New tunnels found under Hadrian’s Tivoli villa

The History Blog

New tunnels found under Hadrian’s Tivoli villa

Amateur archeologists and speleologists from Roma Sotterranea, an organization dedicated to the exploration and documentation of Rome’s many subterranean layers, have discovered previously unknown tunnels underneath Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli. Archeologists have long known that there was an elaborate tunnel network under the palace complex, but the passageways which once bustled with the activities of slaves, merchants and ox carts had been filled with soil for years. This is the first time cavers were deployed in an attempt to explore these spaces. The spelunking experts rappelled into the tunnels through light shafts. They had to clear bucket after bucket of dirt out of passageways, many of which were so narrow they barely had the space for a grown human to squeeze through. After clearing some of the access tunnels, the team found a new passageway leading from a remote area of the villa known as the Academy to a major underground tunnel 2.5 miles long called the Grande Trapezio. The newly discovered tunnel is seven feet wide and a half mile long. It runs north-east and then turns south, ending in a roundabout about 766 yards long which may have been used to turn around ox carts. More here....