About 50 kilometres to the north of Rome lies a vast site which is encircled by an intact, ancient wall. The 2.4 kilometre-long wall is overgrown with weeds. The area confined by it measures 32 hectares and, apart from a church, an abbey and a farm, is mainly an agricultural field containing mainly corn and figs. In the south-west part of the site are fenced areas for grazing.

After the Romans had destroyed Falerii Veteres, the city of the rebelling Falisci tribe, in 241 BC, they built a new city from scratch, Falerii Novi. This fortified city was subsequently inhabited until the 7th century BC. Nowadays, neither the buildings nor the bucolic field suggest that this has been an archaeological site for the last two centuries, from its amateur days to today's state-of-the-art technology.