The underground city between design and survey: the greek hollow of Poggioreale

Naples has an infinite hypogeum and steeped in history, a city under the city where the events followed have left their indelible imprint from five millennia ago. In the complex of tunnels and cavities excavated in the tuff and placed in the subsoil of the city are many especially the environments and the classic architectures, of greek and roman time: they began as a tuff resource to allow the greeks walls and the temples of the city of Neapolis that was gradually spreading and, at the same time, many areas were dug to create a series of hypogea. The survey of the greek hollow, in Poggioreale area, adds an important wedge to the mosaic outlined so far the Naples’ subsoil with the more ambitious goal of designing a total plan underground city; also the space survey has shown that the tuff was mined continuously according to an innovative technique, by inserting wooden poles inside natural crevices, so blocks of tuff were extracted more easily without damaging the structure of the quarry. After that the boulders were branded and on the walls of the greek hollow in Poggioreale you can see graffiti and symbols dating back to the IV century BC representatives probably, according to the archaeologists, the precise membership quarry.