In the late 560s, a Germanic group known as the Lombards was wreaking havoc through northern Italy.
To escape the invaders, boatloads of people fled into the Venetian Lagoon — a morass of swampy mud flats and scattered islands.
Formed over centuries by the outflow of silt from the Po and Piave Rivers and the counterforce of Adriatic currents, this marshy maze was constantly shifting and disappearing.
These qualities made it both the perfect spot to hide and a very unstable place to live.
So the new arrivals set out to tame the lagoon and build the most unlikely of cities from the mud.
While some fishermen already inhabited the region in stilted huts, the settlers wanted to build a foundation to support heavier, longer-lasting structures.
Little did they know their work would support Venice to this very day.
They drove clusters of one to three meter-long wooden piles into the ground in a process that squeezed out groundwater and compacted mud around the piles.
This created an oxygen-free environment that protected the wood from insects and fungi.
The piles were still vulnerable to minor bacterial damage, but otherwise impervious to rot.
