“A hunter in the arena wouldn’t know where the next lion would appear, or whether two or three lions might emerge instead of just one.” “The hypogeum allowed the organizers of the games to create surprises and build suspense,” Heinz-Jürgen Beste, a researcher at the German Archaeological Institute in Rome, told Smithsonian in 2011. Engineers even devised an underground elevator of sorts that lifted lions, bears, leopards and other caged wild animals into the arena. The structure consisted of staging areas, ramps, pulleys, ropes and other mechanisms that allowed workers to create a seamless show aboveground. Italian officials say they hope to complete the project by 2023.ĭuring the four centuries that the Romans used the Colosseum, the hypogeum, or network of underground tunnels beneath the arena floor, resembled a “huge sailing ship,” wrote Tom Mueller for Smithsonian magazine in 2011. Per BBC News, architectural designs for the ambitious renovation are due by February 1. “We want to give an idea of how it was, and we are seeking proposals from around the world,” Alfonsina Russo, director of the Colosseum, tells the Times’ Tom Kington. Now, the Italian government has pledged €10 million (around $12 million USD) toward the installation of a new, retractable floor that will restore the amphitheater to its gladiator-era glory. These underground structures have remained exposed to the elements for more than a century, enabling the millions of tourists who visit the Colosseum each year to see them up close, according to Reuters. These grisly gladiator clashes required great feats of engineering: To make caged creatures and prize fighters emerge from underground as if by magic, the Romans devised a labyrinth of secret tunnels beneath the arena’s wooden, sand-covered floor. In ancient Rome, tens of thousands gathered at the Colosseum to watch enslaved men, condemned criminals and wild animals fight to the death.

What do italians call the colosseum