building's north side were turned into "dark shops," which gave that street the new name "Via delle Botteghe oscure."

What little remains of the circus can still be found in Rome today.

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