The construction of Rome’s subway is unearthing all kinds of archaeological treasures
Rome is building a new subway line, and archaeologists are finding all kinds of hidden treasures underground where the subway tunnels are being built. They’re finding everything from pottery to glass to entire buildings—including what they think is Rome’s first-ever university.
Hi everyone, happy Thursday, this is Jeff, back with another episode of Plain English. Today is episode number 71 and that means you can find the full transcript of this episode at PlainEnglish.com/71. Every episode has one main topic and one English expression—but today you get two expressions for the price of one. You’ll learn what we mean when we say “Rome wasn’t built in a day” and then at the end of the episode, I’ll show you how to use the word “twist” when you’re talking about something unexpected.
Are you ready to get started?
Unearthing treasures beneath modern Rome
There’s an expression in English: Rome wasn’t built in a day. Rome wasn’t built in a day. And it means that some big, important things take time—you can’t rush them. If you’re ever frustrated that becoming fluent in a new language takes a lot of work, just remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day. And the addition to Rome’s subway system is also not being built in a day—it’s taking more like a decade. That’s partially because they keep finding ancient ruins where the new subway tunnels are going.
Rome has been working on adding a third line to its subway system for years. A team of certified archaeologists is down underground alongside the construction crews, searching for hidden artifacts and treasures.
The construction of the subway is the opportunity of a lifetime for archaeologists, who usually never get to dig as deep as they are now with the new subway. When there’s new construction of buildings, for example, archaeologists tend to dig down about 20 or 25 feet from the surface—still deep, but not nearly as deep as they are now. The subway tunnels are about 100 feet underground. And they traverse a wide area of the city, going from the suburbs into the center of the city. And what they’re finding is giving a unique view into the history of Rome—a city with one of the richest stories to tell from human history.
And they are finding a lot of artifacts from thousands of years of human history buried underneath Rome. The team found an entire house that they believe belonged to a military commander in the second century AD. It’s a full house, with 14 rooms, a fountain, and a lot of the decorations intact, including decorated tile floors. The house was filled with dirt and was 40 feet underground, so experts believe it was intentionally buried sometime in the third century AD. The house is being removed from where it sat underground in order to be preserved and prepared to go back on display. Two years ago, archaeologists found a full military barracks near what will become the Amba Aradam station. It had a long corridor and 39 rooms that experts think were soldiers’ dormitories.
They also found what they believe to be Rome’s first university—a two-story building called the Auditoria was found underneath the Piazza Venizia, what is today a busy street crossing. Romans are famous for their engineering and big public works from long ago, and the archaeology team also discovered sections of one of the earliest aqueducts from the fourth century.
It’s not just big things that the team is finding. One archaeologist has said he found glasswork, gold rings, plates, and ancient pottery—even a water fountain. They found an old water fountain. The oldest item was a tile with a stamp suggesting that it was made in the year 123 AD. Wow—that’s old.
Every time they find something new, they document it, catalog it, excavate it, and preserve it. They are rapidly filling a warehouse in one of Rome’s suburbs just with all the artifacts they’ve found as part of this project. But in a nice twist, the people of Rome will be able to enjoy this history as they take the subway. Some of the restored artifacts are already on display in the San Giovanni station, which opened in May. Other stations are also expected to display some of the archaeological findings when they open in the future. The military commander’s house will be the centerpiece of the Amba Aradam station when it opens in 2022.
It wasn’t always like this. When Rome built its first two subway lines, there was almost no documentation of what might have been buried underground—it was all just destroyed or discarded as part of the construction.
Rome has famously bad traffic and badly needed new public transportation options, especially for some newly-populated suburbs. 21 out of the 24 stations are currently operational.
It’s hard to believe that there was a whole building, almost two thousand years old, buried underneath a modern city like Rome, right? Some of the stuff they’re finding is just amazing.
I’d like to say hi to a couple of listeners this week. First of all, Author from China. She left a nice review on Facebook saying that she usually listens twice—first she listens without reading, then she reads the transcript, and then when she listens again she gets almost all the words. I think that’s a great way to practice, and congratulations on making so much progress in English. I also want to say hi to Yoni from Jerusalem, who wrote to say hi. We don’t have a lot of listeners from Israel, so spread the word over there Yoni—and thanks for being part of Plain English.
Leaving a Facebook review is a huge help for us because it helps new people discover the program. If that’s something you’d like to do, you can find us on Facebook with the user name PlainEnglishPod.
Now before we go too much farther, I need to give a mea culpa. An apology basically. On Monday’s episode, I was talking about Andrea from Italy and I kept referring to Andrea as “she” and “her,” but what I didn’t know is that Andrea is actually a man’s name in Italy. And that is my fault and Andrea, I am so sorry for making that mistake.
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