Underground Drainageways in Southern Etruria and Northern Latium

Abstract

The River Tiber at Rome flows between the gentle, converging slopes of two extinct volcanoes, the M. Sabatini to the northwest and the complex known as the Alban Hills to the southeast. On the southern flanks of the M. Sabatini lie the Etruscan cities of Veii and Caere (modern Cerveteri) as well as many smaller Etruscan settlements. To the south on the western and southern slopes of the Alban Hills are such ancient towns of northern Latium as Ardea, Lanuvio and Velletri. In these same areas is an extensive development of underground passageways locally known as cuniculi, structures which are the subject of this report.The cuniculus was widely used for a variety of purposes during classical and pre-classical antiquity in central Italy. Livy reports on cuniculi driven as military devices to gain access to besieged cities. The traditional account of the lowering of the Alban Lake, as reported by Livy, dates from the early 4th century B.C. Excavations in urban centres have demonstrated that the Etruscans and later the Romans used cuniculi for drainage purposes, and also as lateral collectors of underground water in wells.This report deals with extensive systems of cuniculi found in the Roman Campagna but not directly related to urban or domestic development.

Archaeology and the Etruscan countryside

“…There is a unique example of substantial rock-cut houses at Luni in the Mignone valley (Ostenberg 1967), but whilst the acropolis formed by the natural outcrop at the site measures 5 ha, the Apennine Bronze Age settlement was restricted to the area of the houses, an area very similar to the other settlements. This dispersed settlement system may in part have been a response to the trend to aridity that is fairly well documented for the later 2nd millennium BC in the Etrurian pollen diagrams (Bonatti 1961;1963;1970;Frank 1969;Hunt 1988). Underwater archaeology has shown that at this time, too, the volcanic lakes of South Etruria were ringed with small Apennine Bronze Age settlements (Fugazzola Delpino 1982).…”

Patterns of Etruscan Urbanism

“…The landscape was not opened up as much as in the Roman period, but pollen studies show that, at least at a local level, the vegetation was manipulated not only to provide cereal and tree crops, but also grazing for sheep, cattle, and pigs (Stoddart et al, 2019). In the area around the city of Veio, watercourses were manipulated to ensure the provision of sufficient water for crops, and many cities show the construction of wells and drainage systems to maintain a high living standard (Judson and Kahane, 1963). Some cities such as Veio in the south and probably Chiusi in the north specialized in agricultural production.…”

Sustainability of Underground Hydro-Technologies: From Ancient to Modern Times and toward the Future

“…Underground engineering was crucial for the protection of the water system from both pollution and enemy incursions in Rome as well as in other Italian and European sites [41,42]. In particular, they developed qanat-type technologies in the construction of utility tunnels for the water supply of urban sewage systems [43], like the grandiose urban sewerage system of the sewers of Rome, with ducts characterized of a large cross-section and still in operation, and several lesser but similar implementations found in present in Luxembourg, Croatia, Portugal, Germany, Italy, Greece and Spain [1,6,[44][45][46][47][48][49].…”

“…Its construction started in 1743 and was accomplished between 1743 and 1778, result of the reconstruction of a preexisting viaduct of which the existence was first documented by historical sources in 1686 but postulated dating back to the Roman period [74,75]. Over 3500 m long, it is one of the best preserved underground man-made structures for collection and transport of water resources in southern Italy, draining the waters issuing at the contact between Plio-Pleistocene calcarenites and the overlying clays, with clear differences in permeability [45]. A number of inspection wells go down to a system of underground galleries developing at different heights.…”