2023-06-27 13:27:33
History The best Time.news of the eruption of Vesuvius
the sea of Npoles (south) hides in its depths a archaeological treasure: the remains of the old Bathtwo millennia ago a holiday destination for the most powerful Romans but whose villas, baths and mosaics they ended up underwater by a slow and inexorable volcanic phenomenon. Until our days.
The history of Baia is reminiscent of the Atlantean mytha beautiful and lavish city engulfed by the sea, but in this case the remains of its past glory they are well visible five meters below the waves that bathe Pozzuoli, although for this you have to dress as a diver.
“These structures need constant attention. We talked about the largest submerged site in the world in a delicate context“due to the sea and volcanic activity,” the director of the Campos Flgreos Park, Fabio Pagano, told EFE.
AT “DOLCE VITA” BATHROOM
At the end of the Republican era of Romain the 1st century BC, Baia or Bayas was one of the vacation enclaves favorites of the patricians, erected on the crater of a terrain of intense volcanic activity that the Greeks baptized as “flgreo” (fiery).
Mosaic archaeological remains in the ancient Roman city of Baia GONZALO SNCHEZEFE
The place, facing the fearsome Vesuvius volcano that devastated Pompeii in AD 79, attracted aristocrats for its “two souls”: Baia was watered by precious thermal waters and a benevolent climatewhile Pozzuoli was one of the most prosperous ports of the “Mare Nostrum”.
‘It was the land of the’Sweet life‘ “, resume Pagano.
There was no illustrious person in that “caput mundi” Rome without a palacio in this place, since julius caesara Cicern, Nern or the emperor-philosopher Adrianowho precisely died in this city.
WHEN THE EARTH SINKED
However, in the middle of the 4th century AD, the inhabitants of those mansions “on the first line of the beach” began to notice that, for some reason, the ground sank and the sea advanced.
Baia actually suffered from the “bradyism“, a phenomenon typical of volcanic areas that makes the height of the ground varies depending on the magma that accumulates in its depths, as if the earth swelled and contracted in an ancient breath.
this inexorable sinking it forced the patricians to abandon their properties which, by the time “bradysism” stopped, around the year 650 AD, were already lying at the bottom of the sea.
The area, about five hundred meters from the coastis currently protected to prevent the transit of ships and can only be accessed with a few companies authorized to practice scuba diving among the ruins, such as SuBaia, which accompanies EFE on this tour.
A WALK UNDER THE SEA
Now underwater, the first building to appear among the algae is an old village who immediately demonstrates his splendor with a long mosaic almost intact and decorated with fish, curiously the same ones that now swarm over it.
The place still preserves part of its wallscolonized by corals, as well as mrmol floorscolumns and the remains of the pipelines of what one day were hot springs.
The sand covers most of the mosaicsbecause only in this way can they be protected from bacteria, but a few strokes later another huge one appears among the earth, like a carpet of black and white tiles and circular shapes at the bottom of the sea.
The only mosaic that represents human figures It was discovered a few years ago and embellished a thermal complex: on its pavement, two men fight eternally, now under the waves.
This journey through time also has a stop at the nymphaeum of Claudiusfull of statues, and in the villa of one of the most influential families, the Pisons. Although many other pieces are guarded in museums such as the Aragons Castle that crowns the bay.
THE VOLCANO THAT DOES NOT STOP
The Baia Submerged Park, which began to be discovered in 1969 by the discovery of two sculpturesis an exceptional deposit that, due to its situation, requires the constant control of telluric movements that continue to brew in its subsoil.
Suffice it to think that the Phlagean Fields are made up of 24 volcanoesmany submarines and extremely assets.
But, paradoxically, the phenomenon that flooded Baia could, one day, make her resurface is in ascending phase. “The earth is rising, in less than ten years it grew one meter,” says Pagano.
Meanwhile, Baia, “the city more pleasant and splendid of the world” in the words of Horacioto continue surprising those who plunge into its past, always at the mercy of the whims of the “burning” land that saw it born and that decreed its end.
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