Underground Rome. With a group of speleologists to discover the subsoil of the eternal city
Everyone knows the Rome of monuments, the imperial one and the great city of the Popes, but there are few who experience the underground of the Eternal City. This opportunity is offered by the Underground Rome Cultural Association – Speleology for Archeology – founded in 2000. A project that deals with urban study made up of archaeologists, geologists, architects, engineers and enthusiasts who collaborate daily with public institutions.
In addition to research, they offer unusual experiences such as guided tours of underground environments, places and historic districts of Rome. They support archaeologists in their investigations by exploring, carrying out topographic surveys and data collection.
Under the modern city there are several layers of the ancient urbe that grew over 3000 years of history, but only a very small slice of this great fortune could be excavated. The subsoil of Rome is varied, with hundreds of historical sites, which however are not connected to each other.
The discovery of the underground environment collides with objective difficulties such as the total absence of light, small rooms, difficulty in progression, but thanks to the guidance of experts it is possible to experience a different perspective of Rome.
Among the most interesting adventures in the program, the possibility of visiting a complex system of tunnels in quarries for the extraction of tuff that unexpectedly open under the Roman Temple of Claudius, with two crystalline lakes of very blue water, cones of debris and 16 hydraulic wells. The suggestive place is located in the Celio under the basilica of Saints John and Paul, built on the ruins of the Temple built in honor of the emperor, who encouraged numerous public works in Rome.
The Cultural Association, on behalf of the Special Superintendence for Archaeological Heritage of Rome, carried out the new mapping of these underground areas from 2004 to 2006, after the first approximate plan by the architect Rodolfo Lanciani at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Also scheduled is a visit to the Tullianum, underground in the heart of the Roman Forum connected to an ancient spring and used as a prison. According to Christian tradition, even St. Peter was imprisoned there before being executed and it was he who made the water with which he baptized his jailers gush out.
These are just some opportunities, sometimes almost unique, to enter places not normally open to the general public.
